FAMOUS AUTHORS
Classic Bookshelf: This site has put classic novels online, from Charles Dickens to Charlotte Bronte.
The Online Books Page: The University of Pennsylvania hosts this book search and database.
Project Gutenberg: This famous site has over 27,000 free books online.
Page by Page Books: Find books by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and H.G. Wells, as well as speeches from George W. Bush on this site.
Classic Book Library: Genres here include historical fiction, history, science fiction, mystery, romance and children’s literature, but they’re all classics.
Classic Reader: Here you can read Shakespeare, young adult fiction and more.
Read Print: From George Orwell to Alexandre Dumas to George Eliot to Charles Darwin, this online library is stocked with the best classics.
Planet eBook: Download free classic literature titles here, from Dostoevsky to D.H. Lawrence to Joseph Conrad.
The Spectator Project: Montclair State University’s project features full-text, online versions of The Spectator and The Tatler.
Bibliomania: This site has more than 2,000 classic texts, plus study guides and reference books.
Online Library of Literature: Find full and unabridged texts of classic literature, including the Bronte sisters, Mark Twain and more.
Bartleby: Bartleby has much more than just the classics, but its collection of anthologies and other important novels made it famous.
Fiction.us: Fiction.us has a huge selection of novels, including works by Lewis Carroll, Willa Cather, Sherwood Anderson, Flaubert, George Eliot, F. Scott Fitzgerald and others.
Free Classic Literature: Find British authors like Shakespeare and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, plus other authors like Jules Verne, Mark Twain, and more.
TEXTBOOKS
Textbook Revolution: Find biology, business, engineering, mathematics and world history textbooks here.
Wikibooks: From cookbooks to the computing department, find instructional and educational materials here.
KnowThis Free Online Textbooks: Get directed to stats textbooks and more.
Online Medical Textbooks: Find books about plastic surgery, anatomy and more here.
Online Science and Math Textbooks: Access biochemistry, chemistry, aeronautics, medical manuals and other textbooks here.
MIT Open Courseware Supplemental Resources: Find free videos, textbooks and more on the subjects of mechanical engineering, mathematics, chemistry and more.
Flat World Knowledge: This innovative site has created an open college textbooks platform that will launch in January 2009.
Free Business Textbooks: Find free books to go along with accounting, economics and other business classes.
Light and Matter: Here you can access open source physics textbooks.
eMedicine: This project from WebMD is continuously updated and has articles and references on surgery, pediatrics and more.
MATH AND SCIENCE
FullBooks.com: This site has “thousands of full-text free books,” including a large amount of scientific essays and books.
Free online textbooks, lecture notes, tutorials and videos on mathematics: NYU links to several free resources for math students.
Online Mathematics Texts: Here you can find online textbooks likeElementary Linear Algebra and Complex Variables.
Science and Engineering Books for free download: These books range in topics from nanotechnology to compressible flow.
FreeScience.info: Find over 1800 math, engineering and science books here.
Free Tech Books: Computer programmers and computer science enthusiasts can find helpful books here.
CHILDREN’S BOOKS
byGosh: Find free illustrated children’s books and stories here.
Munseys: Munseys has nearly 2,000 children’s titles, plus books about religion, biographies and more.
International Children’s Digital Library: Find award-winning books and search by categories like age group, make believe books, true books or picture books.
Lookybook: Access children’s picture books here.
PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION
Bored.com: Bored.com has music ebooks, cooking ebooks, and over 150 philosophy titles and over 1,000 religion titles.
Ideology.us: Here you’ll find works by Rene Descartes, Sigmund Freud, Karl Marx, David Hume and others.
Free Books on Yoga, Religion and Philosophy: Recent uploads to this site include Practical Lessons in Yoga and Philosophy of Dreams.
The Sociology of Religion: Read this book by Max Weber, here.
Religion eBooks: Read books about the Bible, Christian books, and more.
PLAYS
ReadBookOnline.net: Here you can read plays by Chekhov, Thomas Hardy, Ben Jonson, Shakespeare, Edgar Allan Poe and others.
Plays: Read Pygmalion, Uncle Vanya or The Playboy of the Western World here.
The Complete Works of William Shakespeare: MIT has made available all of Shakespeare’s comedies, tragedies, and histories.
Plays Online: This site catalogs “all the plays [they] know about that are available in full text versions online for free.”
ProPlay: This site has children’s plays, comedies, dramas and musicals.
