Free summaries
Novels — page 21
2,574 public-domain novels books, summarised. Page 21 of 54.
Damned
E. S. (Ethel Smith) Dorrance
In a dark, electric-lit underworld, a newly arrived woman must narrate her earthly misfortunes to a sardonic Satan to determine her eternal destination.
Doomsday on Ajiat
Neil R. Jones
A human mind preserved in a cosmic coffin wakes millions of years after Earth has died, joining a race of mechanical explorers on a journey toward a sun about to explode.
Fifty Per Cent Prophet
Randall Garrett
He is a fraud whose visions keep coming true, and the government agencies watching him cannot decide whether to lock him up or make him a director.
Hall of Mirrors
Fredric Brown
A young mathematician vanishes from a sunny patio, only to wake in a windowless room with a letter that explains he has traveled fifty years into his own future.
Hidden Treasure: The Story of a Chore Boy Who Made the Old Farm Pay
John Thomas Simpson
An energetic young nephew revitalizes a dilapidated Pennsylvania homestead by introducing modern engineering, systematic accounting, and forward-thinking financial strategy to his reluctant uncle.
Mavericks
W. C. (Wilbur C.) Tuttle
Shadowed by a bloody stagecoach robbery and two hundred pounds of stolen raw gold, a Southwestern valley becomes a battleground of buried parentage, range theft, and sudden murder.
Morale: A Story of the War of 1941-43
Murray Leinster
Panic strikes the American eastern seaboard as a massive, near-invulnerable enemy war machine rolls ashore, laying waste to infrastructure and crushing civilian spirit.
My robot
Henry Slesar
Separated from human warmth by his father's obsessive work, a young boy turns to a mechanical creation for solace and protection, discovering too late the dark cost of total obedience.
"O Thou, My Austria!"
Ossip Schubin
A young girl’s heart breaks open against the grand, indifferent backdrop of rural estates, garrison towns, and the suffocating expectations of the Austro-Hungarian aristocracy.
The Avenger
Damon Knight
A lone scientist breeds a logic-driven superman in deep space to destroy Earth's alien conquerors, only to discover too late that cold reason recognizes no human allegiance.
The Later Life
Louis Couperus
A marriage frozen in long-standing bitterness begins to thaw, only to fracture along entirely unexpected fault lines when new passions and late-blooming ideals disrupt a quiet Hague household.
The Machine That Floats
Joe Gibson
A young engineer discovers the secret to nullifying gravity, only to realize his invention is too dangerous for a world obsessed with military power.
The Marquis of Peñalta (Marta y María): A Realistic Social Novel
Armando Palacio Valdés
Two sisters in a provincial Spanish town choose radically different responses to life, framing a rich drama of spiritual fanaticism, domestic quietude, and the clash between worldly love and religious asceticism.
The Ordeal of Elizabeth
Anonymous
An impulse marriage to a charming singer traps a young woman in a secret past, driving her from quiet rural isolation into high-society intrigue, a high-profile murder trial, and the desperate fight for her own life.
The Secret Martians
Jack Sharkey
An advertising copywriter with a knack for spotting fatal flaws is sent to Mars to investigate fifteen boys who vanished into thin air.
A woman's soul
Charles Garvice
A stage actress in Victorian England discovers that the true theater of her life lies in navigating secret aristocrats, stolen inheritances, and a deep love that defies social class.
Lord Tedric
E. E. (Edward Elmer) Smith
A humble blacksmith learns to forge super-steel with the help of a time traveler posing as a god, changing the fate of an ancient empire.
Madame X: a story of mother-love
J. W. McConaughy
A mother's desperate search for her son leads to a dramatic trial and a shocking revelation.
Monkey On His Back
Charles V. De Vet
A man with no memory of his past wanders through a strange, hostile world, only to discover that the one thing he cannot escape is his own conscience.
Phoenix
Marion Zimmer Bradley
An ordinary young man wakes to godlike telekinetic control over energy and matter, only to find that his terrifying raw power shatters his relationship and leaves him utterly isolated.
Blue trousers
Murasaki Shikibu
In a refined world of lacquered screens and seasonal rituals, love is less a quiet sanctuary than a turbulent force that reshapes every domestic boundary.
Born Again
Alfred W. (Alfred William) Lawson
A man unearths an ancient utopian civilization, inherits its lost wisdom, and returns to modern society to wage a peaceful, uncompromising war against human greed, superstition, and hypocrisy.
My Pretty Maid
Miller, Alex. McVeigh, Mrs.
Driven by baby swaps, forged letters, and murderous jealousy, this late-nineteenth-century dime novel tests how far an innocent young woman can endure the malice of a hidden rival.
