Free summaries
Novels — page 13
2,574 public-domain novels books, summarised. Page 13 of 54.
The Jew
Józef Ignacy Kraszewski
A solitary voice can pull a nation back from the edge of its own madness.
The Six Fingers of Time
R. A. Lafferty
A sudden fracture of time grants a quiet clerk total freedom, only to reveal the terrifying cost of living at sixty times the speed of the world.
A dreadful temptation
Miller, Alex. McVeigh, Mrs.
A young woman sells her youth to an aging millionaire for revenge, only to find that every trick she plays traps her further in her own deceit.
Penelope's Postscripts
Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
An observant American artist frames her European travels through vivid vignettes of humor, quiet sentiment, and sharp domestic insight.
The finding of Jasper Holt
Grace Livingston Hill
Stranded on the Western plains after a train derailment, a minister's daughter must rely on a mysterious local outcast to lead her to safety.
The Line of Love
James Branch Cabell
A line of mortal lovers yields to the illusion of romance, capturing brief, skyey heights of adoration before settling into the sensible, compromising world.
Strangers at Lisconnel
Jane Barlow
The daily rhythms of a remote Irish hamlet are rarely disturbed by outsiders, yet the arrival of strangers—and the departure of those seeking better fortunes—shapes the very soul of the community.
Footlights
Rita Weiman
The theater is a crucible where the boundaries between art and life dissolve, leaving the performers to wonder which version of themselves is truly real. This collection of linked stories captures the frantic, glittering, and often hollow existence of those who live their lives in the glare of the stage.
God's Country—And the Woman
James Oliver Curwood
A man returns from the Arctic to a hidden, lush world of mystery, where he finds a woman whose life is guarded by secrets and a pack of wolf-dogs.
Lore of Proserpine
Maurice Hewlett
This reflective work explores the boundary between the mundane world and a parallel realm of nature spirits, positing that fairy encounters are not myths, but spiritual realities. It challenges the reader to reconsider the nature of the unseen.
The dark
Leonid Andreyev
A cornered revolutionary seeks refuge in a brothel, only to find that his rigid moral superiority collapses under the gaze of a woman who demands he confront the darkness within himself.
The Spell
William Dana Orcutt
HOOK A scholar’s obsession with the Renaissance creates a dangerous rift in his marriage, pulling his wife into a test of endurance against the ghosts of history.
1931: A Glance at the Twentieth Century
Henry Hartshorne
A gentleman of leisure chronicles a future where the world has unified under the banner of English, science, and a reformed Christianity. This vision serves as a hopeful, if idiosyncratic, map of human progress.
Child of the Sun
Leigh Brackett
A desperate rebel and his companions escape a tyrannical regime by flying into the heart of the sun, only to discover an ancient, god-like intelligence hiding in the shadows of a forgotten planet. This encounter forces a final, harrowing confrontation between the limits of human mortality and the stagnant vanity of…
Gloria Mundi
Harold Frederic
The inheritance of a vast, crumbling estate becomes a trial of character for a young man caught between his own ideals and the cold machinery of aristocratic life.
Laurel Vane
Miller, Alex. McVeigh, Mrs.
A young woman’s secret deception tests the limits of love and pride in this dramatic exploration of truth and forgiveness.
Rosinante to the Road Again
John Dos Passos
The quest for an ancient land often leads to the discovery of one's own restlessness. This account captures the vibrant, contradictory spirit of a country caught between its storied past and a modernizing future.
Sekhet
Irene Miller
A young woman’s quest for independence is shadowed by a secret past, forcing a high-stakes gamble to secure her future before her former lover can expose her.
The Golden Flood
Edwin Lefevre
A young man begins depositing unimaginable quantities of gold into a Wall Street bank, terrifying the era’s most powerful financiers with the prospect of an infinite supply.
The Moon Rock
Arthur J. (Arthur John) Rees
This mystery unfolds in the bleak, windswept landscapes of the Cornish coast, where an atmosphere of deep-seated dread hangs over a family burdened by secrets. It is a tale of obsession, where a long-sought inheritance and a dark, violent past collide, leaving a trail of death in their wake.
The Secret Power
Marie Corelli
The world is on the precipice of a scientific revolution, but the power to create or destroy lies in the hands of those who command the hidden forces of nature.
Erlach Court
Ossip Schubin
Erlach Court follows a young woman navigating the rigid expectations of European society and the lingering shadows of her family’s past, searching for a future that feels authentically her own.
Little Golden's Daughter
Miller, Alex. McVeigh, Mrs.
Golden Glenalvan lives a sheltered, melancholic life in a crumbling ancestral hall, haunted by the mystery of her mother’s disappearance and her own uncertain parentage. Her quiet existence is upended when she falls in love with a visitor, Bertram Chesleigh, setting off a chain of deception, banishment, and dark…
Pelle the Conqueror
Martin Andersen Nexø
The journey of a boy and his father from humble beginnings to a hard-won maturity, this saga captures the spirit of a laborer’s life with unflinching clarity. It is the story of a world turning toward modernity, told through the eyes of one who grew up in the soil of its fields.
