Full-Text Books Online

By CSB/SJU Subscription

Free of Charge

• English-Language Directories.
• English-Language General Archives.
• English-Language Specialized Archives.
• Other Languages.

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By CSB/SJU Subscription

Annual Reviews 

Full-text reviews in the biomedical, physical, and social sciences.

Jacques-Paul Migne (ed.), Patrologia Latina (1st ed., 1844-1855). 

Surpassed in some cases by more recent scholarship, but still very often used as the standard in citations of patristic authors. Full text of all volumes of the Migne Patrologia Latina, along with apparatus and indexes, now available for searching or browsing online.

Minnesota's Electronic Collections 

Provides access to a core collection of up to 1500 copyrighted titles and more than 2900 public domain works. The books can be searched by author, subject, title, or keyword.

Women Writers Online 

An electronic archive of primary texts by women writers from 1400 to 1850. A complete list of authors and titles is available. Texts can be browsed, searched by author, keyword or genre, date or size.

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Free of Charge

English-Language Directories

Internet Public Library: Books

Search or browse by author or title, or drill down through the Dewey classification for a particular subject.

The Online Books Page

Updated several times per week by the indefatigable John Mark Ockerbloom. Searchable comprehensive listings by author and title. Books included in this index must be in English, full-text, free of charge, and not in violation of copyright. Almost all have been previously published in print, though a few are electronic-only texts.

English-Language General Archives

Bartleby.com

Hundreds of important literary, historical, and reference works. Many in the public domain, from an authoritative edition if possible. In a handsome HTML format.

Bibliomania

Hundreds of novels. Drama, including the complete works of Shakespeare, from the Elizabethan period and later. Poetry. Small nonfiction section. Formatted in HTML. Details of source publications not given. Lynx is highly recommended, because using a graphical browser requires JavaScript and a 4.0 version browser or later, and uses ActiveX and frames.

Classic Reader

Books in the public domain, "chosen more or less at random." More than 600 books, along with hundreds of short stories. Long on fiction and children's literature, with a smattering of poetry, drama, nonfiction.

Eldritch Press

Interesting assortment of American fiction, children's literature, translations from French and Russian, scientific and educational texts. Most are illustrated and annotated.

Gaslight

Mystery, adventure, and "the weird" (horror, gothic, fantasy--something of a catch-all category for the offbeat), written between 1800 and 1919. Short stories, a growing collection of full-text books, and related non-fiction.

Humanities Text Initiative: Modern English Collection

From the University of Michigan. Especially strong in 18th- and 19th-century literature and historical works.

PSU's Electronic Classics Site

Dozens of authors, hundreds of titles. Important literary, historical, and religious books in the public domain. Grouped by author. Texts are in PDF format. At Penn State.

University of Toronto English Library

Outstanding collection of 16- through 19th-century fiction and poetry, and selected nonfiction works of importance.

Wiretap Electronic Text Archive: The Wiretap Online Library

Gopher archive, plain text. Lots of literature, but a wide range of nonfiction as well. Most of the books will be found in the Classic or Religion directories.

English-Language Specialized Archives

American History

Hypertexts

From the American Studies program at the University of Virginia. Apparently no longer being updated. 51 books: some landmarks, some now obscure. Fiction and nonfiction. Uses frames.

Library of Southern Literature

Part of "Documenting the American South," a project of the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. Authors include Mary Chesnut, Kate Chopin, Edgar Allan Poe, and Booker T. Washington.

Making of America

Approximately 8500 American books, on all topics, from the mid- to late 19th century. Uses frames.

Pioneering the Upper Midwest: Books from Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin, ca. 1820-1910

Promotional literature, first-person accounts, ethnographic studies, history, biography. Available in your choice of HTML or page images. At the Library of Congress.

Classics in English Translation

The Internet Classics Archive

Hundreds of ancient Greek and Roman texts, in English translation. Uses frames.

Computing

O'Reilly Open Books Project

Full text online of a dozen computer-related books in English, and three in German. Topics include Linux, Samba, and perl.

Medieval Studies

The Camelot Project

At the University of Rochester. Everything Arthurian. With links to a similar Robin Hood project and Middle English texts.

Humanities Text Initiative: Corpus of Middle English Prose and Verse Bibliography

From the University of Michigan. Includes Chaucer, Arthuriana, and Julian of Norwich. This is the real thing, not translated into modern English.

