Better Gutenberg is a carefully kept library of the world’s great public-domain literature — each title available as a clean, well-formatted EPUB you can read on any device, completely free. Browse a collection below.
The Classics
Classic LiteratureTimeless masterpieces of fiction, philosophy, and poetry from the world's great traditions.NovelsThe great long-form fiction of the public domain — the novels that defined the form.
British & American Fiction
British LiteratureAusten, Dickens, the Brontës and more — the cornerstones of the English literary tradition.Victorian FictionTrollope and Gaskell, Collins and Meredith, Mrs Oliphant and Charlotte Yonge — the three-decker age at full stretch.Edwardian & Early Modern British FictionBennett, Galsworthy, Forster and May Sinclair — the English novel from the old queen’s death to the jazz age.American LiteratureFrom Melville and Twain to Fitzgerald and Hemingway — the defining works of American letters.American Fiction 1900–1930Dreiser and Wharton, Tarkington and Cather, Sinclair Lewis and Edna Ferber — America’s novel comes of age.
World Literature
French LiteratureHugo, Dumas, Flaubert and Verne — the masterworks of French literature, many in the original French.German LiteratureGoethe, Nietzsche, Kafka and more — the German literary and philosophical canon, many in the original German.Russian LiteratureTolstoy, Dostoevsky, Chekhov and Turgenev — the towering giants of Russian fiction.
Genre Fiction
AdventureVerne, Stevenson, Conan Doyle and more — seafaring epics, lost worlds, and pulse-pounding thrillers.Sea StoriesMarryat, The Sea-Wolf and Captain Blood, Conrad’s Secret Sharer and Captains Courageous — pirates, mutinies and the long haul under sail.WesternsZane Grey and Owen Wister, B. M. Bower and Max Brand — cattle drives, range wars and the frontier town.Crime, Thrillers & MysteryDoyle, Christie, Poe and more — detectives, whodunits, and pulse-racing suspense.Science Fiction & FantasyVerne, Wells, Burroughs and more — the visionary roots of science fiction and fantasy.Pulp Science FictionThe magazine years: Leinster, Piper, Sheckley, Harry Harrison and Philip K. Dick.Ghost & Supernatural StoriesM. R. James, Le Fanu, Blackwood and Machen — haunted houses, old curses and things at the window.RomanceAusten, the Brontës and more — the great love stories of classic literature.Love Stories & Domestic FictionGrace Livingston Hill, Florence Barclay’s The Rosary and E. P. Roe — courtship, marriage and the family hearth.HumourTwain, Wodehouse, Jerome and more — the wits and satirists of classic literature.Comic Novels & SatireWodehouse, Jerome, Leacock and Peacock — comic novels, send-ups and the long tradition of satire.
Historical Fiction
Historical Novels: Ancient & MedievalQuo Vadis and Ben-Hur, The Last Days of Pompeii, The Talisman and The White Company — Rome, the Holy Land and the age of chivalry in fiction.Historical Novels: Tudor to NapoleonFrom Bosworth to Waterloo — the Armada, the Civil War, the Jacobites and the Revolution in fiction.Historical Novels: The Nineteenth Century & AfterThe Civil War, the frontier and the trenches — the recent past as the Victorians and their heirs told it.
Short Fiction, Poetry & Drama
Short StoriesPoe, Chekhov, O. Henry and more — masterpieces of short fiction and story collections.British Short StoriesKipling, Saki, Hardy and Katherine Mansfield — the English, Scottish and Irish short story.American Short StoriesBret Harte, Sarah Orne Jewett, Charles Chesnutt and Fitzgerald — the American short story from frontier to city.PoetryWhitman, Dickinson, Shakespeare and more — the verse that has moved readers for centuries.British PoetryBlake and Cowper, Browning and Christina Rossetti, Yeats and Wilfred Owen — the English, Scottish, Welsh and Irish poets.American PoetryBryant and Emerson, Dickinson and Poe, Frost, Millay and Amy Lowell — the American poets.Plays & DramasShakespeare, Ibsen, Wilde and more — the masterpieces of the stage.
Myth & Legend
Mythology, Legends & FolkloreMyths, fairy tales and legends — the stories humanity has told for millennia.Folk & Fairy Tales of the WorldIrish fairy tales and Seneca myths, Basque legends, Korean and Santal folklore, the myths of Mexico, China and Japan — the stories the world told by the fire.Epics, Legends & Hero TalesThe Bruce and Sir Gawain, Pyle’s King Arthur, Lady Gregory’s Gods and Fighting Men and the legends of Hawaii.
Children & Young Adult
Children & Young AdultAlice, Oz, Peter Pan and more — the beloved classics of childhood reading.Fairy Tales, Myths & Fables for ChildrenAndersen and Aesop, Kingsley’s Heroes, Nesbit’s Phoenix and My Father’s Dragon — the tales children have always been told.Nursery Rhymes, Picture Books & VerseMother Goose and Edward Lear, Kate Greenaway, Walter Crane and Christina Rossetti’s Sing-Song — the first books of childhood.Animal StoriesThe Velveteen Rabbit and Pooh Corner, Beatrix Potter and Thornton Burgess — stories with animals at their heart.Boys’ Adventure & School StoriesHenty and Ballantyne, Talbot Baines Reed and the Rover Boys — the school story and the boys’ adventure.Girls’ StoriesL. M. Montgomery and Louisa May Alcott, Angela Brazil and Kate Douglas Wiggin — the girls’ story at its best.
Lives, Criticism & Reference
BiographiesLincoln, Franklin, Douglass and more — the lives of the people who shaped history.Literature — OtherCriticism, literary biography and the histories of writing — the books about books.
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The first 6,728 books as EPUB · 1.9 GB ZIP · every collection also has its own ZIP