MODERN FICTION, FANTASY AND ROMANCE
Public Bookshelf: Find romance novels, mysteries and more.
The Internet Book Database of Fiction: This forum features fantasy and graphic novels, anime, J.K. Rowling and more.
Free Online Novels: Here you can find Christian novels, fantasy and graphic novels, adventure books, horror books and more.
Foxglove: This British site has free novels, satire and short stories.
Baen Free Library: Find books by Scott Gier, Keith Laumer and others.
The Road to Romance: This website has books by Patricia Cornwell and other romance novelists.
Get Free Ebooks: This site’s largest collection includes fiction books.
John T. Cullen: Read short stories from John T. Cullen here.
SF and Fantasy Books Online: Books here include Arabian Nights,Aesop’s Fables and more.
Free Novels Online and Free Online Cyber-Books: This list contains mostly fantasy books.
FOREIGN LANGUAGE
Project Laurens Jz Coster: Find Dutch literature here.
ATHENA Textes Francais: Search by author’s name, French books, or books written by other authors but translated into French.
Liber Liber: Download Italian books here. Browse by author, title, or subject.
Biblioteca romaneasca: Find Romanian books on this site.
Bibliolteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes: Look up authors to find a catalog of their available works on this Spanish site.
KEIMENA: This page is entirely in Greek, but if you’re looking for modern Greek literature, this is the place to access books online.
Proyecto Cervantes: Texas A&M’s Proyecto Cervantes has cataloged Cervantes’ work online.
Corpus Scriptorum Latinorum: Access many Latin texts here.
Project Runeberg: Find Scandinavian literature online here.
Italian Women Writers: This site provides information about Italian women authors and features full-text titles too.
Biblioteca Valenciana: Register to use this database of Catalan and Valencian books.
Ketab Farsi: Access literature and publications in Farsi from this site.
Afghanistan Digital Library: Powered by NYU, the Afghanistan Digital Library has works published between 1870 and 1930.
CELT: CELT stands for “the Corpus of Electronic Texts” features important historical literature and documents.
Projekt Gutenberg-DE: This easy-to-use database of German language texts lets you search by genres and author.
HISTORY AND CULTURE
LibriVox: LibriVox has a good selection of historical fiction.
The Perseus Project: Tufts’ Perseus Digital Library features titles from Ancient Rome and Greece, published in English and original languages.
Access Genealogy: Find literature about Native American history, the Scotch-Irish immigration in the 19th and 20th centuries, and more.
Free History Books: This collection features U.S. history books, including works by Paul Jennings, Sarah Morgan Dawson, Josiah Quincy and others.
Most Popular History Books: Free titles include Seven Days and Seven Nights by Alexander Szegedy and Autobiography of a Female Slave by Martha G. Browne.
RARE BOOKS
Questia: Questia has 5,000 books available for free, including rare books and classics.
ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT
Books-On-Line: This large collection includes movie scripts, newer works, cookbooks and more.
Chest of Books: This site has a wide range of free books, including gardening and cooking books, home improvement books, craft and hobby books, art books and more.
Free e-Books: Find titles related to beauty and fashion, games, health, drama and more.
2020ok: Categories here include art, graphic design, performing arts, ethnic and national, careers, business and a lot more.
Free Art Books: Find artist books and art books in PDF format here.
Free Web design books: OnlineComputerBooks.com directs you to free web design books.
Free Music Books: Find sheet music, lyrics and books about music here.
Free Fashion Books: Costume and fashion books are linked to the Google Books page.
MYSTERY
MysteryNet: Read free short mystery stories on this site.
TopMystery.com: Read books by Edgar Allan Poe, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, GK Chesterton and other mystery writers here.
Mystery Books: Read books by Sue Grafton and others.
POETRY
The Literature Network: This site features forums, a copy of The King James Bible, and over 3,000 short stories and poems.
Poetry: This list includes “The Raven,” “O Captain! My Captain!” and “The Ballad of Bonnie and Clyde.”
Poem Hunter: Find free poems, lyrics and quotations on this site.
Famous Poetry Online: Read limericks, love poetry, and poems by Robert Browning, Emily Dickinson, John Donne, Lord Byron and others.
Google Poetry: Google Books has a large selection of poetry, fromThe Canterbury Tales to Beowulf to Walt Whitman.
QuotesandPoem.com: Read poems by Maya Angelou, William Blake, Sylvia Plath and more.
CompleteClassics.com: Rudyard Kipling, Allen Ginsberg and Alfred Lord Tennyson are all featured here.
