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All free summaries — page 38
34,093 public-domain books, summarised. Page 38 of 711.
Lord John Russell
Stuart J. (Stuart Johnson) Reid
A lifelong devotion to parliamentary reform and public duty guides one of Victorian England’s most resolute Whig statesmen through decades of intense political transformation.
A Book About Lawyers
John Cordy Jeaffreson
A social history of the English bar reveals that the legal profession was built on human drama, colorful eccentricities, and centuries of institutional tradition long before it became a dry exercise in technicalities.
A Spoil of Office: A Story of the Modern West
Hamlin Garland
A rustic Midwestern farmhand hears a gifted female reformer speak and sets out to transform himself, rising through local and national politics while staying true to his roots.
Nicanor - Teller of Tales
C. Bryson Taylor
A slave with a gift for song moves between two worlds, torn between the proud lady he serves and the humble faith that frees his soul.
A Venetian June
Anna Fuller
An aging American soldier brings his two spirited nieces to Venice, where quiet summer waterways spark unexpected romance, mature reflections, and the soft awakening of young hearts.
In Our Town
William Allen White
Through the front window of a small-town newspaper office, the human comedy unfolds in a tangle of petty rivalries, quiet nobility, and everyday heartbreak.
The Golden Bough: A Study of Magic and Religion
James George Frazer
Deep beneath a serene Italian grove lies a dark, violent mystery: a sacred king who reigns only until a rival murders him and claims his crown. Unraveling this ritual uncovers how human thought evolved across centuries.
Little Folks (September 1884): A Magazine for the Young
Various
A Victorian tapestry of runaway adventures, naval discipline, moral fables, and cozy animal lore offers young readers a vivid portal into the imaginative and instructional world of late nineteenth-century childhood.
The Magnificent Montez: From Courtesan to Convert
Horace Wyndham
She seduced a king, ignited a revolution, and transformed herself into an American lecturer.
The 28th: A Record of War Service in the Australian Imperial Force, 1915-19, Vol. I: Egypt, Gallipoli, Lemnos Island, Sinai Peninsula
Herbert Brayley Collett
From the quiet pine-scented clearing of Blackboy Hill to the wind-swept ravines of Anzac Cove, this dryly detailed unit history documents how a single Australian infantry battalion was hastily assembled, trained, and tested in the furnace of the First World War.
Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands
Mary Seacole
A fierce, joyful spirit propels this memoir of a Jamaican doctress who refuses to sit out the nineteenth century's great crises, marching instead toward disease, danger, and war with hot soup, bandages, and unshakeable resolve.
On the Duty of Civil Disobedience
Henry David Thoreau
An individual's conscience owes no automatic allegiance to an unjust state. True freedom requires breaking the law when obedience transforms a citizen into an active accomplice to moral wrong.
The Joyful Wisdom ("La Gaya Scienza")
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
An energetic release from heavy moralizing, this philosophical work champions radical intellectual honesty, the delight of deep questioning, and a triumphant return to physical and spiritual vitality.
Yr Ynys Unyg
Julia de Winton
An abandoned voyage across the Atlantic leaves a spirited group of women and children stranded on an uncharted island, where quiet domestic resilience becomes their greatest weapon against shipwreck, pirates, and time.
The Future of the American Negro
Booker T. Washington
Real economic independence and practical skill must precede political equality and intellectual distinction if a historically marginalized people are to secure a permanent home in the nation's civic life.
The English Spy: An Original Work Characteristic, Satirical, And Humorous.: Comprising Scenes And Sketches In Every Rank Of Society, Being Portraits Drawn From The Life
C. M. (Charles Molloy) Westmacott
A satirical tour through Regency England reveals the rowdy excesses, social pretense, and hidden hypocrisies that unite Oxford undergraduates, high-society dandies, and the vibrant rogues of London.
1000 Mythological Characters Briefly Described: Adapted to Private Schools, High Schools and Academies
Edward Sylvester Ellis
Before human minds could process the infinite, ancient cultures created deities, heroes, and monsters to personify the overwhelming forces of creation, nature, and the underworld.
The Critique of Practical Reason
Immanuel Kant
Human morality cannot rely on feelings of pleasure or private desires; it demands a universal, rational law that proves human freedom and establishes the true path to practical wisdom.
Adventures in the Arts: Informal Chapters on Painters, Vaudeville, and Poets
Marsden Hartley
An artist’s wide-eyed, informal stroll through the modern cultural landscape, balancing deep reverence for primitive rites with pure delight in the glitter of the vaudeville stage.
Lady Betty Across the Water
C. N. (Charles Norris) Williamson
A young English aristocrat, shipped across the Atlantic to secure a wealthy American marriage, finds herself swept into an unpredictable New World of towering skyscrapers, high-society schemes, and plain-spoken Midwestern hearts.
Bird Stories
Edith M. (Edith Marion) Patch
Through twelve intimate narrative portraits, wild birds navigate harsh weather, raise their young, and forge fragile, mutually beneficial bonds with human neighbors.
On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection: or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. (2nd edition)
Charles Darwin
A meticulous observation of the living world reveals that species are not immutable creations, but the modified descendants of ancestral forms shaped by natural selection.
The Woman Beautiful
Helen Follett Jameson
True radiance springs not from artificial paints or vanity, but from robust health, disciplined hygiene, and an active, enlightened mind.
