The whole shelf
All free summaries — page 355
34,239 public-domain books, summarised. Page 355 of 714.
Modern Whaling & Bear-Hunting: A record of present-day whaling with up-to-date appliances in many parts of the world, and of bear and seal hunting in the Arctic regions
W. G. (William Gordon) Burn Murdoch
A firsthand account of early twentieth-century industrial whaling and Arctic adventure, where the relentless pursuit of nature’s giants meets the camaraderie of men facing the frozen north.
Money: Thoughts for God's Stewards
Andrew Murray
This exploration of Christian stewardship challenges readers to view money not as a possession, but as a spiritual tool for surrender, testing, and radical service to others.
My Actor-Husband: A true story of American stage life
Anonymous
The world of the theater is a fragile, glittering trap, where the pursuit of art frequently demands the sacrifice of the heart and the home. This candid narrative serves as a stark warning to those who believe that stage life and domestic stability can ever truly coexist.
Nina Balatka
Anthony Trollope
In a city defined by its ancient barriers, a Christian girl and a Jewish merchant must choose between the sanctity of their love and the crushing weight of their communities’ expectations.
On the Mexican Highlands, with a Passing Glimpse of Cuba
William Seymour Edwards
This travelogue documents an American’s journey through the Mexican highlands and Cuba at the dawn of the twentieth century. It offers a vivid, if historically conditioned, portrait of a world transitioning toward modernity.
Over Fen and Wold
James John Hissey
Seeking the picturesque in a landscape often dismissed as monotonous, this travelogue reveals the hidden beauty of the English Fens and Wolds through the unhurried perspective of a horse-drawn carriage.
Poems of Purpose
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
The journey of the soul is a battle against the trivial, a struggle to translate the fleeting passions of youth into a purposeful, lasting devotion to humanity and the divine.
Poetical Works of Robert Bridges, Volume 2
Robert Bridges
A meditative collection of lyrical poetry and dramatic eclogues that captures the fleeting beauty of the natural world and the quiet persistence of human affection.
Practical Instruction for Detectives: A Complete Course in Secret Service Study
Emmerson Wain Manning
This manual demystifies the trade of private investigation, offering a pragmatic look at the methods, surveillance tactics, and investigative strategies employed by early 20th-century American detective agencies.
Rob Roy
Walter Scott
A young man is thrust from the counting-house into the wild, lawless Highlands, where he must navigate clashing loyalties and the shadow of a legendary outlaw to save his family’s honor.
Rodman the Keeper: Southern Sketches
Constance Fenimore Woolson
A collection of observant, melancholic sketches, these narratives capture the fragile, lingering atmosphere of the American South in the wake of the Civil War.
Rulers of India: Lord Clive
G. B. (George Bruce) Malleson
The rise of a clerk to the master of a subcontinent reveals the fragility of empires and the iron will of the man who secured India for the British Crown.
Sally Dows
Bret Harte
This series of sketches and narratives captures the fractured, post-Civil War American landscape with a sharp, observant eye. It portrays a society in the uneasy process of rebuilding itself, where old loyalties and new ambitions constantly collide.
Samuel Brohl and Company
Victor Cherbuliez
A desperate, disgraced man reinvents himself as a Polish nobleman to gamble his future on a wealthy heiress. His performance is flawless, but the deception is a fragile house of cards waiting for the slightest breeze.
Scientific American Supplement, No. 447, July 26, 1884
Various
This volume offers a sprawling, meticulous window into the late Victorian obsession with industrial progress, capturing the era’s restless drive to measure, refine, and master the natural world. It serves as a fascinating, unvarnished archive of nineteenth-century ingenuity.
Serge Prokofieff and his orchestral music
Louis Biancolli
This survey captures the restless creative spirit of a towering twentieth-century composer, tracing his evolution from a defiant young modernist to a seasoned master navigating the pressures of the Soviet state.
