Free summaries
British Literature — page 22
4,542 public-domain british literature books, summarised. Page 22 of 95.
The Man with Two Left Feet, and Other Stories
P. G. (Pelham Grenville) Wodehouse
Across town houses, coastal resorts, and theatrical backstages, misfits and well-meaning bunglers stumble into romance, sudden heroism, and ridiculous misunderstandings. Every misstep somehow leads to an unexpectedly happy ending.
An Outcast of the Islands
Joseph Conrad
A disgraced white clerk banished to an isolated river settlement in Borneo betrayer his benefactor for the love of a native woman, precipitating a slow, inescapable descent into madness and moral ruin.
Twilight
Julia Frankau
A invalid author retreats to the English countryside, only to discover that her rest cure is haunted by the tragic lingering presence and lost manuscripts of the house's former occupant.
The poetry of Robert Browning
Stopford A. (Stopford Augustus) Brooke
A critical mind weighs two giant Victorian voices against each other, charting how one poet abandoned smooth English harmonies to dissect the complex, imperfect souls of forgotten times and far-off lands.
The Tale of Mrs. Tittlemouse
Beatrix Potter
An fastidiously clean wood-mouse spends her days scrubbing her intricate underground home, only to be overwhelmed by a succession of uninvited insect guests and a large, damp toad who turns her immaculate world upside down.
England of My Heart
Edward Hutton
To walk the ancient tracks across southern England is to discover a landscape where every valley, village, and ruin bears the quiet weight of three thousand years.
The Methodist
Evan Lloyd
When religious enthusiasm masks human frailty, satire emerges to expose how easily noble ideals curdle into hypocrisy, chaos, and self-serving deceit across a changing society.
Nonsense Songs
Edward Lear
Animals and everyday objects escape domestic routines to embark on grand, absurd journeys across uncharted oceans and fantastical lands, encountering bizarre creatures before vanishing into history or ending in sudden catastrophe.
The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner
James Hogg
A fanatic's self-righteousness curdles into madness when a mysterious stranger convinces him that his status as one of God's chosen gives him absolute license to commit murder.
Five Children and It
E. (Edith) Nesbit
When four English children and their baby brother dig into a local sand-pit, they unearth an ancient, short-tempered creature capable of granting one magnificent wish every day—always with unforeseen, chaotic consequences.
Rookwood
William Harrison Ainsworth
A ancient family curse, a secretive crypt, and an elusive highwayman driving his horse to absolute exhaustion across the English countryside frame this fiery story of inheritance and revenge.
The Amateur Cracksman
E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung
A charming gentleman thief and his desperate former schoolmate pull off daring late-Victorian heists, testing the limits of loyalty, honor, and law.
A Sicilian Romance
Ann Ward Radcliffe
A mysterious monk in a ruined Sicilian castle hands a traveler an ancient manuscript, unlocking a haunting saga of imprisoned noblewomen, dark family secrets, and tyrannical noble power.
Georgina's Reasons
Henry James
A handsome young naval officer weds a cold, ambitious New York beauty in secret, only to find himself trapped in a web of deceit that spans continents and shapes the rest of his life.
Epicoene
Ben Jonson
A misanthropic uncle marries a supposedly silent woman to disinherit his nephew, only to discover that his new household is loud, chaotic, and entirely out of his control.
Orley Farm
Anthony Trollope
When a devoted mother commits a secret crime to secure her infant son’s inheritance, she spends twenty years quietly enduring the terror of discovery, only to watch her sacrifice tear apart the gentle world she fought so hard to join.
Carnacki, the Ghost Finder
William Hope Hodgson
A detective of the unseen defends the living from terrifying hauntings using ancient magic and modern tools.
England, My England
D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
A domestic world of vibrant nature and quiet desperation fractures under the weight of emotional detachment and physical disaster.
John Bull's Other Island
Bernard Shaw
An energetic, highly efficient Englishman and his disaffected Irish partner return to rural Ireland, where romantic mythologies, political ambitions, and corporate land schemes clash under the watchful eye of a defrocked, visionary priest.
Plain Tales from the Hills
Rudyard Kipling
These vignettes capture the volatile, insular world of British colonial India, where reputations are fragile, passions are dangerous, and the line between farce and tragedy is perilously thin.
Ten Boys from Dickens
Kate Dickinson Sweetser
These ten vignettes capture the formative years of Dickensian youth, tracing the paths of boys navigating poverty, ambition, and the stark realities of Victorian society.
The Adventure of the Devil's Foot
Arthur Conan Doyle
A terrifying midnight madness strikes a quiet Cornish village, leaving one sister dead at a card table and her two brothers hopelessly insane.
"My Novel"
Lytton, Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron
A broad, sprawling panorama of nineteenth-century English society, this narrative explores how ambition, honour, and hidden secrets shape the intertwined destinies of the high-born and the humble.
Roister Doister: Written, probably also represented, before 1553. Carefully edited from the unique copy, now at Eton College
Nicholas Udall
A foolishly vain knight pursues a wealthy widow who thoroughly despises him, completely unaware that his parasite helper is orchestrating his humiliation for sport.
The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4
Charles Lamb
A tapestry of human frailty, theatrical ambition, and urban devotion reveals how quiet virtues and eccentric passions endure through life's unexpected turns.
