Free summaries
Novels — page 48
2,574 public-domain novels books, summarised. Page 48 of 54.
The chariot of the sun
Roger Pocock
Set in a crumbling, near-future Britain, this narrative follows a lonely inventor’s desperate struggle to defend his Queen and country against a cabal of corrupt officials and encroaching global powers.
The isle of lies
M. P. (Matthew Phipps) Shiel
A brilliant, feral youth raised in total isolation breaks free to claim a woman from the outside world, setting in motion a collision between his superhuman intellect and the decaying vanity of modern society.
The Temptress (La tierra de todos)
Vicente Blasco Ibáñez
The devastating beauty of a woman wreaks havoc in the lives of men who, having fled the old world for the promise of the new, find their ambitions and moral fortitude tested by her presence.
Time and the Woman
G. Gordon (George Gordon) Dewey
HOOK Driven by a desperate, vanity-fueled obsession with eternal youth, an aging woman hijacks an experimental faster-than-light spaceship, only to discover that the laws of physics are crueler than the ravages of time.
Vittoria
George Meredith
A prima donna finds herself at the center of a revolutionary storm, caught between her commitment to the cause of Italian liberation and the magnetic, dangerous pull of the Austrian officers sworn to crush it.
What Necessity Knows
L. (Lily) Dougall
A quiet, unsettled Canadian frontier serves as the stage for a collision between rigid tradition and the desperate, often misguided, quest for spiritual certainty.
Far enough to touch
Stephen Bartholomew
The moonship Prospero is returning to Earth when its youngest crew member, Rene Duport, suddenly abandons the vessel, leaping into the silent, terrifying abyss of space. This quiet, chilling story explores the boundary between human sanity and the irresistible pull of the unknown.
Love of Brothers
Katharine Tynan
An Irish estate holds secrets of the past, as a young man and woman face a tangled legacy of illegitimacy and hidden identity.
Moon Glow
G. L. Vandenburg
The first men to stand upon the moon find the surface barren, yet one discovery among the lunar dust threatens to turn their triumphant return into a cold, existential confrontation.
Professor Huskins
Lettie M. Cummings
A gifted mesmerist struggles to reconcile his scientific theories with the unpredictable, psychic influence of his own family.
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 incredible invasion
George O. (George Oliver) Smith
The threat of war is no longer a matter of explosive force, but of subtle, invisible influence. When the weapons of the future are germs rather than bombs, how does a diplomat fight a shadow?
Jess of the Rebel Trail
H. A. (Hiram Alfred) Cody
HOOK A young woman flees a suffocating life of parental control, finding refuge on a weathered wood-boat and the rugged wilderness of the river country.
Jinx Ship to the Rescue
Alfred Coppel
A disgraced captain and his crew of misfits command a derelict, cursed spaceship, only to find themselves the unlikely saviors of the entire Space Navy during a desperate, sun-scorched rescue mission.**
My Lady Valentine
Octavia Roberts
A cynical editor finds his skepticism challenged when he begins a correspondence with a mysterious contributor, leading him into the orbit of a spirited young woman living in a secluded garden.
Puppet Government
George Revelle
The last taxpayer in a world of total government bureaucracy discovers that his stubborn refusal to conform makes him the most powerful man in the country.
Pythias
Frederik Pohl
The narrator sits in a prison cell awaiting execution for the murder of his oldest friend, Laurence Connaught. He confesses to the crime willingly, justifying the cold-blooded killing as a necessary act to save the world from an impossible power.
Radio mates
Benjamin Witwer
A jilted scientist uses a revolutionary teleportation machine to escape reality with his lost love, leaving behind a trail of scientific brilliance and psychological ruin.
The Impostor
Harold Bindloss
A hardened prairie farmer assumes the identity of a disgraced gentleman to claim a disputed inheritance, risking everything to save a struggling Canadian colony from ruin.
The Minus Woman
R. R. (Russell Robert) Winterbotham
A lonely asteroid becomes the stage for a cosmic collision between two realities, where the laws of physics dissolve into the arrival of an impossible visitor.
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.
An Unpardonable Liar
Gilbert Parker
The past rarely stays buried, especially when it is tethered to a secret kept for twelve long years. A chance encounter in a quiet English town forces a reckoning between those who have moved on and the ghosts they left behind.
By foul means
Patrick Leyton
A beautiful, unhappy heiress is drawn to a crumbling Scottish tower, where a mysterious signal pulls her into a dangerous web of international intrigue and a long-buried past.
Captain Jim
Mary Grant Bruce
Amid the shadow of the First World War, an Australian family in England turns their home into a sanctuary for the wounded, finding grace in the face of loss and the quiet endurance of duty.
Fran
J. Breckenridge (John Breckenridge) Ellis
A young woman arrives in a quiet, judgmental town seeking a home and confronting a man who is hiding a secret from his past. She is a vibrant, unsettling force, forcing those around her to look at their own lives with newfound, uncomfortable honesty.
