Free summaries
Novels — page 20
1,109 public-domain novels books, summarised. Page 20 of 24.
A Good-For-Nothing: 1876
Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
A pampered young aristocrat, banished to America after a foolish wager, transforms into a self-made man, only to return home and find his triumph shadowed by an irreversible distance.
All in the dark
Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
The mysteries of memory and the burdens of expectation weigh heavily on the young, but often resolve in the most mundane of ways. This narrative explores the quiet anxieties of a displaced nephew and the eccentric, sometimes suffocating, love of the aunt who raised him.
Out of the Earth
George Edrich
This story follows a group of political prisoners sentenced to "elimination" in a vast, subterranean labyrinth. They must navigate a world of suffocating darkness, dwindling resources, and the existential terror of a mythic predator known as the Grole.
Star Ship
Poul Anderson
HOOK Stranded on a brutal, Iron Age planet, the last descendants of an interstellar crew fight a desperate war to reach their derelict starship before a local tyrant seizes control of the galaxy.
The Judas Valley
Randall Garrett
The survival of an entire crew depends on one man’s ability to outwit a silent, burrowing enemy that turns human beings into unwilling puppets. This taut science fiction thriller pits individual intuition against a hive-mind threat.
A Ghetto Violet: From "Christian and Leah"
Leopold Kompert
The shadow of a father’s ruin threatens to consume his children, but they find strength in the fragile, enduring hope of a mother’s memory. It is a haunting portrait of love surviving in the narrow confines of a Ghetto.
Attrition
Jim Wannamaker
The harsh indifference of the cosmos confronts a cynical investigator when an entire crew vanishes on an alien world, leaving behind only scattered bones and an invisible, lethal secret.
Cry from a Far Planet
Tom Godwin
The struggle for galactic expansion collapses under the weight of human suspicion, as a lonely scout faces an alien intelligence that challenges his very definition of trust.
Doctor Claudius, A True Story
F. Marion (Francis Marion) Crawford
A scholar of humble means finds his life transformed by sudden, vast wealth and an all-consuming devotion to a woman he barely knows. This tale of high-stakes inheritance and transatlantic romance captures the tensions between old-world aristocratic codes and the shifting social landscape of the nineteenth century.
Footsteps of Fate
Louis Couperus
A quiet, creeping dread defines the bond between two men whose lives become inextricably and fatally tangled. Beneath the veneer of Victorian propriety lies a psychological nightmare where choice is a phantom and character is destiny.
Lamia's Winter-Quarters
Alfred Austin
This account of a winter escape to Tuscany captures the gentle rhythm of a life devoted to beauty, conversation, and the timeless landscapes of Italy. It serves as a quiet, meditative travelogue for those who cherish the intersection of nature and classical culture.
Roland Graeme: Knight. A Novel of Our Time
Agnes Maule Machar
The struggle to balance individual ambition with the urgent needs of the working class defines a young man's quest for purpose in a rapidly industrializing city.
The Flower of Forgiveness
Flora Annie Webster Steel
HOOK These stories capture the intersection of two worlds in colonial India, where the weight of ancient tradition meets the inexorable, often clumsy, pressure of Western law.
The Mercenaries
H. Beam Piper
The race to conquer space turns deadly when a secret research team realizes that one of their own is selling breakthroughs to the enemy. In this high-stakes thriller, the price of scientific progress is paid in blood.
The Perfectionists
Arnold Castle
HOOK A man discovers an alien infiltration scheme and turns the tables by baiting the invaders into his office, where he dispatches them to gather proof of an impending planetary takeover.
The Return Of The Soul: 1896
Robert Hichens
The terror of a childhood cruelty returns in adulthood when a man suspects his wife is the reincarnated soul of the cat he once murdered. This psychological horror tale explores the suffocating weight of past sins and the thin membrane between human reason and animal instinct.
The space visitors
Edmond Hamilton
The sky holds a silent, terrifying menace, and humanity’s only hope for survival lies in understanding the nature of an enemy that views our entire world as nothing more than a bottom-feeder’s harvest.
Whosoever Shall Offend
F. Marion (Francis Marion) Crawford
A cold-blooded schemer targets a young heir’s life and fortune, only to collide with a fiercely loyal woman who will stop at nothing to protect the boy she loves.
A Fountain Sealed
Anne Douglas Sedgwick
A devoted daughter confronts the unspoken secrets of her mother’s past, creating a quiet, atmospheric struggle between duty and personal truth. This story captures the fragile, often stifling dynamics of an intellectual family navigating their own emotional complexities.
A Modern Idyll
Frank Harris
A minister’s struggle between his spiritual calling and a clandestine romantic obsession leads to a public display of morality that ends in a surprising, if ethically compromised, reward.
Danger
T. S. (Timothy Shay) Arthur
The social glass may seem an innocent pleasure, but beneath the surface of refined entertainment lies a hidden, perilous current that threatens to destroy the lives of the unsuspecting.
Divinity
Joseph Samachson
Bradley is a petty criminal who escapes a mandatory "regeneration" process by stealing a lifeboat, only to crash-land on a primitive planet where the locals mistake him for a powerful deity. This science fiction story explores the intersection of impostor syndrome and self-actualization as Bradley navigates the…
Pariah Planet
Murray Leinster
When a plague-stricken world is marked for extinction by its neighbors, a lone medical officer must use science and diplomacy to prevent a galactic genocide.
Quicksands
Adolf Streckfuss
A man burdened by debt and despair finds a second chance by assuming a new identity, only to discover that the past—and the people he left behind—are never truly out of reach.
The Old Die Rich
H. L. (Horace Leonard) Gold
The mystery of impoverished elders found dead with fortunes hidden in their clothing leads an amateur detective into a dangerous, chronal conspiracy. This story explores the intersection of method acting, time travel, and cold-blooded opportunism.
