Free summaries
Classics of Literature — page 6
434 public-domain classics of literature books, summarised. Page 6 of 10.
Les Misérables, v. 2/5: Cosette
Victor Hugo
An escaped ex-convict hazards his newly bought freedom to rescue a neglected child and shepherd her through the shadowy corners of a changing Paris.
The World's Greatest Books
Unknown
A vast library of classic fiction opens its doors, offering a guided journey through the moral crossroads, tragic downfalls, and quiet triumphs that shaped nineteenth-century storytelling.
Supplemental Nights to the Book of the Thousand and One Nights
Burton, Richard Francis, Sir
A vast, late-nineteenth-century repository of Middle Eastern lore, presenting newly translated tales of wonder, rogue trickery, and courtly intrigue with meticulous anthropological notes.
The Aeneid of Virgil
Virgil
Driven by divine decree and shadowed by tragedy, a displaced prince leads his surviving people across violent seas to build a legendary new home.
The Eleven Comedies, Volume 2
Aristophanes
The comedies of the ancient Athenian stage remain the sharpest mirrors ever held up to human folly, blending biting political satire with the absurdity of a fever dream. This collection brings together six of the playwright’s most enduring works, documenting a society obsessed with litigation, war, and the…
Anglo-Saxon Literature
John Earle
This survey of the Anglo-Saxon period maps the intersection of early English language, culture, and the transition from pagan roots to Christian refinement. It provides a scholarly, atmospheric guide to the foundations of an intellectual tradition.
The Electra of Euripides: Translated into English rhyming verse
Euripides
Two children of a murdered king seek vengeance, only to find that fulfilling a divine command does not guarantee justice, but rather leaves them hollow, blood-stained, and utterly alone.
The collected works of Henrik Ibsen, Vol. 07 (of 11)
Henrik Ibsen
This volume collects two of the most influential dramas of the nineteenth century, pairing a searing look at the illusions of domestic life with a haunting exploration of inherited sins.
Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern
Unknown
This anthology serves as a vast, curated gateway to the human experience, gathering legendary voices from antiquity through the nineteenth century to celebrate the enduring power of the written word. It functions as both a scholarly record and a deeply personal invitation to explore the breadth of global literary…
Select Epigrams from the Greek Anthology
J. W. (John William) Mackail
This collection preserves the fragile, enduring voices of the ancient world, capturing fleeting moments of love, grief, and beauty in the lapidary perfection of the Greek epigram.
The Nibelungenlied: Revised Edition
William Nanson Lettsom
This epic poem chronicles the rise and ruin of a heroic age, where loyalty to one’s kin and king inevitably collides with the demands of personal honor, leading to an inescapable cycle of vengeance.
Alcestis
Euripides
The King of Pherae must die, yet he finds a way to live—provided someone else takes his place. When his wife, Alcestis, volunteers to die in his stead, she sets in motion a drama of grief, duty, and the limits of heroism.
The Poems and Fragments of Catullus: Translated in the Metres of the Original
Gaius Valerius Catullus
The verses of an ancient Roman lover, reimagined through the formal rigors of Victorian classicism, reveal a heart as volatile and raw as any modern confession.
Essays of Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
This collection of reflections navigates the complexities of human conduct, from the subtle ethics of war to the private rituals of a quiet life. It offers an intimate, wandering portrait of a mind observing its own nature.
The Miser
Molière
A man’s life is consumed by his obsession with a buried treasure, turning his home into a battlefield where greed clashes with the impulsive, honest nature of his own children.
The Memorable Thoughts of Socrates
Xenophon
Philosophical inquiry comes alive through daily human interactions when wisdom abandons high abstraction to fix broken lives, navigate political duty, and prepare a noble mind for death.
The Deipnosophists
of Naucratis Athenaeus
Gathered around a table in ancient Rome, a host of scholars and connoisseurs spend endless evenings trading poetry, debating etiquette, and dissecting the nuances of food, wine, and song.
The Decameron, Volume II
Giovanni Boccaccio
A desperate lover risks execution, a cunning trickster outwits his neighbors, and ten young Florentines outrun the plague through the power of invention.
The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19
Unknown
A panoramic tapestry of modern German literature, this monumental anthology captures a culture caught between rustic tradition and the surging currents of twentieth-century modernity. Across eleven varied works of prose and scholarship, the collection exposes the quiet heartbreaks, social frictions, and…
Supplemental Nights to the Book of the Thousand and One Nights
Burton, Richard Francis, Sir
Streetwise tricksters, enchanted songstresses, and warring princes navigate a world where sheer cunning outwits the fate written for them.
The History of Don Quixote, Volume 1, Part 01
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
Deluded by romantic tales, an aging Spanish nobleman sets off into the countryside as a knight-errant, determined to right world wrongs despite his complete lack of practical skill or modern sense.
Hippolytus
Euripides
Destructive passion and unyielding pride collide with divine vengeance when mortals dare to deny the gods their due.
Homer and His Age
Andrew Lang
To read the ancient epics as a patchwork of competing fragments is to miss the vivid, unified world that brought them into being.
Supplemental Nights to the Book of the Thousand and One Nights
Burton, Richard Francis, Sir
A world of hidden doors, transformative curses, and relentless sibling envy opens when nighttime storytelling becomes a matter of life and death.
On Translating Homer
Matthew Arnold
How should a reader encounter the ancient voice of Homer in a modern tongue? This exploration of translation theory argues that only by capturing the poet’s rapid, simple, and noble movement can a translator succeed.
