Project GutenbergUS rules
The original and largest free-ebook library — 70,000+ titles in EPUB, Kindle and plain text, no account needed.
Best for the heavy hitters: Doyle, Chesterton, Freeman, Futrelle, Leroux.
gutenberg.org ↗Where to Find Them
Public domain means free — legally, permanently, in full. Here is the map to the libraries that host these books, what each does best, and how to search them like a detective.
⚠ Read this first — jurisdiction decides everything
"Public domain" is not one global status. The EU frees a work 70 years after the author's death. The United States frees it 95 years after publication (as of 2026, that means works published in 1930 or earlier). The two rarely line up.
Consequence: a U.S.-hosted library like Project Gutenberg may not carry a book that is perfectly free for you in the EU (e.g. a 1940s novel by an author who died in 1952) — and may carry one that is not yet free in a third country. Always match the source's rules to your own location.
The Libraries
Eight places to read for free
From polished EPUBs to raw first-edition scans — pick the source that fits how you want to read.
Standard EbooksUS rules
Volunteer-produced, beautifully typeset editions of public-domain books — proofread, with proper covers and metadata. A smaller, curated catalogue.
Best for the best reading experience on an e-reader.
standardebooks.org ↗Internet ArchiveUS rules
Millions of scanned books — including obscure first editions you'll find nowhere else. Some are fully open; others are "borrow" only.
Best for rarities, original cover art and out-of-print authors.
archive.org ↗Faded PageCanada
A Canadian volunteer library producing carefully proofread ebooks under Canadian copyright — historically more generous than the U.S. for mid-century authors.
Best for 1940s–50s authors free in Canada (often Tey, Farjeon, Connington).
fadedpage.com ↗Project Gutenberg AustraliaAustralia
An independent sister project under Australian copyright, with a deep collection of early-20th-century mystery and thriller writers.
Best for authors who slipped through the U.S. catalogue.
gutenberg.net.au ↗Roy Glashan's LibraryAustralia
A labour-of-love archive specialising in exactly the half-forgotten pulp and Golden Age writers other libraries skip — well-formatted and free.
Best for the deep cuts: rare titles by minor masters.
freeread.com.au ↗LibriVoxUS rules
Free public-domain audiobooks, read by volunteers. Quality varies by reader, but the price is right and the catalogue is vast.
Best for listening — Holmes, Father Brown and the Thinking Machine.
librivox.org ↗WikisourceUS rules
A free library of transcribed, proofread texts you can read straight in the browser, with sources cited and pages linked to scans.
Best for quick reading and quoting with a citation.
wikisource.org ↗For German-language texts, head to the German Market — Projekt Gutenberg-DE, Zeno.org and the Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek.
The Method
How to hunt down a title
- Start with the author, not the title. A catalogue search for "R. Austin Freeman" surfaces everything in one go; individual titles were often reprinted under different names.
- Check the date against your country. In the EU, confirm the author died in 1955 or earlier. If a U.S. site doesn't have the book, that usually means U.S. copyright still applies — try Faded Page or Gutenberg Australia instead.
- Prefer a proofread edition. For reading, Standard Ebooks and Faded Page give you clean EPUBs. For research or rare titles, the Internet Archive's scans preserve the original pages.
- Cross-check the obscure ones. No single library has everything. If Gutenberg comes up empty, run the same name through the Archive, Roy Glashan's Library and Gutenberg Australia.
- Mind the translation. A translated text is its own copyrighted work. The English text of a French or German novel may be free while a particular modern translation is not — read the legal notes before you reprint.