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View Full Version : Where can I find literature that's in the public domain online?


Magic_Hat
2019-03-26, 01:18 AM
Title pretty much says it all. What are some websites that have literature from the public domain on them? I know about WikiSource, but I'm skeptical of anything Wiki related since anyone can edit them.
factotum
2019-03-26, 01:24 AM
Project Gutenberg is what you're looking for, by the sounds of it:

http://www.gutenberg.org/
Maloney
2019-03-27, 10:14 AM
Try Project Gutenburg is what I was going to say before somebody else did but yeah.
CarpeGuitarrem
2019-03-27, 10:32 AM
Yeah, PG is phenomenal in terms of the scope and quantity of the work they have there. In addition, it's in multiple formats, including popular eBook formats. I loaded a bunch of Conan novellas, Dracula, and Frankenstein onto my phone to read.
Bastian Weaver
2019-03-27, 10:37 AM
Some of it is available for free on Amazon in Kindle format.
There's also the Internet Archive.
Ibrinar
2019-03-27, 10:42 AM
Annoyingly to use project gutenberg in germany I have to use a proxy (https://cand.pglaf.org/germany/index.html). Well not that that is a big deal.
Lapak
2019-03-27, 11:10 AM
Annoyingly to use product gutenberg in germany I have to use a proxy (https://cand.pglaf.org/germany/index.html). Well not that that is a big deal.
Is it just me, or is Project Gutenberg being unavailable in Germany deeply ironic?
Maloney
2019-03-27, 12:04 PM
Is it just me, or is Project Gutenberg being unavailable in Germany deeply ironic?

Ironic. Germany could invent books, but couldn't read them themselves.
J-H
2019-03-27, 01:01 PM
Here are some:
https://americanliterature.com/books

This was how I finally read Frederick Douglass' autobiography, and Uncle Tom's Cabin.
Khedrac
2019-03-28, 03:16 AM
A question does arise "what do you mean by public domain?" There are quite a lot of places with free-to-read books online (another is the Baen Books free library (https://www.baen.com/allbooks/category/index/id/2012), though they have stopped expanding it) but that is not the same thing as "public domain". For a lot of these places the authors and publishers still retain all relevant rights to their works, they are just allowing you to read them (so no claiming it's your work etc.).
Magic_Hat
2019-03-29, 10:04 AM
Project Gutenberg is what you're looking for, by the sounds of it:

http://www.gutenberg.org/

Cool! Thanks! Exactly what I was looking for!

And thanks to everyone else that posted helping as well!