Free summaries
Novels — page 17
1,109 public-domain novels books, summarised. Page 17 of 24.
Up the Hill and Over
Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
A weary, wandering physician and a spirited schoolteacher find their lives inextricably bound by the secrets and fragile hopes of a quiet Canadian town.
Who Was She?: From "The Atlantic Monthly" for September, 1874
Bayard Taylor
A man receives a series of mysterious letters from an anonymous woman, leading him on a long, introspective quest to identify her among his social acquaintances.
Gold in the Sky
Alan Edward Nourse
Two brothers navigate space-age corporate sabotage after their father’s suspicious death in the asteroid belt, eventually uncovering an extraordinary discovery that could liberate humanity from a corrupt monopoly.
Lancaster's Choice
Miller, Alex. McVeigh, Mrs.
The tension between inherited duty and individual heart is at the center of this Victorian-era drama. A young captain must navigate his aunt’s pressure to marry for money, only to find his own path complicated by a woman who is not what she seems.
Outside the universe
Edmond Hamilton
The fate of the galaxy rests upon a desperate, trans-universal journey to secure an alliance against an implacable, invading swarm. It is a race against extinction through the cold, uncharted reaches of the void.
The Family at Gilje: A Domestic Story of the Forties
Jonas Lie
A Captain and his wife struggle to maintain the appearance of gentility in a remote mountain home, while their children’s dreams of a broader world collide with the crushing weight of limited means and social expectation.
The Hidden Places
Bertrand W. Sinclair
A man hideously scarred by the Great War seeks refuge in the British Columbia wilderness, where he discovers an unexpected, profound connection with a blind woman who loves him for the spirit he possesses, not the face he fears to show.
The Inn at the Red Oak
Latta Griswold
A quiet, aging inn becomes the stage for a desperate struggle as a mysterious French nobleman arrives, triggering a dangerous hunt for a hidden fortune.
The Keeper
H. Beam Piper
This story of an aging guardian on a dying world captures the weight of an inherited duty and the quiet heartbreak of seeing an era come to an end. It follows a man who lives in solitude, protecting a priceless historical relic for a civilization that has forgotten its own origins.
World of the Drone
Robert Abernathy
In a world of nomadic, warring machine-cultures, a young warrior discovers a terrifying mechanical threat that forces ancient enemies to choose between annihilation and a new, fragile unity.
A Bride of the Plains
Orczy, Emmuska Orczy, Baroness
A young woman’s devotion is tested by the rigid traditions of the Hungarian plains, where pride, social hierarchy, and an unexpected death collide with the promise of a new life.
The Field of Clover
Laurence Housman
The world of this collection is one where the boundary between the living and the inanimate is porous, and every heart’s desire comes with a price that is paid in iron or spirit. These are tales of wonder that refuse to offer easy endings, favoring the strange, the melancholy, and the profound.
The Old Countess
Ann S. (Ann Sophia) Stephens
The secrets of the past reach across the Atlantic, binding the fate of a humble music student to the cold, cloistered lives of the British aristocracy. It is a story of stolen identities, long-buried sacrifices, and the enduring pull of one’s true heritage.
The Professional Approach
Charles L. Harness
A young patent attorney learns that the most brilliant inventions are often as fragile as the human ego. This story explores the high-stakes, technical obsession behind securing a patent for a world-changing discovery.
Basil and Annette: A Novel
B. L. (Benjamin Leopold) Farjeon
Two lives collide in the Australian wilderness, setting in motion a long, treacherous game of identity theft that stretches from colonial goldfields to the heart of London.
The Master Mummer
E. Phillips (Edward Phillips) Oppenheim
An impulsive act of kindness pulls three struggling artists into a dangerous web of international intrigue and aristocratic secrets, centering on the mysterious, vulnerable girl they rescue from a train-bound stranger.
The Other World
Frank Frankfort Moore
HOOK This collection of tales explores the porous boundary between our own reality and the shadow-realm of the supernatural, where human desire and ancient, unseen forces often collide.
The Spoilt Child: A Tale of Hindu Domestic Life
Peary Chand Mitra
Spoiled by indulgence, a young heir plunges his household into chaos before encountering the severe friction of the world.
The Worshipper of the Image
Richard Le Gallienne
A poet finds his life’s inspiration in a cold, inanimate face, choosing the hollow perfection of an idol over the living, breathing presence of his wife and child. This descent into obsession exacts a devastating human price, ultimately leaving only a haunting, spectral void in its wake.
My Austrian Love: The History of the Adventures of an English Composer in Vienna. Written in the Trenches by Himself
Maxime Provost
The life of a composer in pre-war Vienna unravels against the brutal, muddy backdrop of the trenches, where memories of music and romance compete with the harsh realities of a world at war. This is a story of how a young man’s creative ambitions and a mysterious, fleeting encounter with a woman in Vienna are…
Pepita Ximenez
Juan Valera
A young seminarian, intent on a life of holy devotion, finds his resolve shattered by an unexpected and intense attraction to a beautiful young widow.
The Fate of Felix Brand
Florence Finch Kelly
The architect Felix Brand is a man of refined tastes and social grace, but he hides a terrifying secret: he is losing his body to a rival personality who exists within him. This psychological thriller explores the disintegration of a man’s identity and the violent emergence of the "hidden" self he tried to suppress.
