Free summaries
Novels — page 19
1,000 public-domain novels books, summarised. Page 19 of 21.
Success and How He Won It
E. Werner
The cold, impenetrable walls of a loveless marriage dissolve into an unlikely partnership when the brutal realities of the industrial mine, not the salon, force a husband and wife to truly see one another.
The Advocate: A Novel
Charles Heavysege
A volatile Montreal barrister’s refusal to marry his long-time companion triggers a chain of vengeance and abduction, culminating in a tragic collision between generations. This dark tale exposes the thin line between legal authority and moral ruin.
The Sensitive Man
Poul Anderson
In a future where humanity’s potential is being weaponized by shadow cabals, one man with the power to control his own biology stands as the last line of defense against total psychic tyranny.
The Swan of Vilamorta
Pardo Bazán, Emilia, condesa de
A self-absorbed poet descends into a provincial village, mistaking his own vanity for grand romantic tragedy. This character study dissects the lethal disconnect between artistic pretension and the messy reality of human devotion.
An Old Man's Darling
Miller, Alex. McVeigh, Mrs.
A radiant young woman is trapped in a web of deceit and forced into a marriage with an older man, unaware that her true love is being kept at bay by those who covet her inheritance.
Circus
Alan Edward Nourse
A weary traveler from the stars finds himself stranded in a world that mirrors his own, only to discover that the ultimate barrier to his return is his own utter normalcy.
Let Us Kiss and Part
Miller, Alex. McVeigh, Mrs.
The lives of the star-crossed and the desperate collide in a whirlwind of Victorian melodrama, where stolen children, social climbing, and romantic betrayals test the limits of human endurance.
Mrs. Vanderstein's jewels
Marion Bryce
A wealthy socialite vanishes after a night at the opera, leaving behind a cold, immaculate bedroom and a tangled web of greed, obsession, and criminal intent. This mystery unfolds in the glittering, stratified world of early twentieth-century London, where the line between high society and the criminal underworld…
The Glory of Ippling
Helen M. Urban
A galactic prince attempts to "civilize" Earth using his family’s proprietary cultural equation, only to find that our chaotic appetite for spectacle and consumerism defies all logic. This satirical short story explores the arrogance of colonialism through the eyes of a bumbling, overconfident alien aristocrat.
The Inner Flame: A Novel
Clara Louise Burnham
A struggling artist and a devoted, plain-spoken woman find unexpected sanctuary on a remote island, where the quiet rhythms of nature mend their fractured lives.
The Romance of the Canoness: A Life-History
Paul Heyse
A quiet, reflective narrative traces the profound and unlikely bond between a struggling tutor and a woman who has forsaken her aristocratic status to live among the poor.
Thurston of Orchard Valley
Harold Bindloss
HOOK After a business failure in England, an engineer seeks redemption in the rugged Canadian wilderness, where he must battle both treacherous terrain and the vengeful schemes of a former rival.
Chain of Command
Stephen Arr
A domestic grievance escalates into a global catastrophe when a simple request for peace is met with the suffocating weight of bureaucratic inertia. In this satirical fable, a mouse discovers that logic is no match for a system obsessed with its own rules.
Delilah of the Snows
Harold Bindloss
A restless Englishman leaves his quiet home for the harsh Yukon, only to discover that the gold he seeks matters far less than the loyalties he abandons and must eventually reclaim.
Molly Brown of Kentucky
Nell Speed
This tale of youthful spirit and family loyalty follows a young woman’s perilous journey through the early, uncertain days of the Great War, seen through the eyes of those who love her. It is a portrait of resilience, capturing a world in transition through the lens of domestic affection.
Nancy first and last
Amy Ella Blanchard
A young woman navigates the loss of her inheritance and the shattering of a youthful engagement, only to find her true self through an odyssey that spans continents and survives the crucible of war.
Old People and the Things That Pass
Louis Couperus
The shadow of a violent, long-buried secret looms over a family of aging aristocrats, revealing how the past relentlessly shapes the present. This is a story of how time, like a slow-moving tide, eventually erodes even the most carefully guarded facades.
Pine Needles
Susan Warner
A group of young people gathers in the woods to find beauty and moral clarity, discovering how historical accounts of faith can illuminate their modern lives.
The Child Wife
Mayne Reid
This romantic adventure follows an American soldier’s pursuit of love and political freedom across two continents, ending in the quiet sanctuary of a hard-won marriage.
The Servant Problem
Robert F. Young
A small-town real estate appraiser discovers that a quiet, abandoned village has become a literal gateway to a distant alien utopia.
A Cigarette-Maker's Romance
F. Marion (Francis Marion) Crawford
An impoverished Russian aristocrat clings to a delusion of returning to his lost fortune while working in a Munich cigarette factory, sustained only by the quiet devotion of a woman who loves him.
Address: Centauri
F. L. (Floyd L.) Wallace
Earth rejected them as broken; the stars would have to take them as they were.