PinkPoem.com: On this site, you can download free poetry ebooks.
MISC
Banned Books: Here you can follow links of banned books to their full text online.
World eBook Library: This monstrous collection includes classics, encyclopedias, children’s books and a lot more.
DailyLit: DailyLit has everything from Moby Dick to the recent phenomenon, Skinny Bitch.
A Celebration of Women Writers: The University of Pennsylvania’s page for women writers includes Newbery winners.
Free Online Novels: These novels are fully online and range from romance to religious fiction to historical fiction.
ManyBooks.net: Download mysteries and other books for your iPhone or eBook reader here.
Authorama: Books here are pulled from Google Books and more. You’ll find history books, novels and more.
Prize-winning books online: Use this directory to connect to full-text copies of Newbery winners, Nobel Prize winners and Pulitzer winners.
… and here is a gift for all of us.
So I can find this again! Great list!
Don’t lose this post
Okay, so this post is from 2015, and thus is pretty outdated. A lot of these links are dead, so here’s the updated list:
FAMOUS AUTHORS
Classic Bookshelf: This site has put classic novels online, from Charles Dickens to Charlotte Bronte.
The Online Books Page: The University of Pennsylvania hosts this book search and database.
Project Gutenberg: This famous site has over 27,000 free books online. (this site is still active, but the original link is dead)
Page by Page Books: Find books by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and H.G. Wells, as well as speeches from George W. Bush on this site.
Classic Book Library: Genres here include historical fiction, history, science fiction, mystery, romance and children’s literature, but they’re all classics.
Classic Reader: Merged with pontly - effectively dead
Read Print: Dead.
Planet eBook: Download free classic literature titles here, from Dostoevsky to D.H. Lawrence to Joseph Conrad.
The Spectator Project: Redirects to the Montclair State University website - effectively dead
Bibliomania: This site has more than 2,000 classic texts, plus study guides and reference books
Online Library of Literature: Find full and unabridged texts of classic literature, including the Bronte sisters, Mark Twain and more.
Bartleby: Bartleby has much more than just the classics, but its collection of anthologies and other important novels made it famous.
Fiction.us: Fiction.us has a huge selection of novels, including works by Lewis Carroll, Willa Cather, Sherwood Anderson, Flaubert, George Eliot, F. Scott Fitzgerald and others.
Free Classic Literature: Find British authors like Shakespeare and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, plus other authors like Jules Verne, Mark Twain, and more.
TEXTBOOKS
Textbook Revolution: Dead.
Wikibooks: From cookbooks to the computing department, find instructional and educational materials here.
KnowThis Free Online Textbooks: Site is still active, but the page is gone.
Online Medical Textbooks: Find books about plastic surgery, anatomy and more here.
Online Science and Math Textbooks: Dead.
MIT Open Courseware Supplemental Resources: Site is still active, but the page is gone.
Flat World Knowledge: Dead.
Free Business Textbooks: Find free books to go along with accounting, economics and other business classes.
Light and Matter: Here you can access open source physics textbooks.
eMedicine: This project from WebMD is continuously updated and has articles and references on surgery, pediatrics and more.
MATH AND SCIENCE
FullBooks.com: This site has “thousands of full-text free books,” including a large amount of scientific essays and books.
Free online textbooks, lecture notes, tutorials and videos on mathematics: Dead.
Online Mathematics Texts: Here you can find online textbooks likeElementary Linear Algebra and Complex Variables.
Science and Engineering Books for free download: These books range in topics from nanotechnology to compressible flow.
FreeScience.info: Find over 1800 math, engineering and science books here.
Free Tech Books: Dead.
CHILDREN’S BOOKS
byGosh: Find free illustrated children’s books and stories here.
Munseys: Page is up, but no resources are linked - effectively dead.
International Children’s Digital Library: Find award-winning books and search by categories like age group, make believe books, true books or picture books.
Lookybook: Dead.
PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION
Bored.com: Dead.
Ideology.us: Here you’ll find works by Rene Descartes, Sigmund Freud, Karl Marx, David Hume and others.
Free Books on Yoga, Religion and Philosophy: Recent uploads to this site include Practical Lessons in Yoga and Philosophy of Dreams.
The Sociology of Religion: Dead.
Religion eBooks: Read books about the Bible, Christian books, and more.
PLAYS
ReadBookOnline.net: Here you can read plays by Chekhov, Thomas Hardy, Ben Jonson, Shakespeare, Edgar Allan Poe and others.
