Free eBook Sites

There're a number of sites on the Internet where you can find FREE online books and/or audio books. Most offer text that's no longer covered by copyright.

On some sites you can only read their offerings online while on others you can either read them online or download them. Plus, you can always print them out. In addition to the text, several sites include illustrations. Listed below are a number of sites that offer a variety of choices.

Alex Catalogue of Electronic Texts is a collection of great American and English literature as well as Western philosophy. 

American Verse Project is a collaboration between the University of Michigan Humanities Text Initiative and the University of Michigan Press.

Bartleby.com doesn't have as many titles as most others but does have some special features. In addition to the usual classic novels, you'll also find quite a collection of reference books. 

Bibliomania has more than 2,000 classic eBooks, poems, articles, short stories, plays, literature book notes, author biographies, book summaries, and reference books. 

Christian Classics Ethereal Library provides classic Christian books. It also offers audio books. 

Classic Bookshelf has, as the name indicates, classic works. What makes this site unique is the special eBook reading program offered there. 

eServer offers over 35,000 works in the arts and humanities, including literature-related materials such as books, prose, plays, and poetry.

Memoware offers thousands of eBooks formatted just for Palm-powered and Pocket PC PDAs. There's a charge for some but most are free. 

Page by Page Books has hundreds of classic books for children and adults. Its offerings are formatted for viewing on your computer plus they download quickly "page by page."

Project Gutenberg has over 28,000 books.  It also has audio books read by humans or computers. Most were published before 1923 and include many of the great classics.

SparkNotes are similar to "Cliff Notes" and provide free assistance in understanding literature. 

Storyline Online offers actors and other celebrities reading contemporary children's stories. You see and hear them as well as the books. 

The University of Adelaide Library's eBooks at Adelaide has over 680 classic works of literature, philosophy, science, and history, which are loosely referred to as the "Great Books."

Victorian Women Writers Project has works by more than 50 British women writers of the 19th century.