Free summaries
British Literature — page 37
1,768 public-domain british literature books, summarised. Page 37 of 37.
A Fair Mystery: The Story of a Coquette
Charlotte M. Brame
A baby’s innocent bedtime prayer shatters a father facing ruin, setting off a chain of hidden origins and dangerous passions.
Helen with the High Hand (2nd ed.)
Arnold Bennett
A young woman returns to her native English pottery town and promptly takes charge of her crusty, misanthropic grand-uncle's household and heart.
King Henry IV, Part 1
William Shakespeare
A royal throne gained by usurpation trembles under the weight of open rebellion, while a reckless heir spends his days in tavern revelry alongside a charismatic thief before stepping up to claim his warlike destiny.
My Beautiful Lady. Nelly Dale
Thomas Woolner
An earnest, elevate-the-spirit Victorian verse narrative that turns devastating personal bereavement into a lifelong vow of civic duty and high artistic purpose.
The Jolliest School of All
Angela Brazil
A sunlit Italian coast and an international boarders’ hall set the stage for an energetic, joyful, and affectionate portrait of mid-Edwardian girlhood.
Cinderella
Henry W. Hewet
A grieving girl endures the cruelty of her new stepmother, finds unexpected magic through a compassionate old woman, and captures a prince's heart before a forgotten deadline strips away her illusion.
King Henry IV, Part 2
William Shakespeare
A dying king struggles to hold a fractured realm together while his rebellious heir lingers between the rowdy license of London’s taverns and the stern, unyielding duty of the English crown.
Press Cuttings
Bernard Shaw
Set in a panicked London war office, this satire pitilessly exposes the absurdities of statecraft, military bluster, and gender politics when suffragette agitation threatens to upend the establishment.
Salted with Fire
George MacDonald
A proud young theological student, consumed by intellectual vanity and social ambition, abandons the gentle woman he seduced, only to be broken and remade through public disgrace, harrowing guilt, and unexpected grace.
Six to Sixteen: A Story for Girls
Juliana Horatia Ewing
A quiet girl comes of age across colonial India and rural England, finding strength not in high drama, but in artistic curiosity, quiet observation, and deep friendship.
The Scouring of the White Horse
Thomas Hughes
A London clerk escapes to the Berkshire countryside, where ancient Saxon history and a raucous village festival collide to change his view of traditional English life.
The Vision of Sir Launfal: And Other Poems by James Russell Lowell
James Russell Lowell
A knight abandons his hollow quest for a relic to find the divine in the service of the poor, while a collection of verse explores the intersection of nature, memory, and the moral demands of citizenship.
1914, and Other Poems
Rupert Brooke
Youth, love, and national devotion collide with mortality in a collection that moves from quiet homesickness and tropical beauty to the heroic, tragic heights of wartime sacrifice.
A Schoolmaster's Diary: Being Extracts from the Journal of Patrick Traherne, M.A., Sometime Assistant Master at Radchester and Marlton
Patrick Traherne
A idealist schoolmaster records his daily battles against the dry rigidity of British boarding schools, tracking his evolution from an eager young teacher to a devoted husband and father.
Strange Stories
Grant Allen
Speculative science, uncanny ironies, and radical shifts of perspective converge in tales that stretch nineteenth-century reason to its absolute limits.
Tales of All Countries
Anthony Trollope
A collection of sharp, comic vignettes that transport Victorian travelers across the globe only to prove that no distance can outrun human narrow-mindedness and vanity.
The Poetical Works of Addison
John Gay
A collection of classical translations, courtly panegyrics, instructive fables, and sporting verse captures the changing literary appetites of eighteenth-century Britain.
The Politeness of Princes, and Other School Stories
P. G. (Pelham Grenville) Wodehouse
Schoolboy schemes, late-breakfast dodges, and pitch-level cricket battles collide in an early window onto P. G. Wodehouse's comedic genius.
The Queen Who Flew: A Fairy Tale
Ford Madox Ford
A young queen escapes the cage of her cold, political realm on magical wings, choosing the quiet warmth of a humble life over the weight of a crown.
