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All free summaries — page 697
34,239 public-domain books, summarised. Page 697 of 714.
The Fairy Latchkey
Magdalene Horsfall
A lonely, imaginative child discovers a hidden door to a world of elfin lore, gaining a magical key that bridges the gap between her quiet, motherless life and the enchantments of the unseen.
The Fatal Glove
Clara Augusta
A young boy’s act of kindness and a stolen token of affection spiral into a decade of vengeance, mistaken identities, and a high-stakes search for truth across the shifting landscapes of the nineteenth-century American city.
The four Corners abroad
Amy Ella Blanchard
A group of American sisters and their friends embark on an extended tour across Europe, discovering the complexities of foreign cultures, the weight of history, and the quiet shifts of growing up.
The Greville Memoirs, Part 3 (of 3), Volume 2 (of 2): A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1852 to 1860
Charles Greville
The corridors of mid-Victorian power reveal their secrets through a keen observer’s lens. This chronicle captures the shifting tides of British politics, diplomacy, and the private anxieties of a governing class navigating a rapidly changing world.
The Growth of Thought as Affecting the Progress of Society
William Withington
The progress of civilization depends upon the elevation of human motives, moving from the crude impulses of self-interest toward a higher, unified understanding of our shared existence.
The House of Quiet: An Autobiography
Arthur Christopher Benson
The life of a man is often measured by its triumphs, but this quiet meditation suggests that our most profound truths are found in the stillness of our failures and the fragility of our mortal frames.
The Innocents Abroad
Mark Twain
The quintessential account of the American traveler abroad, this book chronicles a grand tour that remains as bitingly funny and irreverent today as it was in the nineteenth century.
The Land of Mystery
Edward Sylvester Ellis
HOOK Deep within the Brazilian interior, a group of explorers faces deadly, poisoned arrows and a struggle for survival against a mysterious, powerful tribe.
The Last Lady of Mulberry: A Story of Italian New York
Henry Wilton Thomas
A young artist’s quest for fame collides with the tangled romantic machinations of a close-knit Italian immigrant community in turn-of-the-century New York.
The life and adventures of Alexander Selkirk, the real Robinson Crusoe
John Howell
A restless spirit leaves home to escape a life of trouble, only to find himself the sole monarch of a remote, uninhabited island. This narrative explores the harrowing reality behind a literary legend.
The Masques of Ottawa
Augustus Bridle
This collection of sketches captures the political theater of post-war Canada, profiling the figures who moved the levers of power in a nation struggling to define its own identity.
The Medici Balls: Seven little journeys in Tuscany
Anna R. Sheldon
In the golden hills of Tuscany, a wandering pair of travelers discovers that the history of a powerful dynasty is etched into every stone, vineyard, and village they traverse.
The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 13, No. 357, February 21, 1829
Various
This vibrant collection of nineteenth-century miscellany offers a window into the intellectual curiosity of the era, blending historical accounts, linguistic quirks, and social commentary into a single, eclectic volume.
The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 13, No. 377, June 27, 1829
Various
This compendium of nineteenth-century curiosity serves as a sprawling, Victorian-era cabinet of wonders, blending travelogues, historical anecdotes, and scientific observations into a single, eclectic periodical snapshot.
The Money Market
F. (Frederick) Straker
The London financial system functions as the silent, essential heartbeat of global commerce, influencing the lives of all through a complex machinery that few ever pause to examine.
The Nursery, September 1877, Vol. XXII, No. 3: A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers
Various
This vintage magazine captures the curiosity of 19th-century childhood through a collection of gentle moral lessons, nature observations, and domestic sketches.
The peoples of Europe
H. J. (Herbert John) Fleure
Europe is a crowded, complex tapestry woven from shifting geography, ancient migrations, and the persistent, often uneasy, evolution of language and social tradition. This study examines how those forces shaped the continent’s modern identity.
The Pit Town Coronet: A Family Mystery, Volume 2 (of 3)
C. J. (Charles James) Wills
HOOK A dark, tangled web of secrets and inheritance binds two cousins, where one woman’s past sin threatens to consume the future of an entire family.
The Resources of Quinola: A Comedy in a Prologue and Five Acts
Honoré de Balzac
In a sixteenth-century Spain of intrigue and Inquisition, an obsessed inventor and his wily valet gamble their lives on a mechanical miracle that defies the very laws of their age.
The Rising of the Red Man: A Romance of the Louis Riel Rebellion
John Mackie
In the shadow of the 1885 Riel Rebellion, a young woman and her protectors navigate a perilous landscape of war, outlaws, and shifting loyalties to survive the unfolding chaos.
The Rising of the Tide: The Story of Sabinsport
Ida M. (Ida Minerva) Tarbell
A small-town newspaper editor struggles to reconcile his local crusade for reform with the overwhelming, world-altering demands of a global war.
The skeleton key
Bernard Capes
An enigmatic traveler and a local detective collide in a Hampshire country house, where a murder mystery unfolds beneath the veneer of polite society and chess games.
The social basis of consciousness
Trigant Burrow
We struggle with persistent emotional isolation because we are trapped in a self-centered social game that forces us to view life as a series of personal victories or failures. This work challenges the foundations of modern psychiatry by arguing that our neuroses are not personal flaws, but inevitable symptoms of…
The Star-Gazers
George Manville Fenn
The lives of two families intertwine in a quiet English countryside, where hidden pasts and unspoken social tensions collide under the watchful eyes of the local inhabitants.