Sir Joshua Reynolds: A Collection of Fifteen Pictures and a Portrait of the Painter with Introduction and Interpretation
Estelle M. (Estelle May) Hurll
This guide offers an intimate look at the life and legacy of an eighteenth-century master, bridging the gap between his celebrated canvases and the human stories behind the paint.
The celestial blueprint
Philip José Farmer
In a world where artificiality masks the human heart, two titans of industry orchestrate a brutal game of shadows, secrets, and mechanical vengeance. This tale explores the dark intersections of power, religious dogma, and the cost of absolute ego.
The "City Guard": A History of Company "B" First Regiment Infantry, N. G. C. During the Sacremento Campaign, July 3 to 26, 1894: Including a Brief History of the Company Since Its Organization March 31, 1854, to July 3, 1894
California. Infantry. First Regiment. Company B
A detailed account of an elite militia company’s mobilization during the 1894 railroad strikes, blending the stark reality of civil conflict with the camaraderie and humor of men under arms.
The Cleveland Era: A Chronicle of the New Order in Politics
Henry Jones Ford
The Gilded Age emerges here as a volatile crucible where the rigid machinery of the nineteenth century struggled against the onset of modern industrial life. This chronicle examines how Grover Cleveland’s presidency acted as both a lightning rod and a blunt instrument against a political system increasingly defined…
The Coral Island: A Tale of the Pacific Ocean
R. M. (Robert Michael) Ballantyne
Three boys, cast away on an uncharted Pacific island, build a new life from the wreckage of their ship and the bounty of the tropical shore.
The Dog Crusoe and His Master: A Story of Adventure in the Western Prairies
R. M. (Robert Michael) Ballantyne
A Newfoundland dog and his young master brave the vast, untamed American wilderness, forging an unbreakable bond amidst buffalo hunts, grizzly bear encounters, and the perils of frontier life.
The Dolphin in History
Ashley Montagu
A dual exploration of the dolphin’s enduring place in human myth and the modern scientific quest to decode its sophisticated intelligence.
The Elephant God
Gordon Casserly
The Indian jungle holds ancient, hidden dangers, but the most treacherous threats are often the human ones lurking within the polite colonial society of the tea-gardens.
The False Chevalier
W. D. (William Douw) Lighthall
The vanity of a young man’s social ascent unravels amidst the brutal, bloody backdrop of the French Revolution, where the cost of a stolen identity is measured in final, fatal accounts.
The Flower of the Mind
Alice Meynell
This curated volume gathers the finest voices of English verse, spanning centuries to present a singular, distilled vision of the poetic craft. It is an intimate invitation to revisit the music of the language.
The Foolish Virgin
Dixon, Thomas, Jr.
This is a story of a sheltered woman’s collision with a raw, unpredictable world, exploring the dangerous allure of impulse and the arduous possibility of personal transformation. It traces the journey of a refined schoolteacher who abandons her careful life for a man of mystery, only to discover that the romantic…
The Gallery of Portraits: with Memoirs. Volume 3 (of 7)
Arthur Thomas Malkin
These biographical sketches offer a curated look at the lives of figures who shaped Western culture, science, and politics. They serve as a bridge between the historical record and a general reader’s curiosity.
The Ghost Ship
Richard Middleton
This collection of short stories captures the delicate, often melancholic boundary between the mundane reality of early 20th-century life and the transcendent power of the imagination. It is a work of quiet brilliance, focusing on the internal lives of dreamers, misfits, and the grieving, whose experiences are…
The Golden Dream: Adventures in the Far West
R. M. (Robert Michael) Ballantyne
This spirited narrative follows a group of men who venture to the California gold fields, discovering that true wealth lies in character rather than metal. It is a tale of rugged transition, where youthful idealism meets the harsh, unpredictable reality of a frontier society.
The Helmet of Navarre
Bertha Runkle
The white plume of Henry of Navarre signals a world of shifting allegiances, where a young man’s loyalty and love are tested in the dangerous shadows of 16th-century Paris.
