Free summaries
Novels — page 16
1,109 public-domain novels books, summarised. Page 16 of 24.
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.
Novice
James H. Schmitz
A fifteen-year-old law student uncovers her latent telepathic talents when her pet cat turns out to be an apex predator on an alien world.
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.
Doctor Luke of the Labrador
Norman Duncan
A motherless boy grows up on the wild, fog-choked coast of Labrador, where sea-borne tragedy and religious dread give way to healing when a mysterious doctor arrives.
Grove of the Unborn
Lyn Venable
An abandoned astronaut discovers too late that his alien captors' horrifying sacred beasts are actually the larval stage of the beautiful woman he is destined to marry.
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.
The Hunters
Joseph Samachson
When alien scout-hunters infiltrate a field trip to an American zoo, they select humanity's youngest as prime specimens—until an unexpectedly real threat forces a disgraced movie star to earn his lion-hunting reputation.
The Indian On The Trail: From "Mackinac And Lake Stories", 1899
Mary Hartwell Catherwood
A middle-aged author falls desperately in love with a younger woman on Mackinac Island, fighting his own desperate intensity and her guarded, elusive nature beneath the shadows of the northern pines.
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.
DP
Arthur Dekker Savage
In a future where humanity has achieved material perfection, a restless man seeks the ultimate exit from a life of suffocating comfort. He soon discovers that the society he loathes is more fragile than he ever imagined.
Genesis
H. Beam Piper
HOOK A stranded colonial expedition must forsake their high-tech past to survive on a wild, alien world, unwittingly becoming the progenitors of human history.
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 Mad Planet
Murray Leinster
A young man discovers that the terrifying monsters dominating his world can be defeated, sparking a slow, perilous shift from cowering prey to hunter. He moves through a landscape of nightmare flora to claim his own survival.
The Northern Light
E. Werner
The Northern Light follows a young man’s desperate quest to reclaim a sense of honor after a childhood betrayal severed him from his father. It is a story of heavy shadows and the hard-won redemption found in the heat of battle.
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.
Archibald Malmaison
Julian Hawthorne
The aristocratic life of an English estate becomes a stage for a haunting, psychological mystery where the boundaries of identity shift and collapse. This work explores how a singular, traumatic event can fracture a man’s existence into two distinct, alternating selves, creating a narrative that blends Gothic…
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 Sargasso of Space
Edmond Hamilton
Stranded in a graveyard of drifting, abandoned starships, the crew of the *Pallas* must outwit a band of murderous survivors to secure the fuel needed for their escape.
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.
Desert Air: 1905
Robert Hichens
The air of the Sahara is as intoxicating as it is indifferent, transforming the orderly mind of a restrained Englishman into something reckless, unrecognizable, and ultimately doomed. This chilling account of a journey into the desert serves as a cautionary meditation on the fragility of human character when…
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.
Schwartz: A History: From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray
David Christie Murray
A weary writer finds an unlikely companion in a stray dog while recovering from a nervous breakdown. Their shared time in a quiet Belgian village reveals the stark, sometimes cruel, nature of devotion.
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.
The Executioner
Frank Riley
In a sterile future, a professional executioner faces his most difficult assignment: ending the life of a woman from his own long-buried past. He discovers that duty and desire are impossible to reconcile.
The Nothing Equation
Tom Godwin
The vast, uncaring void of intergalactic space waits patiently for a single, hairline fracture to end a human life. This chilling examination of isolation explores how the terror of the unknown can dismantle a rational mind.
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.