The golden spears, and other fairy tales
Edmund Leamy
Wandering siblings, enchanted beasts, and brave champions cross the boundary between mortal Erin and shimmering fairy realms. Their quests prove that love, kindness, and honor withstand every dark spell and monstrous trial.
How to Live on 24 Hours a Day
Arnold Bennett
Time is the one raw material no money can buy, yet almost everyone manages to fritter it away while waiting for real life to begin. True vitality requires learning to claim and discipline those unaccounted hours left over every single day.
Genuine Mediumship
William Walker Atkinson
A demystifying study of spiritualist phenomena, this work frames mediumship not as a supernatural miracle, but as an orderly, natural extension of human perception governed by subtle vibratory forces.
Helen Redeemed and Other Poems
Maurice Hewlett
High above a doomed city, a queen barters her pride to an abandoned king while gods flee into the morning mist and a wooden snare sits at the gates.
The Mystery of the Green Ray
William Le Queux
When an unseen optical weapon blinds a young woman on the eve of the First World War, her fiancé and a sharp-eyed specialist must unmask a foreign enemy hidden along the rugged Scottish coast.
The Causes of the Corruption of the Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels: Being the Sequel to The Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels
John William Burgon
The text of the New Testament has not been altered by accident alone, but through centuries of active theological conflict, liturgical adaptation, and human error.
Peggy Stewart at School
Gabrielle E. (Gabrielle Emilie) Jackson
Southern hospitality, military charm, and schoolgirl spirit converge in Gabrielle E. Jackson's classic story of a young heiress finding her footing among friends.
"Brother Bosch", an Airman's Escape from Germany
Gerald Featherstone Knight
Downed behind enemy lines during the Great War, a British aviator relies on quick wits, makeshift camouflage, and quiet tenacity to navigate German prison camps and cross the treacherous waters of the frontier to freedom.
The Curlytops and Their Pets
Howard Roger Garis
Inheriting a menagerie is one thing, but keeping a troupe of performing animals together turns out to be a full-time pursuit of patience, luck, and household harmony.
Dorothy's Travels
Evelyn Raymond
Stranded in a strange city without a dollar in her pocket, a spirited young girl must navigate a summer of unexpected sea voyages and wilderness perils to uncover the truth of her past.
Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1: The Evolution of Modesty
Havelock Ellis
Human modesty and sexual impulse are neither modern inventions nor moral accidents, but biological and social phenomena rooted in thousands of years of human culture, psychology, and natural evolution.
Children of the desert
Louis Dodge
When a brooding, honorable railway builder weds a shadowy local beauty in an isolated border town, he believes his fierce devotion will save her from a mysterious past; instead, their mismatched marriage unravels in betrayal and tragic self-destruction.
Historic Tales: The Romance of Reality. Vol. 02 (of 15), American (2)
Charles Morris
Centuries of conflict, ambition, and sudden twists of fortune shape the American continent long before it becomes a unified power.
Treasure Island
Robert Louis Stevenson
A boy finds a map, a crew of mutinous pirates, and a fortune hidden on a remote island. He soon discovers that the greatest danger is not the treasure, but the man he trusts most.
The Wind Before the Dawn
Dell H. Munger
Out on the unforgiving Kansas prairie, a young woman endures homesteading hardship and marital tyranny to fight for her legal, financial, and personal independence.
Martin Eden
Jack London
A muscle-bound sailor falls for an aristocratic woman, vows to conquer her world through literature, and discovers that the summit of middle-class success is entirely hollow.
The Girl from Sunset Ranch
Amy Bell Marlowe
A spirited Montana orphan braves the cold snobbery and hidden secrets of Gilded Age New York to clear her late father’s ruined reputation.
Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects, and Curiosities of Art (Vol. 2 of 3)
Shearjashub Spooner
A master's canvas mutilated for a doorway; a furious genius shouting in eight languages; an ancient arena littered with charred eggshells. Fine art relies as much on human impulse and absurd accident as on lofty inspiration.
The Lure of the Mask
Harold MacGrath
A singing voice cuts through a chilly Manhattan fog, drawing a young New Yorker into a globe-trotting pursuit of a mysterious masked stranger across Italy.
The Singing Mouse Stories
Emerson Hough
A solitary man sits in a quiet room with a small fire, a worn hunting coat, and a tiny mouse that sings him into visions of lost youth, wild mountains, and the forgotten beauty of the world.
The Imitation of Christ
à Kempis Thomas
To detach one's soul from the transience of earth requires a fierce, daily warfare against the self, where true peace is discovered only in total surrender to the divine.
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: With Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects
Mary Wollstonecraft
When a society denies half its population the cultivation of reason, it reduces human beings to frivolous toys and then complains of their shallow intellect. Freedom and virtue must belong equally to all rational minds.
For the Liberty of Texas
Edward Stratemeyer
Two motherless brothers on the 1830s Texas frontier must fight to defend their homestead against ruthless half-breeds, hostile Comanches, and the marching Mexican army as the region erupts into open war for independence.
Intestinal ills
Alcinous B. (Alcinous Burton) Jamison
Neglect of internal cleanliness slowly undermines human health, turning physical vigor into systemic poison and chronic decay.
The Pirate of Panama: A Tale of the Fight for Buried Treasure
William MacLeod Raine
A torn chart, a stolen ship, and a ruthless Russian nobleman set two factions on a desperate race toward buried Spanish gold along the coasts of Panama.