All In The Mind
Gene L. Henderson
A disembodied brain in a mountain laboratory fights its traitorous creator for survival and discovers unexpected mental powers.
Ecstasy, A Study of Happiness: A Novel
Louis Couperus
A young widow and an emotionally torn aristocrat reach for an elusive ideal of love, only to find that their highest ecstasy demands the total surrender of earthly desire.
Spirits do return
Ida Belle White
A prison guard and a wrongfully convicted man discover they are brothers, setting off a chain of moral reckonings inside cold stone walls.
The 13th juror
Leslie Waltham
A long-distance astronaut faces execution in a future where emotion is a capital offense, until a mysterious final juror reveals the light-speed illusion behind his deadly jealousy.
The Love of Ulrich Nebendahl
Jerome K. (Jerome Klapka) Jerome
Ulrich Nebendahl is a gentle, introspective wheelwright who struggles to find the singular romantic passion the world expects of him. Instead, he discovers a profound, self-sacrificing love for his entire community and all living things.
The Pauper of Park Lane
William Le Queux
A retail assistant disappears, a sinister plot threatens a ruthless City financier, and an eerie Russian interior lies hidden inside a London mansion.
The Vortex Blaster
E. E. (Edward Elmer) Smith
A brilliant physicist, shattered by the loss of his family to a laboratory accident, transforms his grief into a singular, dangerous mission to purge the galaxy of lethal, uncontrolled atomic energy.
Alien Minds
E. Everett (Edward Everett) Evans
A secret agent with the power to project his mind into animals must stop a political conspiracy on a distant, alien world.
Ozymandias
Ivar Jorgensen
On a desolate, nameless world at the edge of the galaxy, five scientists and seven soldiers stumble upon an immortal alien machine standing alone among the dust.
Dead Giveaway
Randall Garrett
An abandoned alien city on a dead world turns out to be an active, automated classroom designed to coax humanity into its next evolutionary stage.
God's Green Country: A Novel of Canadian Rural Life
Ethel M. Chapman
A young woman's journey to rural Canada reveals the beauty and challenges of farm life, as she navigates love, community, and the pursuit of a simpler existence.
The Dark Other
Stanley G. (Stanley Grauman) Weinbaum
A dark, brooding presence threatens to shatter a young woman's world as her brilliant companion succumbs to an inexplicable, violent alternate identity that hungers for control.
The Letter of the Contract
Basil King
An impulse as small as skipping a routine check on her children sends a woman down a path that quietly dismantles her marriage.
The Lighted Match
Charles Neville Buck
An obscure European throne, a quiet American suitor, and a princess caught between statecraft and her own heart set the stage for an old-world romance of intrigue, masquerade, and sudden violence.
The Snare
Richard Rein Smith
A party of moon-walkers stumbles into an ancient alien trap that snatches them into hyperspace, forcing them to find a way out of an impossible cage.
Cape of Storms: A Novel
Percival Pollard
Youthful ambition burns bright, but the cynicism of the modern city proves a dangerous reef for a tender heart.
Drowsy
John Ames Mitchell
A gifted, daydreaming boy discovers he can transmit thoughts and manipulate physical forces, leading him from a quiet village to an astonishing flight across the solar system.
My Lady of the Chinese Courtyard
Elizabeth Cooper
A noblewoman’s intimate letters track the quiet collapse of traditional China beneath the encroaching tides of Western influence and generational change.
Operation Interstellar
George O. (George Oliver) Smith
Faster-than-light travel has conquered space, but humanity remains isolated across the stars by a delay in communication that only one disgraced engineer believes he can bridge.
The Blue Germ
Maurice Nicoll
A secret medical experiment promises humanity total freedom from disease and death, only to reveal that physical immortality strips life of passion, releases terrible societal hatreds, and brings civilization to a sudden, silent standstill.
The Bride of Dreams
Frederik van Eeden
In a quiet Dutch town, an aging man looks back across a lifetime torn between high spiritual longings and the wild, instinctual forces of human desire.
The Silver Stallion: A Comedy of Redemption
James Branch Cabell
A legendary hero leaves behind a void that his followers fill not with truth, but with convenient, comforting myths of his return.
This World Is Taboo
Murray Leinster
Driven by unexamined fear, two isolated planetary colonies hover on the brink of mutual destruction until a traveling medical officer uses biology and basic human logic to dismantle their feud.
Beautiful but poor
Julia Edwards
A poor working girl in late nineteenth-century New York guards a mysterious past while transforming every life she touches across a city of harsh boardinghouses and hidden fortunes.
Ditte: Girl Alive!
Martin Andersen Nexø
Born into the world without wedlock, a child inherits the heavy burden of her community's quiet cruelty before she takes her first breath. ---
Metamorphosis
Charles V. De Vet
Extraterrestrial parasites grant two scouts extraordinary abilities, but their deadly final form forces one man into a high-stakes hunt to destroy his former friend before humanity is consumed.