The Sign of Flame
E. Werner
The Sign of Flame is a sweeping historical drama that follows a man’s journey from social pariah to heroic redeemer. Haunted by his past and searching for honor, he faces the ultimate test of loyalty in the fires of war.
The Valley of Squinting Windows
Brinsley MacNamara
A narrow, watchful Irish valley feeds on the secrets of its people until private vanity and malicious gossip drive a fragile young family into tragedy.
To Win the Love He Sought: The Great Awakening: Volume 3
E. Phillips (Edward Phillips) Oppenheim
Beneath a web of ancient Sicilian oaths and scientific arrogance lies a world where broken vows and forgotten identities threaten to destroy every chance at love.
Garryowen
H. De Vere (Henry De Vere) Stacpoole
To save his ancient Irish estate, an eccentric landlord pins all his fortunes on a gifted racehorse. He must outwit bailiffs, scheming relatives, and bad luck across Ireland and England to secure a desperately needed victory at Epsom.
Lady Eureka
Robert Folkestone Williams
In a sprawling 19th-century speculative adventure, a high-minded young merchant sails across uncharted seas to escape heartbreak, only to encounter fraudulent traders, sea fires, and treacherous pirates.
Leon Roch: A Romance, vol. 2 (of 2)
Benito Pérez Galdós
Dogmatic piety and social hypocrisy collide in the closing chapter of a broken marriage, leaving two lovers to weigh personal happiness against moral order.
Marion: The Story of an Artist's Model
Onoto Watanna
A spirited girl leaves a cramped home in Montreal for the independence of the American art world, discovering that survival requires as much grit as grace.
Oomphel in the Sky
H. Beam Piper
When mass hysteria threatens to engulf an alien planet, a pragmatic reporter realizes that pure logic is useless against fanatical religious superstition—leaving him with only one option: to craft a grander, more useful myth of his own.
Prince Charlie
Burford Delannoy
A small seaside town, a web of silent assumptions, and a writer who mistake a child's devoted mother for a woman of loose morals.
The Dominant Strain
Anna Chapin Ray
High society and artistic ambition collide when a refined woman marries a charming man to save him, only to face the limits of her influence.
The Last Miracle
M. P. (Matthew Phipps) Shiel
Forged miracles, stolen clerics, and a grand, ruthless conspiracy collide in a twilight Europe where a dying faith is systematically dismantled by a single terrifying will.
The Man from Mars: His Morals, Politics and Religion
William Simpson
A recluse observing nature through a telescope meets a Martian visitor who reveals how an advanced society solved Earth's worst systemic failures.
The Mind Master
Arthur J. Burks
Trapped inside a giant ape's body, a man fights to stop a mad scientist from replacing New York's leaders with mind-controlled beasts.
Under the Shadow of Etna: Sicilian Stories from the Italian of Giovanni Verga
Giovanni Verga
On the scorched, malarial plains of nineteenth-century Sicily, passions cut as deep as the poverty that feeds them, bound only by brute force, pride, and the unrelenting struggle to survive.
A World Called Crimson
Stephen Marlowe
A shipwrecked pair of children grow up alone on a alien planet, discovering they can turn whatever they imagine into physical reality.
Barnaby: A Novel
Rina Ramsay
To step into the estate houses of Rina Ramsay’s Edwardian fox-hunting country is to enter a world of high-spirited mischief, reckless midnight steeplechases, and fiercely guarded family pride.
Dr. Adriaan
Louis Couperus
A family gathered under one roof attempts to patch over its deepest wounds, only to discover that healing requires facing the long shadow of its own fragile nature.
Frank Oldfield: Lost and Found
Theodore P. Wilson
A young man’s downfall through alcohol wrecks his engagement and drives him across the world, where betrayal and crime bring him to absolute rock bottom.
M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur."
G. J. (George John) Whyte-Melville
In a dark, stormy night on the English Channel, human passions burn as recklessly as the sea itself, igniting a tale of hidden parentage, deceptive hearts, and fatal misunderstandings.
Sant' Ilario
F. Marion (Francis Marion) Crawford
A web of duty, deceit, and misdirected jealousy threatens the highest circles of nineteenth-century Roman nobility, where honor is absolute and a single secret can tear a marriage apart.
The Enormous Room
H. L. (Horace Leonard) Gold
An unseen hand snatches a coaster car mid-descent, pulling its occupants into a vast, baffling realm where they are treated less like prisoners than prized specimens.
The Masked Bridal
Sheldon, Georgie, Mrs.
A young copyist agrees to play the bride in a private theatrical performance, only to discover her fake marriage was real and her new life a web of deceit.
A Butterfly on the Wheel: A Novel
Guy Thorne
When a high-society romance founders under the glare of publicity, a single night's mischance threatens to destroy a young woman’s life before the court ever reaches a verdict.
Creatures That Once Were Men
Maksim Gorky
Discards, dockworkers, and outcasts cling to life along the margins of an unforgiving world, holding fast to their humanity even as society casts them aside.
Pelle the Conqueror
Martin Andersen Nexø
Labor is the quiet force that shapes the earth, yet those who clear the roads and stitch the boots spend their lives pushed to the very edge of the dark.
Rupert Godwin
M. E. (Mary Elizabeth) Braddon
A ruthless London banker's desperate attempt to cover up a midsummer murder unravels as a sea captain's vengeful family exposes his web of blackmail, abduction, and betrayal.