The sea horror
Edmond Hamilton
An ancient underwater civilization threatens to drown the world, leaving humanity's survival in the hands of a deep-sea submarine expedition.
The Spanish Chest
Edna A. Brown
An American family's winter on the Channel Island of Jersey turns into an enchanting historical mystery filled with coastal tides, old manors, and forgotten royal secrets.
Under One Flag
Richard Marsh
Behind every theatrical curtain, domestic squabble, and competitive green lies a human being trying desperately to save face.
A Child of the Orient
Demetra Vaka
This memoir captures the singular experience of a young woman raised within the fading grandeur of the Ottoman Empire, charting her journey from a childhood defined by inherited prejudice to her eventual life as an immigrant in America. It is a work of cultural collision, exploring how one reconciles deep-seated…
A Lady of Rome
F. Marion (Francis Marion) Crawford
A tale of love, secrets, and redemption set in the elegant and treacherous social circles of Rome.
Our coming world
Alfred Charles Michaud
A disillusioned observer discovers a blueprint for a better society through an extraordinary encounter with an advanced extraterrestrial civilization. This vision offers a radical alternative to the corruption and suffering of contemporary human life.
Susan Proudleigh
Herbert George De Lisser
A proud, ambitious Kingston woman leaves behind neighborhood rivalries to build a lucrative life on the Panama Canal, only to navigate volatile lovers and sudden tragedy in a rapidly changing world.
The Thirst Quenchers
Rick Raphael
A massive earthquake ruptures the Pacific Northwest's fragile water grid, forcing two snow hydrologists into a high-stakes, underwater race to prevent total regional catastrophe.
Warlord of Kor
Terry Carr
On the edge of charted space, human explorers encounter the stagnant survivors of an ancient civilization and a mysterious god that enforces their decline.
—And Devious the Line of Duty
Tom Godwin
When a young Space Patrol officer is thrown into a web of galactic diplomacy, he learns that saving Earth requires more than blazing blasters—it takes a master manipulator who knows how to let others fall into their own traps.
Even Stephen
Charles A. Stearns
Even the most perfect society is vulnerable to a single, ruthless individual armed with a weapon and a lack of conscience. This story explores the clash between idealistic isolationism and the corrupting nature of absolute power.
Medal of Honor
Mack Reynolds
A down-on-his-luck scout pilot accidentally stumbles into a cynical conspiracy, only to find that the highest honor in the galaxy is the most dangerous burden of all. He must navigate a world where his own heroism has rendered him untouchable, forcing him to confront whether he is a fraud or a man finally finding…
Paul and His Dog, v.2 (Novels of Paul de Kock Volume XIV)
Paul de Kock
A man retreats from the world with his dog, only to find that life in the country is as tangled and noisy as the city he left behind.
Pictures of the Socialistic Future: (freely adapted from Bebel)
Eugen Richter
A committed socialist’s diary chronicles his growing disillusionment as the utopian promises of a new revolutionary regime collapse into a rigid, surveillance-heavy prison state.
The Drug
C. C. MacApp
A weary corporate manager discovers a experimental drug that unlocks the latent, unconscious potential of the human mind, leading to a profound, unsettling transformation of his physical and social reality.
The Lost Tribes of Venus
Erik Fennel
HOOK Stranded on a hostile, water-choked Venus, an Earth engineer must survive both the planet's lethal biology and a vengeful human rival by forging an alliance with a local woman.
Bad Memory
Patrick Fahy
A desperate fortune seeker trades his humanity for a lucrative five-year stint as an alien on a distant planet. When the time comes to return to his own life, he realizes he has lost the only connection that ever gave it meaning.
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.
Judith Moore
Joanna E. (Joanna Ellen) Wood
A brilliant singer finds an impossible choice between the rarefied heights of global fame and the quiet, grounding peace of a Canadian village.
The Chemically Pure Warriors
Allen Kim Lang
A group of hyper-sanitized, germ-phobic soldiers discovers that their rigid isolation from an alien planet is a lie, forcing a choice between their militant indoctrination and a forgotten common humanity.
The Twilight of the Souls
Louis Couperus
The twilight of a life is rarely a sudden sunset, but rather a long, slow accumulation of shadows. This novel traces that inevitable fading across the lives of a prominent, disintegrating family, capturing the quiet terror of watching one’s own vitality slip away.
Tyrants of Time
Stephen Marlowe
The fabric of history is brittle, and a secret cabal of future agents intends to shatter it to install a permanent global dictatorship. Only a rogue time-traveler can stop them, but the cost of saving the future is an endless journey through the past.
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.
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.
"Broken Music"
Phyllis Bottome
A young man arrives in Paris seeking to fulfill his destiny as a composer, only to find himself entangled in a web of manipulative socialites and unrequited devotion.