Opportunities
Susan Warner
A young girl seeks to reconcile her newfound faith with the rigid, often uncharitable expectations of her household. She learns that true service is not a grand, singular act, but a persistent, humble commitment to the needs of others.
Outside Saturn
Robert E. Gilbert
A young man caught in the gravity of a criminal scheme finds his moral compass spinning when he is cast adrift in the rings of Saturn. This compact tale of space-faring outlaws and lonely watchmen balances low-gravity action with a surprising earnestness regarding the value of a single human life.
The Circuit Riders
R. C. FitzPatrick
The lights on the board glow as red, flickering indicators of human intent, but the men watching them must decide if a spike in intensity is a murder in the making or just a bad day at the ball game.
The Odyssey of Sam Meecham
Charles E. Fritch
A timid factory worker discovers a secret, high-performance engine wiring configuration, granting him the means to abandon his stifling existence and finally chase his lifelong dream of interstellar travel.
The Patriot
Charles L. Fontenay
The pursuit of liberty often demands a higher cost than the preservation of comfort. In a future where history is silenced and rhythm is regulated, a singular artist attempts to compose the sound of freedom.
Violet Osborne, Volume 3 (of 3)
Ponsonby, Emily, Lady
The third volume of this Victorian chronicle follows a community bound by duty, disappointment, and the slow, arduous process of personal redemption. It serves as a quiet, thoughtful study of the burdens placed upon those who aspire to be "good" in a rigid social landscape.
A broken blossom vol. 1 of 3
Florence Marryat
A young woman, adrift after the death of her mother, seeks refuge in a foreign village, only to find that the past and the present are equally haunted by secrets and ruin.
Northern Lights, Volume 5
Gilbert Parker
In the vast, rugged expanse of the Canadian frontier, men wrestle with the ghosts of their pasts and the moral consequences of their choices as they strive for redemption in a lawless, unforgiving land.
Patrol
William L. Hamling
This is a story of a future where humanity believes it has mastered the universe, only to find that its ultimate technological security is no match for the return of the divine.
Second chance
Robert Hoskins
A powerful, haunted industrialist seeks to rewrite his past, only to discover that the soul’s deepest patterns may be more difficult to outrun than time itself.
The Laboratorians
Edward Peattie
HOOK A perfectionist scientist finds that rooting out incompetence in a lunar research facility is a lonely, thankless crusade that demands he sacrifice his reputation—and his heart—to ensure the truth.
The Purple Pariah
Byron Tustin
The universe is a vast and indifferent expanse, yet even here, a chance encounter with a lonely, misunderstood exile can bridge the impossible divide between species. This haunting tale of isolation and redemption explores the fragile connection between two lost humans and a creature burdened by ancient wisdom.
The test of Donald Norton
Robert E. (Robert Eugene) Pinkerton
A young man of mixed heritage struggles to forge an identity between the traditions of his Ojibwa upbringing and the rigid, often prejudiced world of the Hudson’s Bay fur trade.
The Ultroom Error
Jerry Sohl
Two time-traveling bureaucrats attempt to correct a catastrophic error, treating human history as a playground for their dangerous, clumsy experiments.
To Leeward
F. Marion (Francis Marion) Crawford
The tragedy of a beautiful, impulsive woman caught in a hollow marriage unfolds against the backdrop of an unforgiving, aristocratic Rome. Driven by a desperate, illicit passion, she seeks to rewrite her destiny, only to find that the past and present collide with lethal force.
Torn Sails: A Tale of a Welsh Village
Allen Raine
The rugged coast of Wales provides the backdrop for this intimate look at the emotional entanglements and quiet, enduring strength of a small, isolated village community.
Dead men's shoes, vol. 1 (of 3)
M. E. (Mary Elizabeth) Braddon
A desperate marriage, a secret abandonment, and a cold-blooded hunt for a fortune unfold in this study of social ambition and the moral wreckage left in the wake of poverty.
Every Man for Himself
Herbert Joseph Moorhouse
Adventure in the Canadian wilderness and city corridors hinges on a single, elusive tan satchel. A young man discovers that the most dangerous secrets often hide behind the most ordinary facades.
Girl of the Silver Sphere
J. Harvey (John Harvey) Haggard
A young man discovers a beautiful, primitive girl living on a distant, isolated planet and becomes dangerously obsessed with bridging the vast, existential gap between their two worlds.
Headhunters of Nuamerica
Stanton A. (Stanton Arthur) Coblentz
This fast-paced science fiction tale follows a man and woman who survive a twentieth-century bombing by falling into a state of suspended animation, only to awaken in a bizarre, authoritarian future where they are treated as criminals.
Home is Where You Left It
Stephen Marlowe
When a failed space colony is forced to flee across a deadly desert, one man must decide whether a traitorous father deserves to be remembered as a hero or a villain.
It
Hayden Howard
A stranded space captain struggles against a malevolent, parasitic organism that has seized control of his motor functions, turning his own body into a weapon against his crew.
Land Beyond the Flame
Evelyn Goldstein
This science fiction adventure follows a societal outcast who rejects his civilization’s cold logic to save his sister, ultimately forging a bridge between two warring species.