Free summaries
Novels — page 14
2,574 public-domain novels books, summarised. Page 14 of 54.
Mary
Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson
The story of a young woman’s journey toward moral autonomy, this novel follows a spirited daughter of an old Norwegian family as she navigates love, loss, and the heavy expectations of her heritage.
The city of the discreet
Pío Baroja
HOOK A young man, armed with intellect and cynicism, attempts to navigate the labyrinthine social codes of Córdoba, only to find his carefully constructed defenses undone by the simplicity of a woman’s heart.
The Sky Pilot: A Tale of the Foothills
Ralph Connor
A young missionary arrives in a rugged Canadian wilderness, seeking to win the souls of disillusioned men through the power of friendship and faith. This story of moral transformation follows a dedicated man who finds his greatest purpose in a place that initially rejects him.
Anno Domini 2071: Translated from the Dutch Original
Pieter Harting
An observer from the nineteenth century steps directly into the twenty-first, guided by two companions who illuminate a changed world where technology, politics, and human nature intersect.
At love's cost
Charles Garvice
A young man is torn between the hollow promises of a life built on cold finance and the haunting, authentic pull of a woman who represents everything he has abandoned.
Mating center
Frank Belknap Long
Under a totalitarian regime that strips humanity of romance, two fugitives discover that natural passion is the ultimate act of rebellion.
Recruit for Andromeda
Stephen Marlowe
Every seven hundred and eighty days, Earth drafts citizens for the mysterious Nowhere Journey, a deep-space draft from which no recruit has ever returned.
Time and Time Again
H. Beam Piper
A dying soldier in 1975 wakes up in 1945 inside his own thirteen-year-old body, carrying three decades of future history that he resolves to rewrite.
Nightfall
Anthony Pryde
In the heavy quiet of post-war rural England, wounds that cannot be seen prove far more destructive than those carved into the flesh.
Snowball
Poul Anderson
A single DIY energy-storage invention unleashes total economic disruption, causing society to unravel before rebuilding itself from the bottom up.
The Judgment House
Gilbert Parker
Behind the glittering drawing rooms of fin-de-siècle London and the dusty, blood-soaked kopjes of the South African War, a tempestuous marriage buckles under the weight of vanity, political intrigue, and hidden betrayal.
The Lieutenant-Governor: A Novel
Guy Wetmore Carryl
Political corruption and industrial strife collide when an principled second-in-command is forced to choose between personal loyalties and the rule of law.
West of the sun
Edgar Pangborn
Stranded on an alien world, six humans face the choice between repeating Earth's violent history and forging a fragile new future among giant humanoids and pygmy tribes.
Simon Eichelkatz
Ulrich Frank
Faith and lineage collide with modern life in two poignant tales of 19th-century German-Jewish identity.
The Missionary
George Chetwynd Griffith
A childhood scuffle on the deck of a homeward-bound ocean liner casts a long shadow across three families, hardening over the decades into secret parentage, social ruin, and a desperate test of faith.
A Nest of Linnets
Frank Frankfort Moore
Love, artistic pride, and social scandal collide in Georgian Bath.
Broken Butterflies
Henry W. (Henry Walsworth) Kinney
In early 1920s Tokyo, a returning American journalist discovers that Western progress comes at a devastating human cost to Japan's women.
By Blow and Kiss: The Love Story of a Man with a Bad Name.: (Published serially under the title Unstable as Water)
Boyd Cable
An Australian drover accused of murder flees into the bush, leaving behind the woman who loves him until a dying woman’s confession clears his name.
Every Man for Himself
Norman Duncan
Hard along the gale-swept rocks of Newfoundland, men haul their living from the gray sea, clinging to a stubborn, battered faith in each other and the unknown.
Liza
Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
Quiet longing and rigid societal expectations collide in a provincial Russian town, where a second chance at happiness vanishes as swiftly as it appears.
The Man Who Rocked the Earth
Robert Williams Wood
When a mysterious dictator of human destiny weaponizes the earth's axis to force an end to global warfare, humanity faces a terrifying choice between perpetual peace and planetary annihilation.
The Soul of Nicholas Snyders
Jerome K. (Jerome Klapka) Jerome
A bitter Dutch miser buys a young man’s generous soul, only to discover that the burden of loving someone else is far more agonizing than his original greed.
Tried for Her Life: A Sequel to "Cruel As the Grave"
Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
A falsely accused heroine escapes a death sentence, survives a harrowing wilderness flood, and endures years of exile before a dying confession clears her name.
Zarlah the Martian
R. Norman (Robert Norman) Grisewood
A human soul crosses the void of space via telepathic light-waves, falling in love with a Martian maiden before a deadly race toward the planet's magnetic pole.
Look Back on Happiness
Knut Hamsun
A weary septuagon-era writer retreats into the Norwegian wilderness and countryside, observing the clash between quiet rural endurance and the modern rush of tourist commerce.
The Dawn of All
Robert Hugh Benson
A man wakes in a future where Catholic authority rules the globe, forced to navigate a world that feels both saintly and terrifyingly absolute.
The Great Gray Plague
Raymond F. Jones
Conconformity is a dull gray fog, but a radical shake-up can clear the air.