Plays: Read Pygmalion, Uncle Vanya or The Playboy of the Western World here.
The Complete Works of William Shakespeare: MIT has made available all of Shakespeare’s comedies, tragedies, and histories.
Plays Online: Dead.
ProPlay: This site has children’s plays, comedies, dramas and musicals.
MODERN FICTION, FANTASY AND ROMANCE
Public Bookshelf: Page is active, but says it’s closed.
The Internet Book Database of Fiction: This forum features fantasy and graphic novels, anime, J.K. Rowling and more.
Free Online Novels: Dead.
Foxglove: This British site has free novels, satire and short stories.
Baen Free Library: Find books by Scott Gier, Keith Laumer and others.
The Road to Romance: Dead.
Get Free Ebooks: This site’s largest collection includes fiction books.
John T. Cullen: Read short stories from John T. Cullen here.
SF and Fantasy Books Online: Books here include Arabian Nights,Aesop’s Fables and more.
Free Novels Online and Free Online Cyber-Books: Dead.
FOREIGN LANGUAGE
Project Laurens Jz Coster: Dead.
ATHENA Textes Francais: Search by author’s name, French books, or books written by other authors but translated into French.
Liber Liber: Download Italian books here. Browse by author, title, or subject.
Biblioteca romaneasca: Find Romanian books on this site.
Bibliolteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes: Look up authors to find a catalog of their available works on this Spanish site.
KEIMENA: Dead.
Proyecto Cervantes: Dead.
Corpus Scriptorum Latinorum: Dead.
Italian Women Writers: This site provides information about Italian women authors and features full-text titles too.
Biblioteca Valenciana: Dead.
Ketab Farsi: Access literature and publications in Farsi from this site.
Afghanistan Digital Library: Powered by NYU, the Afghanistan Digital Library has works published between 1870 and 1930.
CELT: CELT stands for “the Corpus of Electronic Texts” features important historical literature and documents.
Projekt Gutenberg-DE: This easy-to-use database of German language texts lets you search by genres and author.
HISTORY AND CULTURE
LibriVox: LibriVox has a good selection of historical fiction.
The Perseus Project: Tufts’ Perseus Digital Library features titles from Ancient Rome and Greece, published in English and original languages.
Access Genealogy: Captcha loop - effectively dead.
Free History Books: Site is still active, but the page is gone.
Most Popular History Books: Dead.
RARE BOOKS
Questia: Dead.
ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT
Books-On-Line: Dead.
Chest of Books: This site has a wide range of free books, including gardening and cooking books, home improvement books, craft and hobby books, art books and more.
Free e-Books: Find titles related to beauty and fashion, games, health, drama and more.
2020ok: Categories here include art, graphic design, performing arts, ethnic and national, careers, business and a lot more.
Free Art Books: Dead.
Free Web design books: Dead.
Free Music Books: Dead.
Free Fashion Books: Dead.
MYSTERY
MysteryNet: Dead.
TopMystery.com: Site is still active, but the page is gone.
Mystery Books: Dead.
POETRY
The Literature Network: This site features forums, a copy of The King James Bible, and over 3,000 short stories and poems.
Poetry: This list includes “The Raven,” “O Captain! My Captain!” and “The Ballad of Bonnie and Clyde.”
Poem Hunter: Find free poems, lyrics and quotations on this site.
Famous Poetry Online: Read limericks, love poetry, and poems by Robert Browning, Emily Dickinson, John Donne, Lord Byron and others.
Google Poetry: Google Books has a large selection of poetry, fromThe Canterbury Tales to Beowulf to Walt Whitman.
QuotesandPoem.com: Dead.
CompleteClassics.com: Dead.
PinkPoem.com: Dead.
MISC
Banned Books: Here you can follow links of banned books to their full text online.
World eBook Library: This monstrous collection includes classics, encyclopedias, children’s books and a lot more.
DailyLit: DailyLit has everything from Moby Dick to the recent phenomenon, Skinny Bitch.
A Celebration of Women Writers: The University of Pennsylvania’s page for women writers includes Newbery winners.
Free Online Novels: Dead.
ManyBooks.net: Download mysteries and other books for your iPhone or eBook reader here.
Authorama: Books here are pulled from Google Books and more. You’ll find history books, novels and more.
Prize-winning books online: Use this directory to connect to full-text copies of Newbery winners, Nobel Prize winners and Pulitzer
