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All free summaries — page 424
34,239 public-domain books, summarised. Page 424 of 714.
L'Arrabiata and Other Tales
Paul Heyse
A quiet shore, a silent house, a sudden turn of affection—these stories turn on the brief, irreversible moments when guarded hearts finally give way.
Liberty and the news
Walter Lippmann
Public decisions now depend on information filtered through an unregulated media apparatus, turning the protection of accurate reporting into democracy's most urgent moral and political test.
Life of George Washington, volume 2 of 5
Washington Irving
A fragile army faces professional British forces while internal feuds, shortages, and desertions threaten to collapse the American Revolution.
Looking Back
Fortescue, Seymour John, Sir
This memoir traces a life of service in the Royal Navy and the inner circles of the Edwardian court, offering an intimate perspective on a vanished era of British aristocracy and global travel. It is a portrait of a man who found his greatest happiness in the shadow of a king, written with the clear-eyed nostalgia…
Lord Dolphin
Harriet A. (Harriet Anna) Cheever
A clever sea creature narrates his own wild journey from the deep ocean to a glass tank on land, blending playful humor with natural history.
Memories: A Story of German Love
F. Max (Friedrich Max) Müller
A quiet soul discovers that earthly affection can expand into a divine, universal love, transforming deep grief into a lifelong spiritual sanctuary.
Modern Illustration
Joseph Pennell
An art form that touches millions every day deserves to be judged by its highest achievements rather than its cheapest manifestations.
Mysteries of Paris
Eugène Sue
A relentless descent into the Parisian underworld where high-society intrigue collides with desperate poverty, driven by one secret royal vigilante seeking justice.
Mysteries of the Libyan Desert
W. J. Harding King
Out in the blinding heat south of Dakhla, a traveler risks his life on unmapped dunes to track forgotten roads and lost oases.
Nelson's Home Comforts: Thirteenth Edition
Mary Hooper
Mastering Victorian domestic management requires a shrewd blend of kitchen economy, exact chemical technique, and modern culinary convenience.
North Italian Folk: Sketches of Town and Country Life
Alice Vansittart Strettel Carr
A vivid, empathetic portrait of nineteenth-century North Italian life, capturing the rhythm of rural hamlets, seaside towns, and regional festivals through its ordinary people.
Notes and Queries, Number 69, February 22, 1851: A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc
Various
A gathering of Victorian intellects unspools across these pages, where anonymous scholars, country clergy, and sharp-eyed antiquaries pool their quirks and discoveries to solve historical riddles.
Oregon and Eldorado
Thomas Bulfinch
Nature lays clear water-pathways across both South and North America, inviting ambitious travelers to cross a continent from sea to sea.
Patchwork: A Story of 'The Plain People'
Anna Balmer Myers
A spirited young girl from Pennsylvania’s "plain people" dreams of escaping her quiet, restrictive life for the sophistication of the city, only to discover the true value of home and duty.
Peace
Norman Arkawy
A bureaucratically cheerful conquest announcement slowly reveals that the peaceful alien victory Earth just suffered is actually a hyper-regulated, terrifying nightmare.
Peeps at Many Lands: England
John Finnemore
From the bustling, fog-shrouded avenues of Edwardian London to the wave-battered rocks of the Cornish coast, this classic travelogue captures the landscapes, traditions, and enduring legends that shaped the heart of early twentieth-century England.
Pioneer Roads and Experiences of Travelers (Volume 1)
Archer Butler Hulbert
Deeply worn animal paths and narrow Indian traces gave birth to the paved roads of the modern United States through a slow, chaotic evolution.
Poems: New and Old
Newbolt, Henry John, Sir
High above the open ocean and deep within the quiet halls of duty, the soul of a nation reveals itself through verse.
Practical Argumentation
George K. (George Kynett) Pattee
A clear argument requires disciplined thought, careful evidence, and absolute fairness to opponents. Master these fundamentals to turn raw passion into undeniable proof.
Proceedings of the third National Conservation Congress at Kansas City, Missouri, September 25, 26 and 27, 1911
United States. National Conservation Congress
Settling the American continent without exhausting it requires a new national conscience, moving beyond mere resource extraction to systematic preservation.
Red Pepper Burns
Grace S. (Grace Smith) Richmond
HOOK A red-headed, sharp-tongued physician struggles to reconcile his fiery temperament with his tender devotion to his patients and the woman he eventually hopes to marry.
Ring O' Roses: A Nursery Rhyme Picture Book
Unknown
A classic compilation of nursery rhymes comes to life through brief, rhythmic verses and vivid illustrations. It captures the playfulness, absurdity, and gentle instruction of traditional English children's folklore.
Ruth Erskine's Son
Pansy
A mother’s protective devotion faces its ultimate test when her beloved son’s hasty marriage threatens to upend their lives and unearth a buried family secret.
Shakespeare's England
William Winter
A journey through the quiet countryside and storied cities of England reveals how deep reverence for nature, history, and poetry can heal the modern spirit.