The Sinister Invasion
Edmond Hamilton
A routine life as an electrical engineer ends when a mysterious stranger recruits a man for a dangerous, interstellar intelligence mission.
When the pilgrims hit Piperock
W. C. (Wilbur C.) Tuttle
HOOK In the dusty, chaotic heart of a Montana cow-town, a reluctant group of cowboys finds themselves roped into a disastrous Thanksgiving pageant that promises more gunpowder than grace.
Kittens
Svend Fleuron
This chronicle follows a litter of kittens born into the wild, capturing the harsh, instinctive beauty of their struggle for survival against farmers, dogs, and the elements. It is an unsentimental, vivid portrait of feline life that reads like a naturalistic epic.
Mimi's Marriage
Lidiia Ivanovna Veselitskaia
This brisk, witty social satire exposes the hollow artifice of late 19th-century Russian high society. It follows a young woman’s disillusioning journey from a "brilliant" arranged marriage to the realization that her life is merely a performative dance of vanity.
![Cover of Tales of My Time, Vol. 2 (of 3): Who Is She? [concluded]](https://cdn.myebooksbuy.com/c/tales-of-my-time-vol-2-of-3-who-is-she-concluded-william-pitt-scargill.webp)
Tales of My Time, Vol. 2 (of 3): Who Is She? [concluded]
William Pitt Scargill
The quiet tragedy of a nameless woman’s displacement meets the brash, ill-fated idealism of revolutionary youth in this dual-narrative portrait of late eighteenth-century social upheaval.
The Revolt of the Star Men
Raymond Z. (Raymond Zinke) Gallun
An Earthman and his companion must defend two planets from a power-hungry Martian nobleman who commands a legion of monstrous, insect-like warriors from the depths of space. This gripping tale of interplanetary intrigue explores the thin line between absolute villainy and the complex motivations of an alien culture.
The Vermilion Pencil: A Romance of China
Homer Lea
The Vermilion Pencil is a haunting, atmospheric exploration of fate, forbidden love, and the collision of empires in early 20th-century China. It chronicles the lives of a sheltered tea-farmer’s daughter and a mysterious foreigner whose destinies intersect amidst the decaying grandeur of an ancient civilization.
Wild Honey: Stories of South Africa
Cynthia Stockley
The vast, unforgiving expanses of the early twentieth-century African veld serve as a crucible for human desire, where colonial ambition and personal tragedy collide with the indifferent power of the landscape.
Yermah the Dorado: The story of a lost race
Frona Eunice Wait
A legendary leader navigates the decline of a utopian civilization in this ambitious, mythic chronicle of a lost continent. It serves as both a sweeping fantasy romance and a philosophical meditation on the cyclical nature of human progress.
A Modern Cinderella
Amanda M. Douglas
A quiet, hardworking orphan finds her life transformed when an unexpected illness leads her into the care of a woman she imagines as her fairy godmother.
All Day September
Roger Kuykendall
A lone prospector, stranded by a meteor strike on the desolate Moon, must turn his ingenuity into a lifeline. Survival hinges not just on resourcefulness, but on the stubborn, quiet pride of a man who knows his own worth.
Assignment's End
Roger D. Aycock
The human mask is a fragile thing, easily discarded once the true self remembers its origin among the stars. To be human is a temporary assignment, one that ends in either tragic madness or a long-awaited homecoming.
Dora
Johanna Spyri
A grieving girl finds a new family and a renewed capacity for joy through the kindness of neighbors in the Swiss countryside.
Sense of Obligation
Harry Harrison
A gifted athlete from an extreme environment accepts a desperate mission to stop a planetary war, only to discover that the true conflict lies in the nature of life itself.
The Best Man
Harold MacGrath
A man discovers a secret that could ruin the woman he loves, forcing a choice between his own integrity and his desire for happiness. This collection of stories captures the tension between public reputation and private conscience in the early twentieth-century American social landscape.
A Feast of Demons
Joseph Samachson
A desperate scientist discovers how to manipulate the fundamental laws of thermodynamics, accidentally triggering a global crisis that renders human mortality a thing of the past.
Arne
Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson
A solitary boy in the Norwegian highlands grapples with a tragic family legacy and his own restless spirit. This lyrical narrative explores the transformative power of love, song, and the quiet search for belonging.
Claire: The Blind Love of a Blind Hero, by a Blind Author
Leslie Burton Blades
The struggle between two men for the heart of a woman is intensified when one is a blind artist and the other a sighted possessive protector. This raw drama explores the boundaries of human desire and perception.
Frigid Fracas
Mack Reynolds
A soldier’s quest for status in a rigid, caste-bound future reveals a deeper, shared stagnation between rival global powers. What begins as a personal climb up the social ladder evolves into an unlikely cross-border conspiracy to reform civilization itself.
Madcap
George Gibbs
The thrill of a high-speed life gives way to the quiet discovery of authentic existence. An impulsive heiress finds that true freedom is not found in the air or behind a motor, but in the company of a wandering soul.
That worlds may live
Nelson S. Bond
The universe faces a silent, encroaching catastrophe as stars begin to fade, and a small group of Earth scientists must embark on an impossible, desperate journey across the galaxy to prevent total annihilation.
The Bridal March
Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson
A haunting melody weaves through the generations of a rural Norwegian valley, binding the joys and sorrows of those who hear it to the quiet, enduring mysteries of their own hearts.
The End of the Rainbow
Mary Esther Miller MacGregor
The pursuit of personal ambition often masks a deeper, quieter purpose, and this story traces the long journey required for a young man to finally see the truth.