The Online Medieval & Classical Library

A compact directory of texts, mostly medieval, with links to online repositories of medieval literature.

Political Science

Brookings Institution Books Online

Recent books on government, politics, public policy, economics, and education. HTML or PDF, your choice.

Marx/Engels Library

Full-text books, articles, and pamphlets by Karl Marx and/or Friedrich Engels, in English translation.

Wiretap Electronic Text Archive: Civics & Government Archive

Gopher archive, plain text. Treaties, laws, and other government documents. International in scope.

Religion

Christian Classics Ethereal Library

Coordinated by Harry Plantinga. Collection of the greats in Christian theology, spirituality, hymnody, and fiction. Also reference materials for Bible study. All in the public domain. Alternate formats are available for many of the texts.

Early Church Fathers

Part of CCEL. Three important patristic series: The Ante-Nicene Fathers and A Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, first and second series. Now available in two HTML versions.

1. Early Church Fathers. "Paged," i.e., split into smaller files. Twenty-seven of the thirty-eight volumes have been completed; most lack prefaces and notes.
2. Early Church Fathers, version 2.0. Footnotes are included, but file sizes are considerably larger--often over 150K. All except Ante-Nicene Fathers volume 9 (an index) are available in version 2.0.

Project Wittenberg

Important Lutheran texts.

Sciences

National Academy Press: Browse Book Titles by Category

Over 1000 books and pamphlets in the sciences, social sciences, health, agriculture, computing, and education. HTML or PDF, your choice.

Other Languages

French

ABU : La Bibliothèque Universelle

This collection of French texts in the public domain is similar in scope to Project Gutenberg. Formatted in HTML, in manageable page sizes.

Athena: French Literature

A wonderful, extensive collection and directory. Includes Francophone authors and illustrators, anonymous French texts, works by Francophone authors which were written in or translated into languages other than French, and French translations of works by non-Francophone authors.

Bibliothèque nationale de France: Gallica

19th-century French texts and images. Literature, history, and science are all well-represented in this collection. Uses frames, and you must have JavaScript enabled. Some books require Adobe Acrobat reader.

La Bibliothèque du Cerf

Featuring the Bible de Jérusalem, the Summa Theologica, and other theology-related books in French. Uses frames. Requires free registration.

Tradere

Books and essays on theology and philosophy, courtesy of the Dominican Province of Toulouse.

German

Projekt Gutenberg-DE

The German-language counterpart of Project Gutenberg.

Greek (Classical)

Perseus Project

Large collection of Greek classical literature can be viewed in Greek (in Greek font, Latin transliteration, or Beta code) or English. Site also features the Liddell-Scott-Jones Greek lexicon, Greek morphological analysis, and a concordance of places. [4K text, 135K graphics].

Spanish

Biblioteca Electrónica Cristiana

Catholic books and pamphlets, papal and conciliar texts in Spanish. Also a very fine patristics section. Some texts require JavaScript and a 4.0 or later browser.

Miscellaneous Languages

La BitBlioteca

Eclectic trilingual directory. Everything from children's literature to Marxism. Spanish, English, and French. [22K text, 76K graphics].

Early Canadiana Online / Notre mémoire en ligne

Full text online collection of more than 3,000 books and pamphlets--in French and English--related to Canada, from first European contact to the late nineteenth century. Coverage of First Nations also includes border states like Minnesota. Searchable page images. Inaccessible to text browsers.

Göttinger Digitalisierungs-Zentrum

Nearly 2000 volumes, in 5 collections: autobiography, travel, early North America, mathematics, history of humanities and sciences. Interface in English. Most books in German, though some are in French, English, or Latin. Page images; inaccessible to text browsers.

IntraText

Multilingual. Italian, English, Latin, French, and Spanish are the big winners; also texts in more than 30 other languages. Especially strong in religion and in Italian literature. Browse by author, title, or language. Each text includes concordance, and word frequency list.

Project Gutenberg

Literature and reference works in the public domain, chosen for their wide appeal, and formatted in "plain vanilla ASCII." Strong on English-language novels, but also publishes other genres and other languages. There are several ways to get there. The two best routes are:

1. Project Gutenberg main FTP site.
   Bare-bones FTP directory for fast, direct access to texts.
2. Project Gutenberg.
   Official web site. Find an eBook by browse or search. Also has list of mirror sites.

Comments to Elizabeth T. Knuth.
Last updated: October 17, 2005. Links checked: December 8, 2004.