Books in the public domain (cc0) are copyright-free literary and artistic works. They can be copied, remixed, and redistributed without the need for permission. Public domain books are also available in digital formats that are easier to find than physical copies of the same book.
Most of the public domain books can be accessed online at Project Gutenberg or Wikibooks. While there are some websites that offer them as pdf downloads, such as the Internet Archive. These online resources have made it possible to find and download public domain books easily and legally.
This page contains links to sites that have books and book collections that are in the public domain. Other pages of interest may include Digital Collections: Academic, & Magazines & Journals
Alex Catalogue of Electronic Texts
This is a collection of public domain and open access documents with a focus on American and English literature as well as Western philosophy. Its purpose is to help facilitate a person’s liberal arts education. “Big ideas don’t fit on a mobile.”
AliceAndBooks
Download free books in PDF or ePUB in public domain. Discover the best classic of universal literature and download them for read anywhere.
American Museum of Natural History
Collection for the American Museum of Natural History
HTI American Verse Project
The American Verse Project is a collaborative project between the University of Michigan Humanities Text Initiative (HTI) and the University of Michigan Press. The project is assembling an electronic archive of volumes of American poetry prior to 1920. The full text of each volume of po…
Austrian Literature Online
Welcome to the website of Austrian Literature Online. Thousands of digital books - most of them related to Austria - are freely available to you. If you consider that any important books are missing in our library or if you need a digital copy yourself, please use…
Authorama - Public Domain Books
All the classic literature featured on this site, as well as illustrations within the book pages, are in the public domain. Other texts are Creative Commons licensed by Authorama.com
Bibliomania
Free Online Literature and Study Guides. A great link to keep bookmarked is the short stories collection. Great for waiting in long lines or whenever you need a quick bit of entertainment.
Books about California
A personal library of public domain e-texts and pictures about California and the old West.
Public Library of India
This library of books, audio, video, and other materials from and about India is curated and maintained by Public Resource. The purpose of this library is to assist the students and the lifelong learners of India in their pursuit of an education so that they may better their status and...
Books, Public Domain
Public domain texts both ancient and modern from many cultures. From Sumeria, cradle of Western civilization, to Beowulf.
Boston College Library
Collection of books from Boston College at the Internet Archive.
Boston Public Library
Books contributed by the Boston Public Library. Established in 1848 by an act of the Great and General Court of Massachusetts, the Boston Public Library (BPL) was the first large free municipal library in the United States. In 1839, French ventriloquist M. Nicholas Marie Alexandre Vattemare became..…
Boston University Theses
Boston University theses and dissertations from inception through 1950 inclusive. Material provided by the Mugar Memorial Library, BU’s main humanities and social science library and part of the Boston University Libraries System.
Botanicus.org
(CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) - a freely accessible portal to historic botanical literature from the Missouri Botanical Garden Library. botanicus at the Internet Archive.
Brandeis University Libraries
Books from Brandeis University at the Internet Archive
Brigham Young University
Books from the libraries of Brigham Young University at the Internet Archive.
Building Technology Heritage Library
The Building Technology Heritage Library (BTHL) is primarily a collection of American and Canadian, pre-1964 architectural trade catalogs, house plan books and technical building guides. Trade catalogs are an important primary source to document past design and construction practices. These...
BYU Brussels Opera and Ballet
This research collection for opera and ballet consists of a selection of print and manuscript scores, libretti, mise en scène, programs, scene designs and other archival documents. The materials date from the 17th through the 20th centuries. Its strengths include scores and performance materials...
CARLI
Material in this collection has been provided by The Consortium of Academic and Research Libraries in Illinois. The Consortium leads Illinois academic libraries to create and sustain a rich, supportive, and diverse knowledge environment that furthers teaching, learning, and research through the...
CARRIE: An Electronic Library
The First Full-Text On-Line Electronic Library: by Lynn H. Nelson, creator of CARRIE, Emeritus Professor of History, University of Kansas, USA
The Sacred Bible - Catholic Public Domain Version
The Holy Bible, Catholic Public Domain Version, translated from the Latin Vulgate, using the Challoner Douay Rheims as a guide, by Ronald L. Conte Jr. The entire text and all related files are in the public domain.
CELT: The online resource for Irish history, literature and politics
CELT is the online resource for contemporary and historical Irish documents in literature, history and politics in UCC, Ireland.
Church History Library
The collections of the Church History Library contain materials chronicling the history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from its beginning in 1830 to the present day. The collections contain manuscripts, books, Church records, photographs, oral histories, architectural drawings,..…
Claire T. Carney Library, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth Collection
Books included from the Claire T. Carney Library Archives and Special Collections, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. Strengths are in areas of textile education, textile manufacturing and design, local history (Fall River and New Bedford and surrounding communities), and local ethnic...
