The whole shelf
All free summaries — page 497
34,239 public-domain books, summarised. Page 497 of 714.
Tales by Polish Authors
Else C. M. (Else Cecilia Mendelssohn) Benecke
A landscape of hardship, exile, and human endurance unfolds across these classic Polish stories translated for an English audience.
The Arena, Volume 4, No. 20, July, 1891
Various
A collection of fierce reformist intellects turns its gaze upon late-nineteenth-century American society, challenging entrenched dogma across literature, economics, religion, and human consciousness.
The Battle of Atlanta: and Other Campaigns, Addresses, Etc
Grenville Mellen Dodge
A Union general looks back across decades of fire and prairie, setting down the brutal, unglamored mechanics of how a nation was held together.
The Blower of Bubbles
Beverley Baxter
Amid the shadows of the First World War, these five vignettes observe how ordinary lives are transformed by compassion, sacrifice, and the quiet weight of conflict.
The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal, June, 1880
Various
A vigorous nineteenth-century journal confronts the rising tides of secularism and dogmatic tradition, calling readers back to reason, evidence, and historical Christian faith.
The Dyer's Guide: Being a compendium of the art of dyeing linen, cotton, silk, wool, muslin, dresses, furniture, &c. &c
Thomas Packer
Transforming raw plant extracts, metallic salts, and pungent vats into brilliant, lasting hues requires equal measures of empirical rigor and manual dexterity.
The Economic Functions of Vice
John McElroy
Excess human life is culled not by nature's predators, but by the very vices of the unfit, which act as a merciful, self-administered filter for the species.
The Gold-Headed Cane
William Macmichael
A gold-headed cane, once the constant companion of London’s most celebrated physicians, recounts the shifting fortunes and quiet triumphs of the medical profession across two centuries. This silent witness preserves the private conversations and public legacies of the healers who carried it.
The Heart of the Desert (Kut-Le of the Desert)
Honoré Morrow
HOOK A young woman is abducted by a man who bridges two worlds, forcing her to confront the raw, unforgiving majesty of the American Southwest and the hidden depths of her own character.
The High School Boys' Canoe Club
H. Irving (Harrie Irving) Hancock
Six inseparable friends find their summer transformed after purchasing a neglected, twenty-eight-foot Indian war canoe at an auction. Their journey tests their grit against rivals and the demanding currents of Lake Pleasant.
The History of Don Quixote, Volume 1, Part 15
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
A deluded knight-errant and his pragmatic squire wander through a landscape of harsh reality and romantic fantasy, transforming the mundane mishaps of their travels into grand, chivalric adventures.
The House of Dreams-Come-True
Margaret Pedler
A young woman travels to England with a hopeful heart, only to find her heart’s desire entangled in a web of family secrets, fierce rivalries, and sudden tragedy.
The Irish Ecclesiastical Record, Volume 1, March 1865
Unknown
A Catholic periodical defends the Church against Protestant claims of anti-biblical bias while documenting medieval Irish episcopal successions and the Holy See’s historical role.
The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter
F. Colburn (Francis Colburn) Adams
A man of grandiose delusions abandons his quiet village to become a politician and general, only to discover that the world of power is built on farce, bribery, and the hollow echoes of his own ego.
The Man from Bar 20: A Story of the Cow Country
Clarence Edward Mulford
A lone cowboy rides into a lawless valley, mistaken for a notorious gunfighter and hunted by rustlers, only to turn the rugged terrain into his own personal battleground.
The Manatitlans
R. Elton Smile
Miniature moralists mount roaches to preach peace, transforming coarse sailors and scholars into enlightened citizens through strict diet and baby censors.
The Mayor of Warwick
Herbert M. (Herbert Müller) Hopkins
An ambitious small-town mayor, a bishop’s proud daughter, and a newly arrived astronomer collide across the rigid class lines of a New England college town.
The Nest, The White Pagoda, The Suicide, A Forsaken Temple, Miss Jones and the Masterpiece
Anne Douglas Sedgwick
A dying husband, an interior designer out-maneuvered, and a tragic triangular love affair reveal the quiet, desperate struggles hidden behind polite Edwardian façades.
The Night Horseman
Max Brand
A mysterious wanderer, followed by a loyal wolf-dog and a horse named Satan, tests the boundaries of human connection while pursued by a man who lives only for the violence of a final, fatal confrontation.
The Queen's Scarlet: The Adventures and Misadventures of Sir Richard Frayne
George Manville Fenn
Behind the glitter of brass instruments and military dress lies a dark story of family jealousy, mistaken identity, and a quiet lad forced to fight for his stolen life.
The Queen's Twin and Other Stories
Sarah Orne Jewett
A collection of quiet, observant tales captures the resilient spirits, gentle humor, and enduring dignity of late nineteenth-century New England village life.
The Radio Boys on the Mexican Border
Gerald Breckenridge
Three athletic young men employ their mastery of early radio technology and aviation to rescue a kidnapped father from a dangerous faction of Mexican rebels.
The Ralstons
F. Marion (Francis Marion) Crawford
A secret marriage, an agonizingly slow deathbed, and an eighty-million-dollar estate set a prominent New York clan against itself in a struggle where cold calculation battles headlong devotion.