Some Imagist Poets, 1916: An Annual Anthology
D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
Modern verse breaks free from traditional meter to capture the exact texture of daily life, shifting landscapes, and the lingering horrors of a continent at war.
Spanish Prisons: The Inquisition at Home and Abroad, Prisons Past and Present
Arthur Griffiths
Shadows stretch from medieval dungeons to modern penal colonies, tracking how state power enforces obedience through fear.
Tales Of Hearsay
Joseph Conrad
An old warrior rebukes the callow youth who judge the retreat from Moscow, while a lover's tragic sacrifice and a sailor's desperate secret unfold across the dark shadows of history and the open sea.
Tarr
Wyndham Lewis
A searing satire of pre-war bohemian Paris, this novel exposes the absurdities, egoism, and destructive impulses of the modern avant-garde artist.
Tennessee's Partner
Bret Harte
A gold miner in the California hills offers his entire life savings to buy his partner out of a hanging, then quietly builds a flower-draped coffin when the law refuses his gift.
The $100 Prize Essay on the Cultivation of the Potato.: Prize offered by W. T. Wylie and awarded to D. H. Compton
D. A. Compton
A masterclass in agricultural discipline, this 1870 manual turns the humble potato into a battleground of soil chemistry, pest management, and culinary perfection.
The Adventurer
C. M. (Cyril M.) Kornbluth
A ruthless tyrant falls not to chance, but to an orchestrated genetic and psychological experiment designed to breed the ultimate conqueror.
The Alden Catalogue of Choice Books, May 30, 1889
John B. (John Berry) Alden
A commercial enterprise operates on the radical premise that cheap access to literature is a moral duty, offering thousands of works through a dense layout of prices, shares, and critical endorsements.
The Amethyst Cross
Fergus Hume
An inheritance bound to a stolen heirloom unravels a tangle of old betrayals, identity fraud, and secret parentage along the Thames.
The Art of Theatrical Make-up
Cavendish Morton
A quiet study of how grease-paint, paste, and hair transform the human face, this manual turns stagecraft into a fine art of psychological self-transformation.
The atom and the Bohr theory of its structure
Helge Holst
A vivid historical bridge spanning nineteenth-century chemistry and quantum physics, this text details how Niels Bohr’s planetary model reconciled classic mechanical laws with subatomic anomalies. It illuminates the foundational leap toward modern physics.
The Blocking of Zeebrugge
Alfred Francis Blakeney Carpenter
A midnight assault against a heavily fortified sea wall, executed under the cover of artificial smoke to trap enemy submarines in their lair.
The Blue Tower
Evelyn E. Smith
A quiet young poet destroys humanity's gentle alien guardians when his earnest attempt to protect them accidentally breaches their deadly defenses.
The Boy Ranchers at Spur Creek
Willard F. Baker
When cattle rustlers steal the deeds to Spur Creek, three young cousins must defend their family’s range against desperate sheep herders in this classic Western adventure.
The Child at Home: The Principles of Filial Duty, Familiarly Illustrated
John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
A nineteenth-century guide to childhood duty transforms everyday home life into a high-stakes moral training ground, where a child's choices echo through eternity.
The Children of Westminster Abbey: Studies in English History
Rose Georgina Kingsley
A grand medieval sanctuary becomes a living classroom, where the tombs of forgotten royal children reveal the human heart of English history.
The companions of Pickle: Being a sequel to 'Pickle the spy'
Andrew Lang
A cold appraisal of Highland loyalty uncovers a world where honor is routinely traded for survival and gold.
The cycles of speculation
Thomas Gibson
An sober examination of market movements reveals that lasting financial gains require rigorous analysis of fundamental economic shifts rather than rapid, uncalculated gambles.
The Death Ship: A Strange Story, Vol. 1 (of 3)
William Clark Russell
A English seaman steps from a doomed merchantman onto a ghostly Dutch ship cursed to beat against Cape storms forever.
The Demands of Rome: Her Own Story of Thirty-One Years as a Sister of Charity in the Order of the Sisters of Charity of Providence of the Roman Catholic Church
Elizabeth Schoffen
A devout girl enters an order of Catholic sisters, gives three decades of service to its institutions, and ultimately breaks away to expose the ironbound control she endured.
The Easiest Way: Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911
Eugene Walter
A beautiful woman tries to trade a life of easy luxury for a honest marriage, only to find that her past—and her own weakness—will not let her go.
The Emma Gees
Herbert W. McBride
A volunteer machine gunner’s direct account of trench warfare in the Ypres Salient during the First World War.
The Famous Missions of California
William Henry Hudson
An account of courage, hardship, and ambition, tracing the eighteenth-century Franciscan push north into Alta California to build outposts that altered the Pacific coast.
The Fantasy Fan, September 1933: The Fan's Own Magazine
Various
An earnest, grassroots invitation to early speculative fiction fandom, this inaugural issue captures the enthusiasm, squabbles, and literary devotion of 1930s enthusiasts forming a community around pulp magazines.