Old stories. Open pages.
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Every book in our collection is available in full. Move between chapters, adjust the type, switch to a darker page after sunset, and leave a bookmark for tomorrow. Your reading position, bookmarks and preferences stay in this browser on this device. Clearing browser data will remove them.
Our editions
We use original English texts transcribed by Project Gutenberg and Project Gutenberg Australia. No modern cover art, translations or illustrations are reproduced. Our typographic covers are original designs; illustration captions and historical front matter remain where they appear in the source text. Texts retain their source spelling and punctuation.
Under the standard UK term, literary copyright expires at the end of the seventieth year after the author’s death. All the authors in this collection died by 1950. We have checked the original works and historic credited contributions for UK use. Copyright rules can differ elsewhere.
| Book / source | Author died | UK public domain from |
|---|---|---|
| Frankenstein | 1851 | 1922 |
| Dracula | 1912 | 1983 |
| The Great Gatsby | 1940 | 2011 |
| Pride and Prejudice | 1817 | 1888 |
| Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland | 1898 | 1969 |
| Jane Eyre | 1855 | 1926 |
| The Picture of Dorian Gray | 1900 | 1971 |
| A Study in Scarlet | 1930 | 2001 |
| Great Expectations | 1870 | 1941 |
| Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde | 1894 | 1965 |
| Treasure Island | 1894 | 1965 |
| The Time Machine | 1946 | 2017 |
| The War of the Worlds | 1946 | 2017 |
| The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes | 1930 | 2001 |
| Sense and Sensibility | 1817 | 1888 |
| Emma | 1817 | 1888 |
| Persuasion | 1817 | 1888 |
| Wuthering Heights | 1848 | 1919 |
| The Secret Garden | 1924 | 1995 |
| The Wonderful Wizard of Oz | 1919 | 1990 |
| Moby-Dick | 1891 | 1962 |
| A Christmas Carol | 1870 | 1941 |
| The Scarlet Letter | 1864 | 1935 |
| Little Women | 1888 | 1959 |
| The Wind in the Willows | 1932 | 2003 |
| The Call of the Wild | 1916 | 1987 |
| White Fang | 1916 | 1987 |
| The Railway Children | 1924 | 1995 |
| The Jungle Book | 1936 | 2007 |
| The Hound of the Baskervilles | 1930 | 2001 |
| 1984 | 1950 | 2021 |
| Animal Farm | 1950 | 2021 |
| To the Lighthouse | 1941 | 2012 |
| Mrs Dalloway | 1941 | 2012 |
Sources & acknowledgements
Project Gutenberg describes its collection as more than 75,000 free ebooks. Our mission shares that belief in open access, while My Free Bookshelf offers a smaller curated shelf.
George Orwell’s original novels are in the UK public domain, but are still protected in some other countries, including the United States. Readers outside the UK should check local copyright rules before using those texts. Woolf’s continuous novel Mrs Dalloway is grouped into reading sections without cutting its prose.
We gratefully acknowledge Project Gutenberg, Project Gutenberg Australia and their volunteer transcribers. Each book’s reader links to the complete source file with its credits and Project Gutenberg licence. Historical introductory material in Pride and Prejudice is by George Saintsbury (died 1933); the text also references Hugh Thomson (died 1920). Jane Eyre references F. H. Townsend (died 1920). No images from those editions are used.
UK copyright guidance · Project Gutenberg licence · Australian archive licence
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