Free summaries
Novels — page 22
2,572 public-domain novels books, summarised. Page 22 of 54.
Leonie, the Typewriter: A Romance of Actual Life
Wenona Gilman
A suspenseful Victorian melodrama where a working woman uncovers a web of inheritance theft, hidden identities, and lethal rivalries, all while fighting to reclaim a man’s stolen birthright from a beautiful, cold-hearted antagonist.
Shireen and her Friends: Pages from the Life of a Persian Cat
Gordon Stables
A Persian cat, wise beyond her years, recounts her journey from the royal palaces of the East to the quiet comfort of a British home. This life story serves as both a warm memoir and a poignant plea for the compassionate treatment of animals.
The Swing of the Pendulum
Frances Mary Peard
The heart, like a pendulum, finds no permanent rest between the conflicting forces of duty and desire. This narrative map tracks a shifting season of human attachment, where choices are often made in the shadow of unspoken promises.
The Vibration Wasps
Frank Belknap Long
HOOK A husband and wife’s desperate voyage to the mysterious, mist-shrouded surface of Jupiter transforms into a terrifying struggle for survival against gargantuan, sentient entities.
Elsie
Alexander Lange Kielland
This is a piercing, unsentimental portrait of a young girl’s descent within a town that guards its own comfort with pious fervor. It captures the jagged divide between the righteous and the forgotten on a single, fateful Christmas Eve.
His Master's Voice
Randall Garrett
A secret agent must outwit a brilliant, paranoid, and literal-minded spaceship named McGuire when the vessel refuses to accept orders after its pilot’s voice is damaged in a sabotage attempt.
Jewel sowers: a novel
Edith Allonby
The world of Lucifram turns everything upside down, forcing its inhabitants to live, worship, and struggle in a state of inverted morality. This ethereal, allegorical tale follows a young woman’s journey from a life of silent devotion toward a hard-won, transcendent freedom.
Recoil
George O. (George Oliver) Smith
A rogue scientist turns a space-based communication hub into a formidable weapon, forcing its engineers to master the volatile physics of an electronic cannon to survive an onslaught of space pirates.
The House of Armour
Marshall Saunders
A young woman arrives in Halifax to reclaim her family’s dignity, only to find herself entangled in the troubled, secret-laden lives of the elite Armour family.
The Kings of the East: A Romance of the Near Future
Sydney C. Grier
A restless, high-stakes political intrigue unfolds as a disillusioned power-broker orchestrates a grand scheme to restore a kingdom in the East. This is a story of shifting allegiances, personal redemption, and the collision between cold ambition and the stubborn persistence of love.
The Story of a Genius
Ossip Schubin
A gifted musician struggles to reconcile his artistic integrity with the hollow demands of fame. This narrative explores the heavy cost of genius and the fragile nature of human connection.
The Strange Friend of Tito Gil
Pedro Antonio de Alarcón
A young Spanish cobbler attempts suicide for love, only to find himself befriended by Death, who offers him instruction, political power, and a strange second chance at life.
A bitter reckoning
Collins, E. Burke, Mrs.
A desperate mother, a dark secret, and a daughter marked for ruin collide in the shadows of a Louisiana estate. Beneath the veneer of Southern society, a ruthless schemer weaves a web of kidnapping and forced marriage.
An Obscure Apostle: A Dramatic Story
Eliza Orzeszkowa
The quest of a young man to bridge the chasm between tradition and the modern world unfolds as a quiet, urgent plea for human understanding. It is a story of faith, intellectual longing, and the courage required to break ancestral chains.
Omega, the Man
Lowell Howard Morrow
The last man on a dying Earth clings to his pride and his memories while battling a creature that threatens the final drop of water.
Prescott of Saskatchewan
Harold Bindloss
A stoic Canadian farmer poses as his troubled English friend to save a reputation, only to be dragged into a dangerous web of local murder allegations, police suspicion, and forbidden love.
Prison of a Billion Years
Stephen Marlowe
A desperate man flees his execution by escaping into the primordial past, only to realize that he has become the unintended architect of all future existence on a barren, infant Earth.
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.
Strife and Peace
Fredrika Bremer
A proud Swedish housekeeper and a fiercely patriotic Norwegian steward clash continuously over household traditions and national pride, only to discover a quiet affection growing beneath their stubborn bickering.
The Guest of Quesnay
Booth Tarkington
The story begins in the bustling, sun-drenched boulevards of Paris, where an observant landscape painter finds his quiet routine transformed by a chance encounter with a mysterious woman and the arrival of a man burdened by a dark, fragmented past.
The King of the City
Keith Laumer
This is a hard-boiled science fiction caper set in a fractured, post-apocalyptic cityscape, following a disillusioned space-service veteran who must navigate a world of warring petty tyrants to locate a hidden cache of star-charts.
The Star Hyacinths
James H. Schmitz
A remote, long-abandoned shipwreck holds a fortune in stolen gems and a terrifying, unseen killer. A lone investigator must outwit treacherous partners to claim the salvage before his pursuers arrive.
Wall of Crystal, Eye of Night
Algis Budrys
HOOK A titan of industry, obsessed with controlling the emotions of others, finds his own reality dissolving in a hall of mirrors. He learns too late that the most dangerous dream is the one you believe.
