Free summaries
British Literature — page 30
1,409 public-domain british literature books, summarised. Page 30 of 30.
Discourses on Satire and on Epic Poetry
John Dryden
A supreme English stylist unpacks the architecture of classic verse, testing ancient masters against modern rivals with sharp-eyed vigor and generous learning.
Fors Clavigera (Volume 1 of 8): Letters to the workmen and labourers of Great Britain
John Ruskin
An urgent, deeply personal challenge to Victorian industrial society, these public-domain letters call on working people to abandon destructive notions of mechanical progress and reclaim a life grounded in honest labor and clear moral truth.
The English and Scottish popular ballads, volume 3 (of 5)
Unknown
When an archer shoots an apple from his own child's head, he does not always act under the cruel coercion of a tyrant; in the English forest, he steps forward willingly, risking everything purely for the thrill of glory.
The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume 2
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Dark romantic ballads, socio-political indictments, and spiritual meditations converge in a powerful collection that examines human suffering, earthly devotion, and divine transcendence.
Clarissa Harlowe; or the history of a young lady
Samuel Richardson
Bound by a tyrannical family and pursued by a brilliant, ruthless libertine, a young woman fights to preserve her moral autonomy through an agonizing sequence of betrayal, captivity, and spiritual defiance.
On the Face of the Waters: A Tale of the Mutiny
Flora Annie Webster Steel
In the red shadow of the 1857 Indian Mutiny, standard human allegiances dissolve, forcing British occupants and Indian citizens to navigate a shared collapse of order and conscience.
Tell England: A Study in a Generation
Ernest Raymond
They set out from the shadow of their quiet public school with high hearts and untried ideals, only to find their youth tested and transformed in the dust and fury of Gallipoli.
The Claverings
Anthony Trollope
Money and devotion collide when an ambitious young Englishman finds himself torn between two women: the worldly lover who abandoned him for a title, and the gentle, constant girl who accepted him when he had nothing.
Impressions of America
Oscar Wilde
A tour through nineteenth-century America becomes a canvas for sharp wit, aesthetic philosophy, and vivid cultural observation.
Bibliographic Notes on One Hundred Books Famous in English Literature
Henry Watson Kent
A physical volume is never just a neutral container for words, but the dynamic record of human labor, mechanical craft, and legal conflict.
Put Yourself in His Place
Charles Reade
A gifted young inventor faces the deadly, violent wrath of Victorian trade unions when he dares to innovate and work on his own terms.
The Boy's King Arthur: Sir Thomas Malory's History of King Arthur and His Knights of the Round Table
Malory, Thomas, Sir
A practical royal heir draws a magical blade from an anvil, calling forth a golden age of chivalry that eventually fractures under the weight of human flaw.
The Doctor's Wife: A Novel
M. E. (Mary Elizabeth) Braddon
A romantic country girl marries a dull provincial doctor, only to find that real life yields none of the grandeur of her beloved novels.
Beauchamp's Career
George Meredith
A fiery young naval hero returns from the Crimean War to wage a reckless political campaign, tearing his aristocratic family apart while torn between three very different women.
The Age of Shakespeare
Algernon Charles Swinburne
A passionate, fiercely opinionated guide to the dramatists who shared Shakespeare's stage, written by a Victorian poet who reads Elizabethan plays as living fire.
The Comedy of Errors
William Shakespeare
Two long-separated twin masters and their identical twin servants collide in a single city, turning daily commerce, marriage, and law into a dizzying maze of mistaken identity.
The Secret Places of the Heart
H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
A stressed-out fuel commissioner and his Harley Street specialist embark on a motoring holiday across Southern England, searching for peace through philosophy, romance, and political reform.