The NCERT Class 10 English book Footprints Without Feet is the Class 10 English supplementary reader, and all nine of its chapters are downloadable below as official NCERT PDFs.
Beyond the files, this page tells you what is actually inside the reader before you open it: how long each story runs, the teaching markers each chapter carries, and a revision order for the whole book. If you already have the PDF, what follows still helps you choose which chapter to read first.
Official NCERT PDFs for all nine chapters
The table below links to NCERT’s own PDFs, hosted on ncert.nic.in — the same official source the printed textbook comes from. Each file opens the chapter directly, with no login or payment.
| Ch. | Chapter | Pages | Official PDF |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | A Triumph of Surgery | 7 | |
| 2 | The Thief's Story | 6 | |
| 3 | The Midnight Visitor | 6 | |
| 4 | A Question of Trust | 6 | |
| 5 | Footprints without Feet | 6 | |
| 6 | The Making of a Scientist | 7 | |
| 7 | The Necklace | 8 | |
| 8 | Bholi | 9 | |
| 9 | The Book That Saved the Earth | 15 |
If you want to check the file format before downloading anything, open the official Chapter 1 PDF at ncert.nic.in/textbook/pdf/jefp101.pdf — every other chapter on this page follows the same pattern.
The English Class 10 PDF, at a glance
Quick facts you can check against the table above:
- 9 chapters make up the supplementary reader, from A Triumph of Surgery to The Book That Saved the Earth.
- 9 official NCERT PDFs — one per chapter, all on ncert.nic.in.
- 70 printed pages across the whole book.
- 0 numbered instructional sections — the book’s structure is story markers instead: Read And Find Out, Think About It and Talk About It frame every chapter, and the questions live inside those markers.
- Chapter study pages — the Chapter pages section below marks each one as Available, Drafting or Not yet built.
What is actually inside each chapter
| Ch. | Chapter | Sections | Activities | Figures | Questions |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | A Triumph of Surgery | — | — | — | — |
| 2 | The Thief's Story | — | — | — | — |
| 3 | The Midnight Visitor | — | — | — | — |
| 4 | A Question of Trust | — | — | — | — |
| 5 | Footprints without Feet | — | — | — | — |
| 6 | The Making of a Scientist | — | — | — | — |
| 7 | The Necklace | — | — | — | — |
| 8 | Bholi | — | — | — | — |
| 9 | The Book That Saved the Earth | — | — | — | — |
The directory above counts what the book prints. A section is one of NCERT’s numbered headings — this book prints none, because its chapters are framed by unnumbered teaching markers instead. An activity is a hands-on task set as a separate item — this reader sets none.
A question is a separate end-of-chapter exercise block — the supplementary reader does not print one, because every story’s questions are grouped under the book’s own headings, Think About It and Talk About It. No figure column appears, because this book’s illustrations carry no numbered captions to index.
Chapter 1: A Triumph of Surgery (7 pages)
James Herriot’s comic tale of Tricki, a pampered dog whose owner’s love lands him in the vet’s surgery, warns that over-indulgence can harm as surely as neglect — read it to see how the book’s comic irony works.
Runs 7 pages — one of the book’s shorter chapters — framed by the usual Read And Find Out, Think About It and Talk About It markers.
Chapter 2: The Thief’s Story (6 pages)
Ruskin Bond’s Hari Singh is a teenage thief who decides, at the last moment, not to rob the man who taught him to read; the story argues that trust can reform where punishment fails, and second chances are how people change.
Runs 6 pages, in the shortest band of the book.
Chapter 3: The Midnight Visitor (6 pages)
Robert Arthur’s Ausable is an unremarkable-looking secret agent who talks his way past a gunman by inventing a balcony that does not exist — a plot-driven thriller about presence of mind and the surprise ending.
Runs 6 pages; a quick, plot-driven read.
Chapter 4: A Question of Trust (6 pages)
Victor Canning’s Horace Danby, a careful and methodical thief, is outwitted by a woman posing as the house owner — study it for the irony of a criminal beaten at his own game, and pair it with Chapter 2 on trust and crime.
Runs 6 pages.
Chapter 5: Footprints without Feet (6 pages)
H.G. Wells’s Griffin, a scientist who makes himself invisibility and then uses the power to steal and terrorise, is the story that gives the book its title and its sharpest warning about the misuse of science.
Runs 6 pages — the chapter that names the book.
Chapter 6: The Making of a Scientist (7 pages)
The book’s one non-fiction chapter follows Richard Ebright from boyhood butterfly collecting to adult research, and it is the chapter to read if you want to see how curiosity, disciplined experiments and persistence build the scientific method in a real life.
Runs 7 pages; the only biographical account in the reader.
Chapter 7: The Necklace (8 pages)
Guy de Maupassant’s Matilda Loisel borrows a diamond necklace, loses it, and gives up ten years of her life to replace it — only to learn the original was fake; revise it for vanity and the irony of fate.
Runs 8 pages — the book’s second-longest story.
Chapter 8: Bholi (9 pages)
K.A. Abbas’s Bholi, dismissed as simple by her family, is a girl with a stammer who gains confidence through schooling and finally refuses a greedy bridegroom — the book’s clearest argument that education is the root of self-respect.
