Free summaries
Adventure — page 15
3,840 public-domain adventure books, summarised. Page 15 of 80.
Gilian The Dreamer: His Fancy, His Love and Adventure
Neil Munro
A sensitive youth in the Scottish Highlands trades reality for imagination, only to watch the tangible world and the girl he loves slip through his fingers.
The Lone Star Ranger: A Romance of the Border
Zane Grey
A young man in Texas fights the wildness in his own blood and the lawless border that threatens to consume him.
Before Adam
Jack London
A modern man relives the primitive existence of a Pleistocene ancestor through an extraordinary chain of inherited genetic dreams.
Celebrated Travels and Travellers, Part 2.: The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century
Jules Verne
Across unknown oceans and untamed continents, eighteenth-century explorers map the physical realities of the globe while facing fierce seas, unfamiliar cultures, and extreme physical exhaustion.
The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night
Burton, Richard Francis, Sir
An ancient king's cruelty is stayed night after night by a clever woman, whose sprawling, interwoven tales of magic, trickery, and romance keep execution at bay.
The art of travel
Francis Galton
A practical handbook written from experience, this manual turns raw wilderness into a manageable workshop for the self-reliant explorer.
The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night
Burton, Richard Francis, Sir
A young woman weaves a tapestry of endless night-time stories to stay the hand of a monarch intent on execution, saving a kingdom through the enchantment of narrative.
The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan
James Justinian Morier
A penniless barber's son navigates nineteenth-century Persia through sheer opportunism, shifting seamlessly between victim and rogue across a lifetime of bizarre misadventures.
At home with the Patagonians
George C. Musters
A year-long journey alongside the Tehuelche people reveals an immense, unmapped interior where surviving requires extraordinary skill, swift horses, and deep mutual trust.
The Isle Of Pines (1668): and An Essay in Bibliography by Worthington Chauncey Ford
Henry Neville
A lone Englishman and four women are shipwrecked on an uninhabited island, where their isolated progeny expands over a century into a thriving, English-speaking nation.
Buck Peters, ranchman
Clarence Edward Mulford
Hard men, open range, and dirty dealing in a wide Montana sky.
A Maid at King Alfred's Court: A Story for Girls
Lucy Foster Madison
A displaced Saxon maiden uses her voice, her harp, and her courage to navigate the treacherous world of ninth-century England during King Alfred’s war with the Danes.
Notable Voyagers, From Columbus to Nordenskiold
William Henry Giles Kingston
Mariners battle uncharted oceans, treacherous currents, mutinous crews, and crushing ice fields in an expansive chronicle tracing centuries of human exploration across the globe.
Gargantua and Pantagruel, Illustrated, Book 4
François Rabelais
Sail into a riotous Renaissance sea voyage where giant princes, crude friars, and coward fools chase oracle-wisdom across a surreal ocean of bizarre islands and absurd dogmas.
The Story of the Odyssey
Homer
A long journey home turns into a decade-long battle against monstrous beasts, treacherous seas, and vengeful suitors.
An Antarctic Mystery
Jules Verne
A obsessed sea captain leads an expedition into the icy Antarctic to rescue a long-lost crew, only to discover that a famous literary fiction is chillingly real.
The Boy Allies in Great Peril
Clair W. (Clair Wallace) Hayes
A crowd of thousands gathers outside the royal palace in Rome, waiting for word that Italy will enter the World War against Austria.
Smoke Bellew
Jack London
Soft San Francisco dilettante Kit Bellew goes north to the Klondike for a brief excursion and stays to become a trail-hardened sourdough whose strength matches the wild country.
Captain Fracasse
Théophile Gautier
A penniless Gascon baron abandons his decaying ancestral ruin to join a troupe of traveling actors, exchanging his noble name for a wooden sword to defend a virtuous actress from a ruthless duke.
The Old East Indiamen
E. Keble (Edward Keble) Chatterton
Driven by commercial ambition and naval daring, armed merchant vessels forged Britain’s trade network across distant seas, enduring storms, mutinies, and wartime battles to shape a global empire.
Men of Iron
Howard Pyle
In a perilous fifteenth-century England where a single misstep seals a nobleman's downfall, an outlawed baron's son must master the harsh arts of chivalry to redeem his family's stolen honor and name.
The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night
Burton, Richard Francis, Sir
A tapestry of love, deceit, magic, and sudden fortune unfolds across the Islamic world, woven together by the relentless compulsion to tell stories.
The Story of Magellan and The Discovery of the Philippines
Hezekiah Butterworth
Driven by an unyielding spirit of discovery, a Portuguese navigator braves unknown seas to unlock a western passage to the East, altering world history forever.
Travels and Adventures of Little Baron Trump and His Wonderful Dog Bulger
Ingersoll Lockwood
A tiny German aristocrat and his loyal hound wander across a fantastical Earth, surviving inflated aerial societies and rolling spherical humanoids through sheer brass, quick wits, and stubborn devotion to one another.
The Martial Adventures of Henry and Me
William Allen White
Two middle-aged, small-town newspaper editors embark on a sentimental journey through war-torn Europe, discovering both the grim realities of the front and the enduring idealism of the American spirit.
The Lost Princess of Oz
L. Frank (Lyman Frank) Baum
When the beloved ruler of a magical land vanishes, a mismatched group of adventurers sets out on a perilous quest to uncover her fate and confront the thief who stole their kingdom’s peace.