Chinese Classical Literature
This site contains Chinese classics with each character hyperlinked to its definition and etymology. No Chinese software is necessary - characters are displayed as images. Links to English translations are included for most works.
Classic Literature Library
Read some of the best classic literature books ever published completely free. From Shakespeare’s Sonnets to to Jane Austen’s classic romance novels, all for free.
Classicly.com
Classicly is a open library portal which offers to read free books online and download in Kindle, ePub, and PDF formats.
Comic Book Plus - Free And Legal Public Domain Books
The premier site for legally available Golden and Silver Age comic books, with free downloads, online viewing plus a friendly and lively forum, and more ...
Comic Books and Graphic Novels
Collections of Comic Books and Graphic Novels
DailyLit.com
lets you read literary classics and great new fiction in short installments that you can pick up and put down anytime.
Delaware County District Library (Ohio)
The Delaware County District Library (DCDL) and its branches are vibrant centers of activity for residents and visitors in Delaware County. DCDL provides an inviting environment that encourages reading, learning, community discussion, and supports lifelong discovery. We are proud to be recognized...
DigiLibraries.com
offers a digital source of free eBooks for any taste, a vast range of titles in digital format and our free eBooks collection is growing all the time.
Digitalbook.io
Free audio books and eBooks. Search, browse, listen, read and download over 100,000 free audio books and eBooks.
DigitalBookIndex
Provides links to more than 165,000 full-text digital books from more than 1800 commercial and non-commercial publishers, universities, and various private sites. More than 140,000 of these books, texts, and documents are available free.
Digital Public Library of America
The Digital Public Library of America brings together the riches of America’s libraries, archives, and museums, and makes them freely available to the world.
DigitalComicMuseum.com
Downloading FREE public domain Golden Age Comics.
DocSouth
The DocSouth collection at the Internet Archive includes works from the digital library "Documenting the American South", which offers a wealth of resources about Southern history, literature, and culture. All books come from the University Library at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Duke University Libraries
Books digitized by the Internet Archive for Duke University Libraries. The Duke University Libraries Digital Collections Program creates distinctive digital collections that provide access to Duke’s library and archival materials in support of teaching, learning, and research at Duke and...
eBooksRead .com
A free online library. Books can be read online or downloaded. Last check this site had 12,4845 authors, and 333,952 books
ENZB Early New Zealand Books
The Early New Zealand Books Collection has been developed by staff at The University of Auckland Libraries and Learning Services.
Europeana
Discover inspiring cultural heritage from European museums, galleries, libraries and archives
FadedPage.com
Free eBooks forever! From the public domain in Canada
Film Studies for Free
Open Access Film E-books List
The Folger Shakespeare Library
The world’s largest Shakespeare collection, many works from the early modern age, and a large performance history collection.
Francis A. Countway Library : Free Texts : Free Download, Borrow and Streaming : Internet Archive
The Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, one of the largest medical libraries in the world, serves the Harvard Medical School, Harvard School of Public Health, Harvard School of Dental Medicine, Boston Medical Library and the Massachusetts Medical Society. The Countway Library holds more than...
Free Books Online - The Home for Public Domain Books
Free Books is a free online library of public domain books. The books are primarily ASCII text, images and basic HTML based nagivation. The books are easily accessible and searchable without special apps or readers.
Free Classic eBooks
Home to thousands of free pdf ebooks of out-of-copyright classic literature for Kindle, Nook, ipad, iphone, android, Sony ereader, kobo and other mobile devices.
Freetechbooks.com
This site lists free online computer science, engineering and programming books, textbooks and lecture notes, all of which are legally and freely available.
FullBooks.com
I do believe each book has its own copyright or license info.
Gallica
The digital library of the National Library of France and its partners. Online since 1997, it is enriched every week by thousands of new products and now offers access to several million documents.
Gaelic Books
Books in Gaelic and relating to Gaelic topics contributed by the National Library of Scotland.
Genealogy
The Archive’s ever-expanding collection of genealogy resources includes items from the Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center in Fort Wayne, Indiana; Robarts Library at the University of Toronto; the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Library;Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah;>,...
Getfreeebooks.com
Getfreeebooks.com is a free ebooks site where you can download totally free legal ebooks, available in various popular formats. Lots of categories to choose from, no registration required and updated often for your reading pleasure.
Getty Research Institute
Books contributed by Getty Research Institute. The Research Library at the Getty Research Institute focuses on the history of art, architecture, and archaeology with relevant materials in the humanities and social sciences. The range of the collections begins with prehistory and extends to...
Google Books
Search the world's most comprehensive index of full-text books.