Wild Youth, Complete
Gilbert Parker
A captive young wife, a tyrannical old husband, and a romantic neighbor collide on the Saskatchewan prairie in a drama of small-town gossip, sudden violence, and second chances.
Dr. Dumany's Wife
Mór Jókai
A man survives a catastrophic train crash only to find himself haunted by the ghosts of his own fortune. This sweeping narrative chronicles a life sacrificed to the pursuit of wealth, honor, and the elusive nature of happiness.
Gertrude's Marriage
W. Heimburg
A young woman’s impulsive marriage to a stranger founders on pride and misunderstanding, leading her to discover whether love can survive the collapse of her most cherished illusions.
The Senator's Bride
Miller, Alex. McVeigh, Mrs.
A tale of pride, jealousy, and the redemptive power of suffering, this narrative explores the fractures within a marriage strained by secrets and societal expectations. It captures the heavy, atmospheric burden of Victorian-era emotional repression.
Ragna
Anna Miller Costantini
This is a story of a woman’s struggle for sovereignty in a world that seeks to commodify her beauty and define her morality. It traces the arc from Northern innocence to the disillusionment of a stifling marriage, searching for the boundary between the dictates of society and the freedom of the soul.
Tabby
Winston K. (Winston Kinney) Marks
HOOK A remote Pacific island research team witnesses an alien visitation that sets off a biological catastrophe. The arrival of a single, peculiar fly triggers a swift and terrifying ecological collapse.
The red planet
R. R. (Russell Robert) Winterbotham
A desperate voyage to Mars descends into a nightmare of internal treachery and alien warfare, where the crew’s only hope for survival is to outlast both a murderous commander and a hostile, electrified planet.
The Sky Trap
Frank Belknap Long
The sky is not empty, but a trap. When a routine patrol flight is suddenly ensnared within a mysterious, invisible bubble suspended in the stratosphere, the crew of the Perseus must confront a surreal, rapidly evolving horror that threatens their sanity and their lives.
Asbeïn: From the Life of a Virtuoso
Ossip Schubin
A celebrated virtuoso and a sheltered princess collide in Rome, beginning a tempestuous, music-filled romance that tests the limits of devotion and the heavy price of genius.
At the Councillor's
E. (Eugenie) Marlitt
A fragile, opulent world built on hidden financial ruin collapses in a single, explosive moment, forcing an independent young woman to confront the truth behind her family’s desperate facade of wealth.
Garman and Worse: A Norwegian Novel
Alexander Lange Kielland
A coastal town’s rigid hierarchy fractures under the weight of social hypocrisy and stifled ambition. This narrative examines the price of conformity in a society where duty and reputation define a person’s worth.
Native Son
T. D. Hamm
A young Martian colonist struggles to adjust to life on Earth, where his physical differences and acute senses make him feel like a freak. His isolation culminates in a tragic misunderstanding of the technology surrounding him.
Phantom Wires: A Novel
Arthur Stringer
A master of the wire-tap and the locked room finds his greatest challenge in the dangerous, shifting intimacy of his own marriage. This is a story of two people bound by illicit skills and the desperate, recurring hope that they might finally leave their past behind.
The Spoilers of the Valley
Robert Watson
The quiet of a British Columbia valley is shattered by greed, lawlessness, and the arrival of an enigmatic stranger. It is a story of frontier justice, clashing ambitions, and the struggle to protect a home from those who would exploit it.
Allison Bain
Margaret M. (Margaret Murray) Robertson
A woman seeks sanctuary from a shattered past, finding grace through quiet service and the slow, difficult work of forgiveness. Amid the mist-covered hills of Scotland, a fragile life finds strength in duty, ultimately reaching toward a new horizon across the sea.
Fanny's First Novel
Frank Frankfort Moore
A shy, overlooked daughter of a celebrated music master finds her voice by penning a secret novel, only to discover that fame demands a price her private heart may not be able to pay.
The Bee-Master of Warrilow
Tickner Edwardes
The life of the honey-bee is a complex, tireless dance of labor, and this work serves as both a practical guide and a lyrical meditation on the ancient bond between the insect and the human bee-master. Through a series of reflective essays, the author bridges the gap between the rustic traditions of the past and…
The Carleton Case
Ellery H. (Ellery Harding) Clark
A disgraced man fights to reclaim his name in a city of secrets, where the heavy weight of family reputation clashes with the stark, often cruel, reality of personal redemption.
Lady Merton, Colonist
Ward, Humphry, Mrs.
A spirited English aristocrat finds her life transformed by the raw beauty of the Canadian frontier and the integrity of a man who embodies the spirit of a new world.
The Haunted Homestead: A Novel
Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
A young woman’s skeptical search for spectral encounters in a mysterious residence gives way to a sprawling, tragic meditation on the inescapable chains of the American past.
The poisoned paradise: A romance of Monte Carlo
Robert W. (Robert William) Service
A young artist finds his life unspooling in the glittering, lethal orbit of Monte Carlo. In this atmospheric tale of obsession, a simple man discovers that the price of sudden fortune is often paid in blood.