The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare
J. J. (Jean Jules) Jusserand
A scholarly yet accessible investigation into the evolution of prose fiction, tracing how the English novel moved from the lofty, artificial ideals of the Renaissance toward the gritty realism of later centuries.
Gargantua and Pantagruel, Illustrated, Book 2
François Rabelais
This sprawling, irreverent epic chronicles the coming-of-age of a giant prince, blending raucous satire, impossible feats of strength, and a deep, humanist thirst for knowledge. It is a work that refuses to take anything seriously, except perhaps the importance of wit and learning.
The Maid of Orleans: A Tragedy
Friedrich Schiller
This drama follows the meteoric rise and tragic end of a peasant girl who believes she is divinely summoned to save France from English occupation. It is a work of high intensity, exploring the friction between human love, divine duty, and the cold machinery of war.
The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Volume I
John Payne
A merchant accidentally kills a genie’s son with a date stone, sparking a cascade of tales where life and death hang by the thread of a well-told story.
Essays of Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
To explore this book is to walk through the corridors of a restless, brilliant mind that refuses to be categorized. It is an invitation to examine the messy, contradictory nature of being human by watching a single man examine himself.
Tartuffe
Molière
The ultimate portrait of a pious fraud, this play reveals how easily a righteous mask can dismantle a family’s peace. It remains the definitive study of how we let the wrong people hold the keys to our conscience.
Anthology of Russian literature from the earliest period to the present time, volume 1 (of 2)
Leo Wiener
This collection offers a rare, panoramic view of the Russian soul, spanning from ancient, earth-bound folk wisdom to the sophisticated literary salons of the eighteenth century.
The Tale of Beowulf, Sometime King of the Folk of the Weder Geats
William Morris
A champion travels across the sea to free a king’s hall from a nocturnal terror, beginning a life devoted to defending his people against monsters and fate.
Peace
Aristophanes
Desperate to end a decade of devastating war, a rustic farmer rides a giant dung-beetle into the heavens to rescue the goddess of peace from a dark pit.
Selected Essays of Plutarch, Vol. I
Plutarch
A humane, practical guide to living well, these classic Greek essays balance keen psychological insight with vivid anecdotes about how to govern our tongues, our friendships, and ourselves.
The collected works of Henrik Ibsen, Vol. 04 (of 11)
Henrik Ibsen
A reckless Norwegian peasant lies, roams, and bargains his way across the globe, running from himself until time runs out.
Galatea
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
A lush, intricate landscape of idealized shepherds and shepherdesses, this pastoral romance captures the restless longings of the heart through poetry, song, and the elaborate art of conversation.
The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886
Ontario. Department of Education
This collection serves as a formal curriculum for secondary school students, blending technical elocution lessons with a curated anthology of canonical English and classical literature. It offers a structured survey of the Victorian educational ideal.
The Works of Lucian of Samosata
of Samosata Lucian
This collection is a brilliant, stinging masterclass in skepticism, showcasing the wit of a second-century Syrian intellectual who transformed satire into a scalpel for dissecting the human condition.
Two Tragedies of Seneca: Medea and The Daughters of Troy: Rendered into English Verse
Lucius Annaeus Seneca
This volume presents two pillars of Roman tragic drama, offering a window into the intense, psychological storytelling that profoundly shaped the evolution of Western theater. These works explore the terrifying limits of human passion when pushed to the point of no return.
De Amicitia, Scipio's Dream
Marcus Tullius Cicero
Friendship is not merely a social comfort but the highest expression of human virtue, while the soul’s true home lies in the contemplation of the eternal. These two classic meditations offer a timeless map for living with integrity.
The Works of Lucian of Samosata
of Samosata Lucian
This collection of satires, dialogues, and essays brings the ancient Mediterranean world to vibrant, biting life, proving that human folly, vanity, and greed are timeless. It serves as an essential bridge for modern readers to appreciate the sharp, skeptical wit of the second-century Syrian rhetorician who mastered…
The Elegies of Tibullus: Being the Consolations of a Roman Lover Done in English Verse
Tibullus
The elegies of a Roman gentleman reveal a man who scoffs at war and gold, desperate only to secure the quiet, domestic love of the women who repeatedly break his heart.
The Eleven Comedies, Volume 1
Aristophanes
These five plays are a high-speed collision between biting political satire and absurd, bawdy farce, capturing the manic energy of a city at war with itself.
The Æneid of Virgil translated into English prose
Virgil
Driven by destiny and the relentless hostility of the gods, a displaced hero seeks a new homeland for his people while struggling to reconcile his personal desires with the heavy demands of his divine mission.
The Works of Lucian of Samosata
of Samosata Lucian
This collection of dialogues and essays serves as a sharp-edged mirror to the pretensions of the ancient world. Through wit, satire, and a refusal to take dogma seriously, it invites readers to question the sincerity of philosophers, the vanity of historians, and the gullibility of the public.
Some Specimens of the Poetry of the Ancient Welsh Bards
Evan Evans
This collection serves as a vital bridge to a lost world, rescuing the defiant, intricate voices of early Welsh poets from the encroaching shadows of history. It offers a rare, scholarly window into the soul of a culture defined by its resistance and its song.
The Tale of the Argonauts
Rhodius Apollonius
A journey across the ancient seas tests the resolve of legendary heroes as they seek a prize guarded by monsters and the whims of the gods. This epic captures the fragile line between human ambition and divine interference.