Free summaries
British Literature — page 90
5,898 public-domain british literature books, summarised. Page 90 of 123.
Kitty Alone: A Story of Three Fires (vol. 3 of 3)
S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould
Caught in a web of insurance fraud and local suspicion, a young woman struggles to clear her name while her ruthless guardian attempts to secure his fortune through fire and deceit. This concluding volume of a Victorian trilogy untangles a dense mystery of missing persons, social posturing, and moral reckoning in a…
Lancashire Idylls (1898)
Marshall Mather
The harsh beauty of the high Lancashire moors finds a mirror in the rigid, uncompromising faith of the local hill sects. This collection of sketches captures the quiet humanity that struggles to bloom within a landscape of industrial toil and severe, judgmental piety.
Mary Seaham: A Novel. Volume 1 of 3
Mrs. (Elizabeth Caroline) Grey
The story of a young woman’s romantic awakening, this novel explores the tension between idealized love and the sobering realities of social standing, family expectations, and the hidden complexities of the human heart.
Miss Con
Agnes Giberne
A young governess navigates the turbulent social landscape of a bustling household, discovering that the most difficult lessons are found in the quiet, hidden corners of the heart.
Miss Mouse and Her Boys
Mrs. Molesworth
HOOK A gentle, spirited girl finds herself navigating the boisterous, often unruly world of five brothers, learning to reconcile her own need for order with the unpredictable, wild energy of boyhood.
Mrs. Harter
E. M. Delafield
HOOK A quiet English village becomes a crucible for unspoken desires and rigid social judgment when an enigmatic outsider forms a dangerous, soul-deep bond with a young captain.
Nuttie's Father
Charlotte M. (Charlotte Mary) Yonge
A quiet girl, long accustomed to a small provincial life, finds her identity upended when her missing father claims her for a higher sphere.
Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 105 December 23rd, 1893
Various
A sharp-witted weekly compendium of Victorian satire, this collection lampoons the political, social, and literary absurdities of 1893 with a dry, relentless, and distinctively English sense of irony.
Straight forward
Lucy Ellen Guernsey
A boarding school girl discovers that the price of popularity is often her own integrity, leading her into a web of deceit that nearly ruins her future.
The Battle of the Bays
Owen Seaman
A sharp-witted collection of satirical verse, this volume masterfully dissects the literary fashions and political postures of the late Victorian era through the art of parody.
The Bishop's purse
Cleveland Moffett
A chance encounter on a train sets off a high-stakes scramble for a missing fortune, testing the courage of an American heiress and a mysterious woman in a scarlet cloak.
The Land of Heart's Desire
W. B. (William Butler) Yeats
A young bride, weary of the constraints of her new domestic life, finds herself torn between the warmth of a human hearth and the haunting, ethereal promise of a world where beauty never fades.
The man on the other side
Ada Barnett
HOOK A woman finding solace in a dreamlike farm discovers that the boundary between the living and the dead is as thin as the morning mist over the Sussex downs.
The Masquerader
Katherine Cecil Thurston
The story of a desperate, drug-addicted politician who swaps lives with his identical double to escape his failures, only to find the deception brings him both the power he craved and the love he didn't expect.
The Sins of Séverac Bablon
Sax Rohmer
He moves through the dark of London taking fortune from the selfish to arm the nation and feed the poor, leaving only the shadow of a ring and the terror of a righteous thief.
The Spanish farm
R. H. (Ralph Hale) Mottram
This is a stark, unsentimental portrait of a French peasant woman navigating the intrusion of the Great War into her ancestral home. It captures the strange, pragmatic intimacy between a local population and the transient soldiers billeted upon them.
Under a Veil: A Comedietta in One Act
George M. (George Melville) Baker
A chance meeting across a hotel partition sparks an unlikely connection between two strangers, proving that a little mystery can bridge the gap between cynicism and new beginnings.
A Dog Day
Walter Emanuel
A roguish house dog records the petty triumphs, gluttonous escapades, and calculated manipulations that define his existence within a suburban family home.
Abracadabra & other satires
John Galsworthy
These sketches capture the quiet absurdities of early twentieth-century British life, where social pretension, fleeting kindness, and the rigid walls of class collide in a dance of gentle, biting irony.
Bertha's Visit to Her Uncle in England
Mrs. (Jane Haldimand) Marcet
This educational epistolary chronicle invites readers into a quiet world of Victorian-era discovery, where the wonders of natural science, geography, and moral philosophy are shared through the intimate correspondence of a young girl visiting her kin.
Blue-Stocking Hall, (Vol. 1 of 3)
William Pitt Scargill
A young man discovers that his prejudice against intellectual women is entirely misplaced when he finds himself welcomed into the warm, vibrant life of a secluded Irish estate.
By Birth a Lady
George Manville Fenn
A young man’s tangled path toward love and duty leads him through social artifice, heartbreak, and a life-altering realization of character. This story explores how true nobility is defined not by pedigree, but by the integrity of one's actions.
Coriolanus
William Shakespeare
A soldier of peerless talent finds himself undone by his own contempt for the people he protects. This searing drama explores the collision between rigid individual honor and the messy, democratic demands of the state.
Interim
Dorothy M. (Dorothy Miller) Richardson
A young woman navigates the precarious independence of early 20th-century London, seeking moments of internal stillness amidst the suffocating, watchful expectations of her social and professional circles.