Queen of the Black Coast
Robert E. (Robert Ervin) Howard
A fierce, wandering mercenary finds an unlikely soulmate in the pirate queen of the southern seas, leading them into a dark, supernatural heart of the jungle.
The Adventures of Ulysses the Wanderer
Homer
The wanderer returns from a decade of war, only to find his home besieged by shadows and his own identity fractured by the long, cruel passage of time.
Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2
Charles Lever
The chaotic, vibrant adventures of an Irish dragoon reveal the relentless energy of a soldier’s life during the Peninsular War and the final, thunderous climax of Waterloo.
The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself
De Witt C. (De Witt Clinton) Peters
A true son of the American frontier, this account follows a legendary scout as he navigates the untamed wilderness, survives perilous encounters, and helps define the boundaries of a growing nation.
After London
Richard Jefferies
HOOK England has reverted to a silent, overgrown wilderness where civilization is a memory, and a restless wanderer seeks to reclaim his destiny in the ruins of a forgotten world.
Laddie: A True Blue Story
Gene Stratton-Porter
A young girl chronicles the wholesome, rhythmic life of a large, hardworking family in rural Indiana, where secrets bloom and neighborly barriers finally break down.
First Footsteps in East Africa
Burton, Richard Francis, Sir
A daring expedition into the forbidden city of Harar, this account captures the perilous journey of a nineteenth-century traveler through the largely uncharted Somali interior.
Dead Men Tell No Tales
E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung
A sea voyage becomes a nightmare when a passenger discovers a deadly criminal conspiracy aboard. Survival and love collide in this tense, atmospheric tale of pursuit and redemption.
It Happened in Egypt
C. N. (Charles Norris) Williamson
A young nobleman’s pursuit of a hidden desert treasure entangles him with a sharp-witted American heiress, leading both into the mysterious heart of ancient Egypt. This spirited romance, set against the backdrop of turn-of-the-century travel, blends archaeological intrigue with the shifting social dynamics of a…
Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas
Herman Melville
The South Seas are a vast stage for the restless, and this narrative captures the wandering spirit of a sailor who exchanges the rigid discipline of a whale-ship for the unpredictable freedom of island life.
A Girl of the Klondike
Victoria Cross
In a frozen landscape fueled by gold-lust and indifference, a young woman negotiates her own survival against the rigid moral expectations of the men who surround her.
Glinda of Oz: In Which Are Related the Exciting Experiences of Princess Ozma of Oz, and Dorothy, in Their Hazardous Journey to the Home of the Flatheads, and to the Magic Isle of the Skeezers, and How They Were Rescued from Dire Peril by the Sorcery of Glinda the Good
L. Frank (Lyman Frank) Baum
A tranquil journey to settle a territorial dispute turns into a desperate struggle for survival when a fairy ruler and her young friend are trapped beneath a lake.
Unexplored Spain
Abel Chapman
The remote reaches of Spain remain a frontier where roads vanish, wild creatures roam untamed, and the landscape guards its secrets against the encroachment of the modern world.
A Book of American Explorers
Thomas Wentworth Higginson
This collection gathers the primary accounts of the men who first crossed the Atlantic to the shores of the New World, letting the explorers speak for themselves across centuries of shifting history.
The Voyages of Pedro Fernandez de Quiros, 1595 to 1606. Volume 1
Pedro Fernandes de Queirós
This record captures the obsession of a visionary navigator seeking a fabled southern continent. It documents the collision of high-minded religious idealism with the harsh, often violent realities of seventeenth-century maritime exploration.
The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night
Burton, Richard Francis, Sir
A queen’s survival hangs on a single thread of storytelling, weaving a tapestry of magic, moral lessons, and human caprice that spans a thousand and one nights of suspense. This legendary collection serves as both a mirror of medieval Eastern life and a labyrinthine gateway into the timeless imagination of the Orient.
The Cat of Bubastes: A Tale of Ancient Egypt
G. A. (George Alfred) Henty
A prince of a fallen nation and an Egyptian priest’s son forge an unlikely friendship that survives exile, pursuit, and the shadow of a sacred execution.
A Roving Commission
G. A. (George Alfred) Henty
A young midshipman navigates the perils of the high seas and the chaos of the Haitian Revolution, finding his path from a boyish rescuer to a seasoned officer of the British Royal Navy.
The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night
Burton, Richard Francis, Sir
A legendary collection of nested tales, these stories transport the reader into a world where magic, desire, and fate collide under the watchful eyes of kings and caliphs.
The Wings of the Morning
Louis Tracy
A shipwrecked sailor and a high-born woman find their survival skills tested when they are cast away together on a remote, treasure-laden island. This classic adventure tale explores the tension between civilization and the raw wilderness.
Ali Baba, or the Forty Thieves
Unknown
A poor woodcutter discovers a secret cavern filled with stolen gold, triggering a dangerous game of wits against a ruthless band of thieves who will stop at nothing to reclaim their hoard.
Allan and the Holy Flower
H. Rider (Henry Rider) Haggard
A seasoned adventurer navigates the perils of the African interior in search of a legendary, golden-bloomed orchid, only to find himself embroiled in the fates of lost souls and ancient, forgotten deities.