A Positive Romance: 1898
Edward Bellamy
An old memory unfolds by a winter fire, revealing how a young man's philosophical ideal collapsed into a moment of pure reverence.
Five nights at the Five Pines
Harriet A. (Harriet Avery) Gaul
HOOK A crumbling, isolated Cape Cod cottage holds a secret history that begins to unravel the moment a young, impressionable writer and her playwright husband move in.
Millennium
Everett B. Cole
High-tech protectors from an advanced civilization sweep a feudal world to reclaim forgotten military artifacts before primitive tyrants accidentally destroy their own society.
New Lamps
Robert Moore Williams
HOOK A scientist travels to the dusty, dangerous cliffs of Mars seeking a legendary figure who trades “new lamps for old”—a mysterious process promising to heal the ailments of the body and the soul.
Planet of Dread
Dwight V. Swain
A lone operative from the Federation travels to a hostile alien world to stop a cruel despot from unleashing a plague of living, devouring slime upon the galaxy.
The Emigrant
L. F. (Liubov Fedorovna) Dostoevskaia
A restless, disillusioned woman seeks meaning in the ancient stones of Rome, only to find her spiritual hunger caught between the pull of the church and the volatile magnetism of a countryman.
The Evil Guest
Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
The shadows of Gray Forest hold a secret that poisons a family, leading from quiet domestic decay to a brutal, inexplicable murder. It is a haunting exploration of how guilt and hidden sins fester in the dark corners of the human heart.
The fortunate calamity
Pansy
The arrival of a long-estranged relative acts as a catalyst for a family in quiet decline, unearthing buried secrets and shifting the course of their future. This story explores how hidden integrity and quiet acts of grace can transform the fortunes of those caught in the shadow of past misunderstandings.
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.
The short life
Francis Donovan
An extraterrestrial crash leaves a dying traveler forced to inhabit a dog, while his failed attempt to possess an unborn child leaves a human boy trapped in a state of cognitive limbo.
Wanderers of the Wolf-Moon
Nelson S. Bond
A mild-mannered secretary finds his true calling as a leader when a luxury space-yacht crashes on the hostile, icy satellite of Titan, forcing him to guide the survivors through a brutal wilderness.
Young Grandison, volume 2 (of 2): A series of letters from young persons to their friends
Madame de (Maria Geertruida van de Werken) Cambon
This epistolary narrative follows the virtuous exploits of a refined young gentleman whose unwavering commitment to duty, compassion, and self-improvement serves as a guiding light for his circle of friends.
Med Service
Murray Leinster
A lone physician and his small, furry companion face a lethal conspiracy on a silent planet where the most effective weapon is not a blaster, but a knowledge of human behavior.
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.
Purple Forever
Jack Lewis
A weary pilot and a ragtag crew of seekers arrive on Venus, hunting for a legendary fountain of youth that promised immortality, only to discover a nightmare of cold-blooded biological theft.
The curse of the painted cliffs
W. C. (Wilbur C.) Tuttle
A tough young woman in a brutal desert mining town holds out against corruption while waiting to settle a debt of honor.
The Girl in His Mind
Robert F. Young
HOOK A professional investigator of the human psyche discovers that to solve his most difficult case, he must hunt a suspect through the labyrinthine, hallucinated landscape of his own buried memories.
The Rebel of Valkyr
Alfred Coppel
A weary warrior-lord must navigate a treacherous imperial court and a web of dark, forbidden science to save a princess from a usurper’s lethal machinations.
You Can't Buy Eternity!
Dwight V. Swain
** A man hunted across the desolate wastes of Venus holds a secret that could rewrite the nature of existence. He must navigate a web of betrayals where eternity itself is the most dangerous currency of all.
A Colonial Reformer, Vol. 1 (of 3)
Rolf Boldrewood
An idealistic English gentleman travels to Australia with the lofty ambition of reforming colonial society, only to find himself repeatedly humbled by the harsh realities of the frontier.
Cat and Mouse
Ralph Williams
In the frozen silence of an Alaskan wilderness, a lonely trapper discovers a rift in reality. He must outwit an alien intelligence that views his entire world as nothing more than a field for harvest.
Hare and Tortoise
Pierre Coalfleet
A young woman struggles to bridge the chasm between her own intuitive, impulsive spirit and her husband’s rigid, cultivated world in the rugged landscape of the Canadian West.
Never Come Midnight
H. L. (Horace Leonard) Gold
In this science fiction narrative, a bitter man seeks to cheat death through a dark alien bargain, only to find that his quest for immortality transforms him into a hollow artifact of his own resentment.
Pariahs of Piperock
W. C. (Wilbur C.) Tuttle
This Western tale follows two wandering prospectors who find themselves caught in the crossfire of a small-town election, proving that in the rugged West, peace and quiet are often the first casualties of a democratic vote.
The Delectable Mountains
Arthur Colton
The spirit of this collection is found in the wayfarer’s quiet gaze, observing the fragile, often eccentric lives of those dwelling on the margins of society. It is a meditation on human dignity, found in places where the world expects only ruin.