The Spirit-Filled Life
John MacNeil
Spiritual fullness is not reserved for an elite clergy; it is a vital necessity commanded of every ordinary believer.
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.
The Strength of Gideon and Other Stories
Paul Laurence Dunbar
A quiet, resolute dignity anchors the lives of those navigating the shifting currents of post-Emancipation America, where the promise of freedom often clashes with the rigid realities of prejudice and personal ambition.
The Uninhabited House
Riddell, J. H., Mrs.
A young law clerk accepts a challenge to occupy a house so profoundly haunted that no tenant can remain, only to discover that the malevolent force within is far more human than he imagined.
Time and Time Again
H. Beam Piper
A dying soldier in 1975 wakes up in 1945 inside his own thirteen-year-old body, carrying three decades of future history that he resolves to rewrite.
True, and Other Stories
George Parsons Lathrop
A single choice made across three centuries ripples forward, entangling an ambitious young scholar, a haunted fisherman, and an heiress in the mysterious inheritance of their shared past.
Turkish Prisoners in Egypt: A Report by the Delegates of the International Committee of the Red Cross
International Committee of the Red Cross
An official inspection of wartime internment facilities in Egypt reveals the conditions and daily experiences of thousands of Turkish prisoners held by the British during the First World War.
Under Handicap: A Novel
Jackson Gregory
In the scorched reaches of the Western desert, a spoiled playboy from Wall Street finds that his father’s millions carry no weight against heat, sand, and hard men—forcing him to trade his champagne habits for shovel work, dust, and a brutal reclamation project that will either destroy him or forge him into a man.
Whistler
T. Martin Wood
Like a moth drawn out from a warm London room into the cool blue dark, an artist leaves behind conventional rules to capture the luminous night.
Whitman's Ride Through Savage Lands, with Sketches of Indian Life
Oliver W. (Oliver Woodson) Nixon
A midwinter horseback ride across frozen mountains saves the Oregon Territory for the United States, yet ends in a tragic wilderness massacre.
Wild Heather
L. T. Meade
A motherless girl brought up by an austere aunt discovers her father's glittering high-society lifestyle conceals a shameful secret, leaving her to choose between wealth gained through deception and an honest, quiet life.
With Ethan Allen at Ticonderoga
W. Bert (Walter Bertram) Foster
Before the American Revolution reached the world's stage, a wilder war burned across the Green Mountains, where border boys defended their cabins with broadaxes and loaded rifles.
A Candid Examination of Theism
George John Romanes
A rigorous, analytical mind dismantles every traditional argument for God's existence, tracing how modern scientific laws reduce the divine to a cold mechanical necessity.
A Character of King Charles the Second: And Political, Moral and Miscellaneous Thoughts and Reflections
Halifax, George Savile, Marquis of
An unsparing portrait of a reigning monarch gives way to an extraordinary collection of aphorisms on the dark mechanics of human nature, power, and statecraft.
A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents. Volume 2, part 1: James Monroe
Unknown
A young republic struggles to define its constitutional boundaries while projecting quiet strength across its expanding borders and distant seas.
A Critical Examination of the Position of Mr. Darwin's Work, "On the Origin of Species," in Relation to the Complete Theory of the Causes of the Phenomena of Organic Nature: Lecture VI. (of VI.), "Lectures to Working Men", at the Museum of Practical Geology, 1863, on Darwin's Work: "Origin of Species"
Thomas Henry Huxley
Scientific inquiry requires a rigorous testing of hypothesis against observable fact, leaving no room for sentimental dogma or premature certainty.
A Historical Survey of the Customs, Habits, & Present State of the Gypsies
John Hoyland
A centuries-old global wanderer faces the tightening grip of modern law and social disdain, surviving on ancient crafts while holding the secret of its origins locked within an unwritten language.
A Minion of the Moon: A Romance of the King's Highway
T. W. (Thomas Wilkinson) Speight
A gentleman outlaw rides the northern post-roads, bound by honor to a secret past that entangles a disinherited heiress and a stolen boy.
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.
A Prince of Sinners
E. Phillips (Edward Phillips) Oppenheim
To return to London after years in the Canadian wild as a altered man is one thing; to find oneself face-to-face with a forgotten past, a son who preaches moral reform, and a society hungry for political salvation is quite another.
A warrior who fought Custer
Wooden Leg
A young Northern Cheyenne warrior coming of age during the plains wars of the late nineteenth century records his life, his community's customs, and the legendary clash at the Little Bighorn.
Almoran and Hamet: An Oriental Tale
John Hawkesworth
When a tyrant bends reality to steal his brother’s bride, magic grants every desire only to make his punishment absolute.
Annals of the early Caliphate from the death of Mahomet to the Omeyyad and Abbaside dynasties A.H. XI-LXI (A.D. 632-680) from original sources
Muir, William, Sir
In the half-century following the death of Mahomet, a desert faith shatters two ancient empires and rebuilds the Near East.
Autobiography of Z. S. Hastings
Z. S. (Zachariah Simpson) Hastings
A devoted preacher charts his journey through early pioneer midwestern life, endless rural travel, and the personal griefs that anchor a quiet faith.
Average Americans
Theodore Roosevelt
A warm, clear-eyed account of citizen-soldiers in the First World War, combining vivid frontline realism with an unsparing critique of national unpreparedness.