Google Scholar
Google Scholar provides a simple way to broadly search for scholarly literature. Search across a wide variety of disciplines and sources: articles, theses, books, abstracts and court opinions.
Great Books and Classics
Welcome to Great Books and Classics - Great Books and Classics
Hanover Historical Texts Collection
The Hanover Historical Texts Collection makes available digital versions of historical texts for use in history and humanities courses. Search by keyword, or browse the listings below.
Henry G. Gilbert Nursery and Seed Trade Catalog
This online collection features selected catalogs mainly from American nursery companies. For an overview of the entire collection, visit the Henry G. Gilbert Nursery and Seed Trade Catalog Collection, a part of the National Agricultural Library’s Special Collections.
instinct.org online texts
This is an archive of interesting texts texts by people that have released the copyright of their books and allowed other to freely redistribute them. Enjoy. If you know of something that’s not here and you think should be, please let us know : [email protected].
IntechOpen
IntechOpen is a leading global publisher of Journals and Books within the fields of Science, Technology and Medicine. We are the preferred choice of over 60,000 authors worldwide.
Internet Archive
Internet Archive is a non-profit digital library offering free universal access to books, movies & music, as well as 554 billion archived web pages.
The Victorian Prose Archive, Alfred J. Drake
The Victorian Prose Archive, containing nineteenth-century British Victorian literature and prose. Contains works by Matthew Arnold, Thomas Carlyle, James Anthony Froude, John Henry Newman, Walter Pater, J.J. Thomas, Oscar Wilde, and others. Some books are rare and out of print. Editor Alfred J.…
Internet Sacred Text Archive Home
The largest freely available archive of online books about religion, mythology, folklore and the esoteric on the Internet.
John Carter Brown Library
An independently administered and funded center for advanced research in history and the humanities, founded in 1846 and located at Brown University since 1901. Housed within the library’s walls is an internationally renowned collection of primary historical...
Just Free Books
JustFreeBooks is the best way to find free books online for your Kindle, Nook, Kobo or tablet. This search engine index the content of more than 700 free ebooks web sites.
Juvenile Historical Collection
The Juvenile Historical Collection is housed in the Information and Library Science Library at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. The collection of historic children’s books consists of materials mainly published between 1839 and 1920. The materials are available for library use only. ..…
Kids4Classics.com
Kids4Classics is a free online library. We offer free books of classical literature for students, teachers, homeschoolers or anyone who is interested in classical literature.
Learn Library
A learning center with ebooks that are free to read online, and free downloadable e-texts.
Letters of Note
Letters of Note is an attempt to gather and sort fascinating letters, postcards, telegrams, faxes, and memos. Scans/photos where possible. Fakes will be sneered at. Updated as often as possible; usually each weekday.
Literature.org
‘On this site you will find classic works of English literature. Fiction from writers like Lewis Carroll, the Bronte sisters (Anne, Charlotte...’ - literature.org
Literature Project - Free eBooks Online
A collection of free classic books, poems, speeches, and plays. For each piece of literature, we offer a free online eBook that can be easily read and searched. In addition, each online book includes links to a downloadable eBook version. We also offer Text-to-Speech software that can be downloaded from our site.
LoudLit.org
(audio) - LoudLit.org is committed to delivering public domain literature paired with high quality audio performances. We pair together great literature and accompanying audio.
LoyalBooks.com
Free Audio Books! Books Should be Free. Best Online Audiobook Downloads for Android, iPhone & mp3. Listen to Audible & Talking Books on Tape. eBooks in English, French, Spanish, Tamil, Portuguese, German & more.
Manybooks.net
Great selection of modern and classic books waiting to be discovered. All free and available in most ereader formats.
Masonic Library
Don’t waste your money on cheap reproductions of famous Masonic books when you can download them here for free.
Media History Digital Library
A conservation and access project for historical printed materials related to cinema, broadcasting and recorded sound. Visit our new website and read our blog at http://www.mediahistoryproject.org/ Search Media History Digital Library titles: Advanced Search
MIT Libraries
Books scanned by the Internet Archive for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Libraries.
MoMA Library
The Museum of Modern Art Library is a comprehensive collection devoted to modern and contemporary art. The noncirculating collection documents painting, sculpture, drawings, prints, photography, architecture, design, performance, video, film, and emerging art forms from 1880 to the present. The...
Montana State Library
Historic Montana state print publications from the 1890’s to the present. Browse the subject list. Search Montana state agency websites from 1996 to the present at MT.GOV Connect. Find compilation of Montana state agency databases at ...
National Library of Scotland
This is a selection of items from the National Library of Scotland , which is an information treasure trove of Scotland’s knowledge, history and culture, with millions of books, manuscripts and maps covering every subject.