The Red Year: A Story of the Indian Mutiny
Louis Tracy
Across the dust and fury of the Sepoy Mutiny, two lovers navigate a shattered empire of bloody sieges, daring disguises, and treacherous court intrigues.
The White Room
Fergus Hume
A corpse in a locked suburban house leads a web of lovers and suspects through hidden lives, false identities, and quiet suburban rot.
Under the Hill, and Other Essays in Prose and Verse
Aubrey Beardsley
A singular collection of literary and visual fragments, this volume illuminates the brief, incandescent career of an artist whose wit and aesthetic precision defined the decadent spirit of the late nineteenth century.
Deadham Hard: A Romance
Lucas Malet
In a sleepy English coastal village, a young woman discovers a secret about her father's past that dismantles her innocence and alters her future.
Dear Brutus
J. M. (James Matthew) Barrie
A moonlit garden on Midsummer Eve becomes the playground for a mysterious host who grants a group of discontented houseguests their deepest wish: a second chance at life.
Diary of a Pilgrimage
Jerome K. (Jerome Klapka) Jerome
Travelling across Victorian Europe to view a sacred spectacle yields a surprisingly modern travelogue filled with luggage misadventures, baffling language barrier mix-ups, and sudden moments of genuine reverence.
St. Bernard's: The Romance of a Medical Student
Edward Berdoe
Behind the grand facade of Victorian charity lies a chilling reality: public hospitals where impoverished patients are treated as mere disposable material for medical experimentation.
St. Leon: A Tale of the Sixteenth Century
William Godwin
A French nobleman sacrifices his family and peace of mind when he accepts the double-edged gift of the philosopher’s stone and eternal youth from a dying stranger.
The Athelings
Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
Three siblings in a modest 19th-century London suburb navigate unexpected fame, mysterious aristocrats, and a life-changing inheritance case that tests their loyalties, romantic devotion, and family bonds.
The Heavenly Twins
Sarah Grand
Her rebellious mind was shaped by books her parents never thought to supervise, but her heart was broken by the quiet, accepted corruptions of the men her world insisted she must honor.
The Point Of Honor: A Military Tale
Joseph Conrad
Driven by an absurd, unyielding grudge, two French officers pursue a private duel across two decades of the Napoleonic Wars. They fight between grand battles, through ice and dust, transforming a trivial insult into a lifelong obsession.
The Surgeon's Daughter
Walter Scott
A young Scottish surgeon travels from the quiet streets of his village to the dangerous, gilded courts of India in search of the woman he loves, battling treachery and betrayal to save her from a horrifying fate.
The Two Gentlemen of Verona
William Shakespeare
Two lifelong friends venture out into the world only to find their devotion fractured by the sudden spell of love, betrayal, and disguise.
Beaumont and Fletcher's Works, Vol. 06 of 10
John Fletcher
A vibrant collection of Jacobean dramatic works ranges from high-stakes royal tragedies and heroic ancient wars to meta-theatrical comedies and tale of far-flung romantic intrigue.
Niece Catherine
Mary Hampden
When an orphan's integrity collides with her wealthy family's long-standing feud, love and plain dealing prove far more persuasive than gold.
Popular British Ballads, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 (of 4)
Unknown
These traditional verses pull readers straight into a visceral landscape of fierce loyalties, bloody betrayals, tragic romances, and supernatural horrors.
A Collection of Old English Plays, Volume 2
Unknown
A woman hides in a labyrinthine home during an invasion, only to face a far more intimate and devastating form of violence from her defender.
Demos
George Gissing
A sudden industrial fortune turns a working-class reformer into an ironmaster, setting public ideals on a collision course with personal integrity, social ambition, and the unyielding realities of class in Victorian England.
Lady Rose's Daughter
Ward, Humphry, Mrs.
A brilliant, illegitimate woman in Edwardian London leverages her intellect to rule high society from the shadows, only to find her heart torn between a charming, penniless officer and the saintly heir to a dukedom.
Massacre at Paris
Christopher Marlowe
An unsparing portrait of political violence, Christopher Marlowe's historical drama turns the religious wars of sixteenth-century France into a breathless sequence of treachery, ambition, and sudden slaughter.
The Death of the Lion
Henry James
A brilliant writer is slowly devoured by the very society that claims to worship his genius.