The Immortal Moment: The Story of Kitty Tailleur
May Sinclair
This is a stark, psychological portrait of a woman defined by her past, caught in the crossfire between her desperate hope for redemption and the unforgiving morality of her social circle.
The King's Assegai: A Matabili Story
Bertram Mitford
An aged Zulu warrior recounts his life as a soldier under the legendary King Umzilikazi, balancing tales of brutal warfare and forbidden romance with the dark, pervasive shadow of tribal sorcery.
The Mother of Parliaments
Harry Graham
The history of England's Parliament is the history of the English people, a narrative of evolving governance that remains a source of never-failing interest to those who seek to understand the mechanics of democracy.
The Origin of Paul's Religion
J. Gresham (John Gresham) Machen
The religion of the Apostle Paul did not spring from pagan mystery cults or late-stage mythologizing, but remains anchored in the historic Jesus of Nazareth.
The Path-Way to Knowledg, Containing the First Principles of Geometrie
Robert Record
Geometry is a rigorous, elegant language that reveals the hidden architecture of the natural world, transforming abstract thought into reliable practice. This foundational guide maps the path from simple lines to the complexities of measurement.
The Pool in the Desert
Sara Jeannette Duncan
The landscape of colonial India is vast and arid, yet within its borders, the human heart finds hidden, precarious springs of passion and duty. This collection of stories reveals the quiet, often devastating trysts that occur behind the stiff facades of British officialdom.
The Portygee
Joseph Crosby Lincoln
The wind-swept shores of Cape Cod provide a harsh, lonely setting for a young man grappling with his identity and a grandfather struggling to reconcile his deep-seated prejudices with the arrival of his newfound kin.
The Ravens and the Angels, with Other Stories and Parables
Elizabeth Rundle Charles
A collection of parables and stories that finds the extraordinary within the ordinary, showing how small acts of faith and kindness can transform the world.
The Religious Life of London
J. Ewing (James Ewing) Ritchie
Religion is the great moving power of England, a constant force that shapes the habits, laws, and inner lives of its people.
The Romance of the Reaper
Herbert Newton Casson
The reaper is more than a machine; it is the silent engine of modern civilization, having rescued humanity from the threat of famine and paved the way for the prosperity of the industrial age.
The Royal Picture Alphabet
John Leighton
This charming instructional guide pairs the letters of the alphabet with whimsical moral lessons, using droll illustrations and rhyming verse to teach children the difference between virtue and vice. It offers a unique glimpse into Victorian-era pedagogy.
The Russian Revolution
Alexander Petrunkevitch
The Russian Revolution and the concurrent rise of South Slav nationalism represent two seismic, overlapping shifts in the early 20th-century geopolitical landscape. This volume offers a rigorous, scholarly examination of the forces that dismantled an empire and birthed a new state.
The Splendid Idle Forties: Stories of Old California
Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
The lives of California’s early Spanish settlers are captured here in a collection of evocative, atmospheric tales set during the sunset of an era. These stories preserve the vanished grace and turbulent passions of a society on the brink of profound change.
The Story of the Grail and the Passing of Arthur
Howard Pyle
This final installment of a seven-year literary endeavor concludes the saga of the Round Table, tracing the holy quest of Sir Galahad and the tragic dissolution of King Arthur’s realm. It is a work of elegiac chivalry, rendering the twilight of a legendary era with a measured, reverent hand.
The Toll-House: Sailor's Knots, Part 7
W. W. (William Wymark) Jacobs
A group of skeptical friends challenges a local legend by spending the night in a house notoriously known for claiming the lives of its inhabitants.
The Turtles of Tasman
Jack London
This collection of narratives explores the tension between civilized order and the raw, untamed spirit of adventure, tracing the lives of men who sacrifice comfort for the freedom of the open road and the sea.
The Voice in the Fog
Harold MacGrath
The London fog conceals more than just the streets, as a chance encounter in the mist binds a young steward to a wealthy family’s unraveling mystery. A quiet, honest man finds his life irrevocably altered when he is swept into a high-stakes game of identity, theft, and romance.