The Fourth Estate, vol. 1
Armando Palacio Valdés
A quiet Spanish coastal town erupts into absurdity when local ambitions and romantic betrayals collide, turning the mundane rhythms of provincial life into a theater of high-stakes farce.
The K-Factor
Harry Harrison
The fate of an entire world rests on a single, impossible calculation. When the math of social stability tips into the red, one man must decide if humanity can be saved by a scientist’s hand or only by a soldier’s trigger.
Nacha Regules
Manuel Gálvez
HOOK A compassionate idealist attempts to rescue a woman from the grim underworld of early 20th-century Buenos Aires, only to discover that societal indifference is a far more formidable opponent than individual vice.
The Way of the Gods
John Luther Long
The gods of Japan demand blood, and a young soldier finds himself trapped between his duty to the Emperor and the desperate, consuming love of a woman who will sacrifice her very existence to sustain his pride.
Tiny Luttrell
E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung
A spirited Australian woman returns from a failed social season in England, grappling with the remnants of her own pride and the lingering shadows of a complicated past.
Happy House
Hutten zum Stolzenberg, Betsey Riddle, Freifrau von
A weary, overlooked novelist finds her quiet life upended when the shifting tides of the post-war world force her to confront her own fading relevance and her husband’s persistent, selfish instability.
Rosemary and Rue, by Amber
Martha Everts Holden
The world is a tapestry of small, bright mercies and heavy, hidden sorrows, best navigated with a gentle heart and an eye for the quiet grace of a robin’s song or a child’s trust.
San Cristóbal de la Habana
Joseph Hergesheimer
A traveler finds in Havana a mirror to his own soul, discovering a city that feels more like home than the place of his birth.
Together
Robert Herrick
The search for personal fulfillment within the rigid structures of early 20th-century American society leads a woman to realize that a truly shared life requires more than just domestic harmony.
The House of the Misty Star: A Romance of Youth and Hope and Love in Old Japan
Frances Little
Perched on a Japanese hillside, an aging, solitary teacher finds her quiet life upended when an eccentric missionary and a defiant, rebellious girl shatter her carefully ordered world.
The Lost Warship
Robert Moore Williams
The crew of a modern battleship finds itself stranded in a prehistoric era after a freak collision with a space-time fault, forcing them to wage a desperate war against a technologically advanced, alien civilization.
The Place Beyond the Winds
Harriet T. (Harriet Theresa) Comstock
HOOK A young woman from a remote Canadian village ventures into the wider world, testing her ideals against the rigid social codes of the city and the weight of a hidden past.
The Visionary: Pictures From Nordland
Jonas Lie
A man haunted by visions of the Arctic North searches for grace while his mind slowly unspools. This atmospheric, melancholic tale explores the thin, trembling line between reality and the supernatural.
Exploration Team
Murray Leinster
On a hostile, untamed planet, a lone human fugitive and his pack of telepathically bonded, genetically modified bears fight to survive against swarms of lethal, predatory monsters.
Ovind: A Story of Country Life in Norway
Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson
A young man’s journey toward purpose and love unfolds within the quiet, rugged valleys of Norway, where the weight of tradition often clashes with the aspirations of the heart.
Skipper Worse
Alexander Lange Kielland
A man of the sea finds himself adrift in a small, pious town, caught between the rigid influence of a formidable widow and the crumbling remnants of a merchant dynasty.
The White House (Novels of Paul de Kock Volume XII)
Paul de Kock
A mid-level clerk dreams of social standing and purchases a crumbling estate, only to find himself entangled in a web of romantic confusion, local superstition, and the dark, hidden history of his own property.
Badge of Infamy
Lester Del Rey
A disgraced doctor fights for survival on a colonized Mars, battling both a lethal, mysterious plague and the oppressive political machinery of the powerful Medical Lobby.
Hassan
James Elroy Flecker
The Golden Road to Samarkand beckons, but only those who have abandoned the illusions of power and the hollow comforts of home can truly hear its call.
Ringfield: A Novel
S. Frances (Susie Frances) Harrison
The struggle between human desire and the demands of faith creates an atmospheric, unsettling drama set against the backdrop of a remote Canadian parish.
The Red Dust
Murray Leinster
This is a tale of survival in a future where humanity has been reduced to a primitive, scattered remnant, cowering in the shadows of a world now dominated by titanic insects and monstrous, ever-expanding fungi. It explores how a small group of people, under the leadership of a resourceful man named Burl, attempts…
The Squatter's Dream: A Story of Australian Life
Rolf Boldrewood
The restless pursuit of fortune across the Australian wilderness leads a young man toward both spectacular success and devastating ruin. This narrative charts the high-stakes gamble of colonial life, where nature, markets, and human greed collide.
Fairy Fingers: A Novel
Anna Cora Ogden Mowatt Ritchie
A noble French family’s financial collapse forces an exiled heiress into the trade of dressmaking, setting up a clash between aristocratic pride and self-made independence.
In Vain
Henryk Sienkiewicz
This early, poignant work follows a group of idealistic students in Kiev as they grapple with the collision between their intellectual ambitions and the harsh, often arbitrary, realities of adult life. It is a contemplative character study that captures the fleeting, fragile nature of youth and the disillusionment…