Bacon and Shakspere
William Henry Burr
A handwriting study of five clumsy signatures becomes a devastating challenge to the conventional author of the Western world’s greatest plays.
Framley Parsonage
Anthony Trollope
A young vicar's brush with political ambition and borrowed money threatens his quiet parish home, while his plain, fierce sister refuses to marry the local lord until his proud mother begs her to do so.
The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley
Percy Bysshe Shelley
A fiery, restless spirit seeks absolute ideal beauty, political freedom, and profound emotional truth, confronting mortal decay and worldly tyranny through transcendent verse before vanishing into the quiet deep.
The Fortunate Mistress (Parts 1 and 2): or a History of the Life of Mademoiselle de Beleau Known by the Name of the Lady Roxana
Daniel Defoe
A woman abandoned in poverty transforms herself into a wealthy, high-class courtisan, only to find that no amount of fortune can shield her from the haunting consequences of her past.
The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D
Jonathan Swift
A sharp collection of political essays and satirical broadsides dissects the fierce party faction, personal avarice, and rhetorical deception dominating eighteenth-century British public life.
The Law and the Lady
Wilkie Collins
A bride discovers that her new husband married her under a false name to conceal a horrifying past—a trial for his first wife’s murder that ended in an ambiguous verdict.
Sinister Street, vol. 1
Compton MacKenzie
A boy's vivid imagination transforms a shadowy Kensington house into a realm of terrifying phantoms and quiet wonders, setting him on a long, introspective journey toward manhood.
The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Eleven Volumes, Volume 06: Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons
Samuel Johnson
This collection assembles a lifetime of sharp-witted critique and biographical insight, capturing the intellectual pulse of the eighteenth century through one of literature’s most formidable minds. It serves as both a historical record and a masterclass in discerning judgment.
Wilfrid Cumbermede
George MacDonald
A restless search for truth and belonging drives a young man to uncover the secrets of his ancestry, navigating the divide between his own humble origins and the pride of an ancient, crumbling estate.
The Ivory Gate, a new edition
Walter Besant
A respected London lawyer suffers from dual consciousness, secretly living a second life as a radical visionary attempting to dismantle the very financial structure he defends by day.
The Last of the Barons
Lytton, Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron
A towering feudal titan clashes with an emerging modern world, torn between his devotion to a charismatic young king and the relentless dictates of his own unyielding pride.
Kipps: The Story of a Simple Soul
H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
A humble draper’s apprentice is thrust into the dizzying heights of wealth, only to discover that the most difficult thing in the world is simply being himself.
Barrack-room ballads
Rudyard Kipling
These verses capture the grit, humor, and resignation of the common British soldier serving in the Victorian era’s far-flung outposts. They transform the harsh realities of military life into enduring, rhythmic song.
Round the Fire Stories
Arthur Conan Doyle
These stories explore the uncanny, the grotesque, and the unexplained. They offer a masterclass in suspense, designed to chill the reader during a quiet, dark evening.
The Three Impostors
Arthur Machen
Strange occurrences in the streets of London hide a web of ancient, terrifying secrets. Beneath the surface of ordinary life, unseen forces draw the curious toward a dark and inevitable doom.
The Vnfortunate Traveller, or The Life of Jack Wilton: With an Essay on the Life and Writings of Thomas Nash by Edmund Gosse
Thomas Nash
A high-spirited rogue cuts a path through the battlefields and palaces of Europe, transforming from a mischievous court page into an accidental witness to the world’s most grotesque cruelties.
The Doctor's Dilemma
Bernard Shaw
A brilliant physician faces a moral catastrophe when he must decide which patient to save, ultimately choosing between a life of artistic genius and a life of quiet, humble merit.
Mystery at Geneva: An Improbable Tale of Singular Happenings
Rose Macaulay
Amidst the fragile, high-stakes diplomacy of a fictional League of Nations assembly, a series of baffling disappearances forces a cynical journalist to confront a sprawling, clandestine conspiracy.
A Book of Nonsense
Edward Lear
A collection of absurd, rhythmic sketches, this work invites readers into a world where logic is merely a suggestion and physical laws are subject to sudden, whimsical revision. By embracing the peculiar and the impossible, it serves as a foundational text for the genre of nonsense literature.
Burlesques
William Makepeace Thackeray
A collection of sharp-edged parodies, this volume dismantles the pretension of 19th-century literature and the social climbers who hungrily consumed it. It is a masterclass in literary mimicry, where the high-flown tropes of romance and adventure are brought down to earth by biting wit.
Specimens of the Table Talk of Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
These pages capture the singular, restless brilliance of a great poet’s mind, preserved as he held court in his final years. It is a portrait of genius caught in the amber of informal conversation.
The Book of Snobs
William Makepeace Thackeray
A master of social dissection exposes the hollow pretenses that govern human interaction, proving that the most ridiculous figures are often those who try hardest to climb the ladder of prestige.
The History of Pendennis
William Makepeace Thackeray
A young man’s journey from provincial innocence to the cynical sophistication of London, this expansive tale tracks the mistakes, heartbreaks, and hard-won maturation of a flawed but deeply human protagonist.