Runs 9 pages; the longest prose chapter in the reader.
Chapter 9: The Book That Saved the Earth (15 pages)
Claire Boiko’s play in two scenes shows the Martian commander Think-Tank aborting an invasion because he reads nursery rhymes as a threat — a satire on the power of books that reads like a script, not a story.
Runs 15 pages — more than twice the length of a typical chapter and the only drama in the book. Its structure runs Scene 1, then Scene 2, with the Martian crew named as characters to be played, not narrated.
Chapter pages in this Class 10 English book
Each chapter has its own study page in this directory; the table below shows where every one stands.
| Ch. | Chapter page |
|---|---|
| 1 | A Triumph of Surgery (coming soon) |
| 2 | The Thief's Story (coming soon) |
| 3 | The Midnight Visitor (coming soon) |
| 4 | A Question of Trust (coming soon) |
| 5 | Footprints without Feet (coming soon) |
| 6 | The Making of a Scientist (coming soon) |
| 7 | The Necklace (coming soon) |
| 8 | Bholi (coming soon) |
| 9 | The Book That Saved the Earth (coming soon) |
Status key: Available — the page is published and linked. Drafting — the page exists but is not public yet. Not yet built — no page yet, marked coming soon.
How to use the CBSE Class 10 English book for revision
Because this is a supplementary reader, the stories themselves carry the teaching. The fastest order of work is the book’s own length order:
- Read the six-page stories first. The Thief’s Story (Ch 2), The Midnight Visitor (Ch 3), A Question of Trust (Ch 4) and Footprints without Feet (Ch 5) each run six pages, so they clear half of the prose quickly and revise fastest.
- Move to the longer prose chapters. A Triumph of Surgery (Ch 1) and The Making of a Scientist (Ch 6) run 7 pages; The Necklace (Ch 7) and Bholi (Ch 8) run 8 and 9. Give the two longest the extra time they need.
- End with Chapter 9, the play. The Book That Saved the Earth is 15 pages of drama, and it reads best aloud with parts assigned — the satire of Think-Tank lands as dialogue, not narration.
- Respect the book’s markers. Do Read And Find Out before you read a story, and Think About It and Talk About It after, for every chapter.
The three longest chapters — The Necklace, Bholi and The Book That Saved the Earth — all sit at the end of the book, so put the largest share of revision time into its final quarter. Chapter-wise study pages for this reader are on the Class 10 English book hub.
Four themes link stories that sit far apart in the book — a useful frame when you are comparing characters across chapters:
| Theme | Chapters |
|---|---|
| Trust and deception | 2, 4 |
| Humour and cleverness | 1, 3, 9 |
| Science, curiosity and its misuse | 5, 6 |
| Pride, self-respect and education | 7, 8 |
Common mistake: treating Read And Find Out as optional. It is the book’s own prompt for what to notice, and doing it first makes the closing questions easier.
Syllabus caution: textbook contents and the examinable syllabus are not always identical — check the current official CBSE syllabus for how this supplementary reader is assessed. More chapter pages for this book are listed on the Class 10 NCERT books hub.
Related NCERT book pages
Move on to the wider directory:
- All NCERT books by class — the full directory.
- Class 10 NCERT books — every subject’s textbook for this class.
- Class 10 English book pages — the main reader and this supplementary reader together.
Sources and data verification
This listing is maintained for the 2026-27 academic session using the NCERT textbook information available to us. NCERT remains the authority for confirming the latest edition.
- The edition described is NCERT’s Class 10 English supplementary reader, Footprints Without Feet, in its official PDF form — files jefp101.pdf to jefp109.pdf on ncert.nic.in.
- This page covers that book’s nine chapters only — not the First Flight main reader, and not other Class 10 subjects.
- The listing is maintained for the current academic session using NCERT’s own PDFs.
- NCERT settles textbooks, editions and PDFs; CBSE settles the curriculum, syllabus and examinations.
Reference: NCERT Class 10 English (Footprints Without Feet) textbook, official edition on ncert.nic.in.
Frequently asked questions
How many chapters are in the NCERT Class 10 English book Footprints Without Feet?
Nine. The book runs 70 printed pages, from Chapter 1, A Triumph of Surgery, to Chapter 9, The Book That Saved the Earth, and every chapter has an official NCERT PDF linked in the table above.
Are the Footprints Without Feet PDFs official and free?
Yes. The PDFs are NCERT’s own files, hosted on ncert.nic.in, and NCERT makes its textbooks freely available for download. Each of the nine chapter links above goes straight to that official source.
Where are the questions in each story of Footprints Without Feet?
Inside each chapter, under the book’s own headings. Every chapter carries the same three teaching markers — Read And Find Out, Think About It and Talk About It — and the questions sit inside them rather than in a separate exercise block at the end.
Which chapter of Footprints Without Feet is a play?
Chapter 9, The Book That Saved the Earth. It is Claire Boiko’s play in two scenes about a Martian invasion, and at 15 pages it is also the longest chapter in the book.
Which chapter is about an invisible scientist?
Chapter 5, Footprints without Feet — the story that titles the book. H.G. Wells’s scientist Griffin makes himself invisible and then uses the power to rob and terrorise a village.