The step on the stair
Anna Katharine Green
A chance encounter in New York leads a man into his namesake cousin’s world, only to find himself entangled in a web of family secrets, sudden death, and a missing inheritance.
The Story of a China Cat
Laura Lee Hope
A white china cat embarks on a precarious journey from the safety of a toy shop shelf to the hands of a loving owner, braving fire, flood, and theft along the way.
The Story of Nelson: also "The Grateful Indian", "The Boatswain's Son"
William Henry Giles Kingston
These three tales of seafaring adventure and frontier peril capture the spirit of nineteenth-century duty, tracing the paths of legendary admirals, resilient pioneers, and rising young officers.
The Street That Wasn't There
Clifford D. Simak
A reclusive scholar discovers that the physical world is dissolving, held together only by the collective force of human belief—and as humanity dies off, reality itself is being reclaimed by an alien intelligence.
The Trail of the Sandhill Stag
Ernest Thompson Seton
The wilderness does not yield its secrets to the impatient, but to the one who learns to read the oldest, most intricate writing in the snow.
The Turner Twins
Ralph Henry Barbour
The Turner twins arrive at boarding school as a matched pair of energetic, wisecracking newcomers. They quickly find themselves tangled in the high-stakes world of prep-school football and a local mystery involving a hidden inheritance.
The Twin Mystery
Nicholas (House name) Carter
A cunning master of disguise taunts a legendary detective, sparking a high-stakes chase through the gaslit streets of New York and Philadelphia.
The twins in the South
Dorothy Whitehill
Two inseparable sisters navigate the social currents of an elite Southern boarding school, where academic rivalries and dramatic ambitions test the strength of their unique bond.
The Undying Fire: A contemporary novel
H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
When the world seems designed for suffering and every familiar support crumbles, a single man must decide if his inner fire is enough to light the darkness. This profound meditation on faith and purpose reimagines an ancient trial in the shadow of the First World War.
The Valiant Runaways
Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
A pair of aristocratic youths flee their comfortable ranchos to escape military conscription, only to discover that the wild landscape of California holds far greater perils than the army they sought to avoid.
The Voyage of the Aurora
Harry Collingwood
This classic seafaring adventure follows a resourceful sailor’s transformation from a despondent, jilted lover into a decorated naval hero. It is a stirring tale of grit, naval combat, and survival against the odds.
The wonders of salvage
David Masters
Beneath the surface of our restless oceans lie hidden fortunes and monumental engineering failures, waiting for the daring few who possess the tools and the grit to claim them.
The works of the Reverend George Whitefield, M.A., Vol. 6 (of 6)
George Whitefield
An impassioned voice from the eighteenth-century pulpit, this collection captures the fervor of a preacher who saw the world as a threshold to eternity and every sermon as a final, desperate plea for salvation.
Think Yourself to Death
Stephen Marlowe
A legendary operative inhabits a succession of mortal shells to navigate a galaxy of forgotten worlds and moral crises. This high-stakes science fiction adventure follows a man whose consciousness is untethered, forcing him to body-hop to survive as he works to prevent a planet from falling under the sway of…
Trifles for the Christmas Holidays
Henry S. Armstrong
The holiday season serves as a veil for both domestic joy and the sharp edges of human ambition, revealing how quickly festive warmth can collide with the cold realities of social climbing, hidden pasts, and criminal desperation.
Turkey: a Past and a Future
Arnold Toynbee
The collapse of the Ottoman Empire during the First World War serves as the catalyst for this critical examination of a fading, multi-ethnic power and its uncertain future.
Van Dyck
Percy Moore Turner
A master of the brush whose aristocratic portraits defined an era, Anthony Van Dyck transformed the visual language of the seventeenth century and left an indelible mark on the history of European art.
What's-His-Name
George Barr McCutcheon
The quiet, overlooked husband of a rising Broadway star fights to retain his dignity and his daughter as his wife’s fame pulls her into a world that no longer has room for him.
What the Animals Do and Say
Eliza Lee Cabot Follen
This collection of animal lore and fables centers on a mother sharing the wonders of the natural world with her two sons through stories that blend scientific observation with imaginative wonder.
Yesterday House
Fritz Leiber
A young biology student discovers a girl living in a strange, time-locked isolation on a remote Maine island, unknowingly trapped in a scientist’s obsessive effort to resurrect his lost love.
A Boy of the Dominion: A Tale of Canadian Immigration
F. S. (Frederick Sadleir) Brereton
Young Joe Bradley finds himself at the edge of a vast, unyielding frontier, armed only with a sturdy kit and the grit to survive a winter that tests the souls of men.
A Coin of Edward VII: A Detective Story
Fergus Hume
A mysterious coin and a string of anonymous threats pull a young squire into a web of murder, hidden identities, and long-buried family secrets.
A Girl of the People
L. T. Meade
The story of a Liverpool girl’s desperate struggle to protect her family and honor her word, this novel captures the grit of the slums and the quiet power of personal sacrifice.
A Gray Eye or So. In Three Volumes—Volume II
Frank Frankfort Moore
The story of a tangled courtship among the upper crust of British society, this novel traces the emotional cost of social maneuvering and the fragility of trust. It is a sharp, atmospheric portrait of a world where appearances govern all.