North Carolina Digital Heritage Center
The North Carolina Digital Heritage Center is a statewide digitization and digital publishing program housed in the North Carolina Collection at UNC’s Wilson Special Collections Library. We work with North Carolina cultural heritage institutions to scan, describe, and publish historical materials...
Northeastern University Library
Digitized books from the Northeastern University Library and Northeastern University Press
OAPEN Library
online library and publication platform
Online Library of Liberty
A collection of scholarly works about individual liberty and free markets
OnlineBook4u.net
Discover thousands of eBooks, including new releases and the best collection of free public domain and original books, that you can read on any device.
Open Book Publishers
Open Book Publishers is an open access academic book publisher based in the United Kingdom. It is a non-profit social enterprise and community interest company that promotes open access for full academic monographs, critical editions and textbooks in the Humanities, Social Sciences, Mathematics and …
Open Culture
Discover thousands of free online courses, audio books, movies, textbooks, eBooks, language lessons, and more.
OpenLibra
The Free online bookstore: free PDF eBooks and books. Terms of Use
Open Library
Open Library is an open, editable library catalog, building towards a web page for every book ever published. Read, borrow, and discover more than 3M books for free.
Open Source Text Books
Thanks for coming to our library. Find an error that you want to report? Have a book that you think belongs here? Contact the administrators at [email protected].
OurSoaringEagle.com
Our Soaring Eagle is your place to read classic books, plays, stories, poems, essays, and speeches online by some of the greatest authors of all time. We are working to add new titles regularly so check back often.
Out-of-Copyright Sci Fi Classics Free on Kindle
Feel free to argue with the way I’ve broken up the authors below, but first hear me out:-) In the “Old Classics / Historical” column, I included the classic authors who most would agree have written a least one science fiction novel, but only when the free books on Amazon were tran…
Page By Page Books
Hundreds of classic books you can read right now, online for free, all in convenient Page By Page format. From Aesop to H. G. Wells and everything in between. Start reading now!
pdbooks.info
Public Domain Books (pdbooks.info) provides a larger database of historic books and helps you find where to read them. This site also hosts several books that are in the public domain.
PDFreeBooks.org
Download free DJVU and PDF books: children, language, comic, fiction, novel, story books. Illustrated classics. Free online library of public domain and copyleft full-text ebooks.
Perseus Digital Library
collection covers the history, literature and culture of the Greco-Roman world, 19th century America, plus some Arabic, Germanic, and Renaissance works.
Planet Publish
Free PDF eBooks Archive by Planet PDF
Project Gutenberg
Project Gutenberg is a library of free eBooks.
Project Gutenberg Australia free ebooks
Free ebooks by authors who died before 1955 and whose work is therefore in the public domain in Australia
Public Domain Tarot Books
Tarot Worksheets: Free Downloads There are a few public domain books that are worth adding to your personal library. The following are considered seminal works in tarot studies that the se…
Questia
Individual subscriptions and access to Questia are no longer available. We apologize for any inconvenience and are here to help you find similar resources.
Read Print Library
A free online library, Read Print puts thousands of online books at your fingertips.
Regional Digitization in Massachusetts BPL
Collections from Massachusetts libraries, archives, museums, historical societies, schools, and other cultural heritage institutions digitized in partnership with Digital Commonwealth and the Library for the Commonwealth program of the Boston Public Library. Initially funded through a Library...
San Francisco Public Library
Books contributed by the San Francisco Public Library.
School of Theology Boston University
This is the collection page for the School of Theology, Boston University
Science Books Online
Science books for free online reading: astronomy, earth sciences, engineering, mathematics, medicine, physics.
Smithsonian Libraries
The Smithsonian Libraries is the most comprehensive museum library system in the world, supporting the vital research of the Institution as well as the work of scientists and scholars around the world. Consisting of 21 branch libraries in Washington, D.C., Panama and New York, our collections are...
Spanish Drama
A collection for internal support at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
State Library of Massachusetts
Books digitized by the Internet Archive for the State Library of Massachusetts.
State Library of North Carolina
The State Library of North Carolina is a part of the North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources. It is the catalyst for exceptional library services in North Carolina. It is the principal library of state government and builds the capacity of all libraries in North Carolina. It develops and...
The American Methodism Project
The American Methodism Project is a digitized collection of interdisciplinary and historical materials related to American Methodism. The primary goal of this project is to provide both the digital tools and the digitized texts of American Methodism to better understand both Methodism and the...
The Assayer
You can browse the catalog by clicking on a link in the bar above. You need to become a member if you want to post your own reviews, add books to the database, or participate in discussions of books. Click here to become a member. Membership is free, and the only personal information you need…