Kissing the Rod: A Novel. (Vol. 1 of 3)
Edmund Yates
A man of commerce finds his life upended by a sudden, consuming obsession with a woman who exists in a world entirely separate from his own. This is a story of social ambition, calculated deception, and the heavy price of living a lie.
Moufflou, and other stories
Ouida
This collection of three stories explores the quiet, profound intersections between human emotion and the natural world, illustrating how ambition, sacrifice, and love shape the lives of the humble and the proud alike.
Mrs. Dorriman: A Novel. Volume 1 of 3
Chetwynd, Henry Wayland, Mrs.
A timid, self-doubting woman finds her quiet life upended when she must navigate the domineering demands of her brother and the volatile ambitions of two young wards left in his charge.
Only an Ensign: A Tale of the Retreat from Cabul, Volume 1 (of 3)
James Grant
A secret marriage, a stolen inheritance, and the looming shadows of war define the struggles of a young woman thrust into a world of family betrayal and sudden, tragic loss.
Patience Wins: War in the Works
George Manville Fenn
HO0K: A young man navigates the escalating dangers of a strike at his family’s new steel works. Through steadfast resolve and courageous action, he gradually transforms a hostile workforce into a loyal community.
Polly: A New-Fashioned Girl
L. T. Meade
Six motherless sisters and two wild Australian cousins collide in a rambling English vicarage, where independence and fiery tempers spark domestic chaos.
Sue, A Little Heroine
L. T. Meade
A young London girl takes the blame for a theft to save her father, enduring trials among the city's poorest while her crippled brother waits for her return.
The Earl of Essex: A Tragedy, in Five Acts
Henry Jones
The pride of a queen and the ambition of her favorite collide in this sweeping drama of political intrigue, where a single, withheld token of mercy seals a tragic fate.
The Fortunes of the Farrells
Vaizey, George de Horne, Mrs.
A unexpected inheritance test pits moneyed comfort against quiet integrity.
The making of a woman
Amy Le Feuvre
HOOK A young woman struggles to break free from the stifling control of her grandfather to pursue her artistic ambitions, only to discover that her true purpose lies in service to others.
The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 10, No. 265, July 21, 1827
Various
This early nineteenth-century miscellany gathers local history, eccentric profiles, Whitsuntide revels, and global travel in a lively snapshot of Georgian popular culture.
The Scribleriad, and The Difference Between Verbal and Practical Virtue
Anonymous
The literary feuds of the eighteenth century reached a fever pitch in 1742, transforming the London printing houses into a battlefield of biting verse and personal invective. These polemical works serve as a sharp, often savage, record of a culture obsessed with status, reputation, and the power of the printed word.
The Standard Bearer
S. R. (Samuel Rutherford) Crockett
A young man’s quiet, uncertain hand attempts to hold the Banner of Blue aloft during Scotland’s turbulent era of religious persecution.
The Two Gentlemen of Verona
William Shakespeare
Two friends find their bond tested by love and betrayal in a tale that explores the shifting loyalties of youth. It is a story of hearts misplaced, disguised, and ultimately reclaimed.
The Wings of Icarus: Being the Life of one Emilia Fletcher
Laurence Alma-Tadema
The wings of Icarus carry this protagonist toward a sun of her own making, only for the wax of her ideals to melt beneath the heat of human frailty.
Two Sides of the Face: Midwinter Tales
Arthur Quiller-Couch
These tales explore the blurred edges of the Cornish landscape, where ancient feuds, hidden inheritances, and spectral warnings rise out of the fog to haunt the modern world.
Vagabondia: 1884
Frances Hodgson Burnett
The charm of this domestic portrait lies in its candid, affectionate gaze at a struggling household of artists, where love and loyalty serve as the only reliable currency. It is a story of resilience, finding grace in the small, chaotic triumphs of a family living on the frayed edges of Victorian society.
Wild Flowers
Robert Bloomfield
A collection of verse rooted in the fields and hearths of rural England, this work captures the modest joys, provincial customs, and quiet anxieties of the laboring class with gentle, observant affection.
A London Plane-Tree, and Other Verse
Amy Levy
This collection of late nineteenth-century poetry offers an intimate, piercing look at the melancholy of urban life and the elusive nature of memory. It is a portrait of a mind observing the world from the periphery of both geography and emotion, capturing the specific, grey beauty of a city that never quite feels…
About Peggy Saville
Vaizey, George de Horne, Mrs.
The lively, perceptive new girl at a country vicarage discovers that the true measure of character lies not in quick-witted arrogance, but in the difficult, unglamorous work of caring for others.
Andrew Golding: A Tale of the Great Plague
Anne E. Keeling
A young woman chronicles a harrowing journey through the heart of 1665 London, seeking a lost kinsman amidst the suffocating terror of the Great Plague.
Brief Diversions: Being Tales, Travesties and Epigrams
J. B. (John Boynton) Priestley
This collection gathers the whimsical and the biting, offering a glimpse into a young writer’s mind as he navigates the intersection of mythology, social satire, and literary parody. It is a sharp, playful assembly of wit from the early twentieth century.
Drawing Rooms, Second Floor, and Attics: A Farce, in One Act
John Maddison Morton
A young chemist’s frantic, soot-stained quest to find his sweetheart in London turns into a chaotic game of hide-and-seek throughout a multi-story house.
Frederica and her Guardians
Margaret M. (Margaret Murray) Robertson
This novel follows the spiritual and physical maturation of a young girl navigating the loss of her parents and the religious tensions surrounding her family’s future. It is a story of quiet endurance and the search for authentic faith.