All Jane Austen’s novels are available for free from Project Gutenberg, both as ebooks and audiobooks. You can also read them online, right on your computer.

Jane Austen’s novels are beloved for their sharp wit, timeless themes, and memorable characters. 

They are often seen as a perfect blend of comedy, romance, and social satire, and they offer an insightful look at the world of early 19th century England.

You don’t have to pay a penny to start the Austen adventure. Works of one of the most beloved writers in English literature are in the public domain. It means you can read them free of charge – legally.

Below, you will see a list of Jane Austen’s books available as free downloads from Project Gutenberg. The order is based on an average number of downloads in the last 30 days.

What is Project Gutenberg? It’s a volunteer effort to digitize and archive cultural works, to encourage the creation and distribution of ebooks. It is the oldest digital library, with over 60,000 free ebooks.

You can add books to your e-reader or e-reading app by picking up EPUB3. This file format is compatible with Kobo, Apple Books, Nook, Google Play Books – and also Amazon Kindle (mobi is no longer supported). You can download the files with one click to Dropbox, Google Drive, and OneDrive.

If you don’t want to download the files, you can read Jane Austen’s books directly in your browser. Simply click on “Read this book online: HTML5” link on book detail pages.

Moreover, Project Gutenberg also offers audiobook versions of Jane Austen books. They can be downloaded in Speex, MP3, Apple iTunes, or Ogg Vorbis format.

Are you a Jane Austen fan? Take a look at my design collection that features Jane Austen’s original, remastered handwriting from her letter to sister Cassandra, written in April 1811. You can get it on Zazzle.

Jane Austen novels in chronological order

1. Sense and Sensibility (1811)
2. Pride and Prejudice (1813)
3. Mansfield Park (1814)
4. Emma (1815)
5. Northanger Abbey (1817) – posthumous
6. Persuasion (1818) – posthumous
7. Lady Susan (1871) – posthumous

Jane Austen books – free ebooks and audiobooks

Pride and Prejudice

Pride and Prejudice is Jane Austen’s most famous romance novel. It follows the life and loves of the five Bennet sisters as they navigate the complexities of life in the early 19th century English countryside.

The novel looks at themes of class, marriage, and first impressions, and follows the young women as they attempt to find their place in the world.

Pride and Prejudice is widely regarded as one of the most influential novels of all time and has been adapted into numerous film and television adaptations.

The novel is considered a masterpiece of English literature and is often studied in English classes.

⇢ Ebook ⇢ Audiobook

Emma

Emma is set in Highbury, a fictional village in England, the novel revolves around the meddlesome Emma Woodhouse, who interferes in the relationships of others but eventually comes to recognize and develop her own feelings of love.

Throughout the novel, Emma is determined to find a husband for her friend Harriet, and also to arrange her own romantic future.

The novel explores themes of love, friendship, and social class, and presents a sharp critique of early 19th-century English society.

⇢ Ebook ⇢ Audiobook

Sense and Sensibility

Sense and Sensibility was first published in 1811 and is Jane Austen’s first novel.

Set in southwestern England, the follows the lives of two sisters – Elinor and Marianne Dashwood – as they navigate the social expectations of 18th century society.

This romantic novel is widely considered to be one of Austen’s most successful works, and is typically seen as a precursor to the romantic comedy genre. 

Sense and Sensibility is renowned for its vivid characterization, exploration of complex emotions, and the use of irony and satire.

⇢ Ebook ⇢ Audiobook

Persuasion

Persuasion is Jane Austen’s novel published posthumously in 1818.

In the novel, Austen examines the effects of time on love and relationships. Anne Elliot is a 27-year-old unmarried woman whose family has fallen on hard times. 

Anne is approached by an old suitor, Captain Wentworth, who she rejected eight years earlier. His return to the social scene forces her to reconsider the choices she has made in the intervening years. 

The book is seen as a continuation of Jane Austen’s exploration of the themes of social class and female agency set forth in her earlier novels.

⇢ Ebook ⇢ Audiobook

Northanger Abbey

Northanger Abbey is set in the late 18th century and follows Catherine, a voracious reader of Gothic novels, as she visits the city of Bath and the nearby estate of Northanger Abbey.

While in Bath, she meets the Tilneys, a wealthy family who invite her to stay at their estate, Northanger Abbey.

There, Catherine finds herself drawn into a world of horror, suspense, and romance, as she struggles to make sense of the strange and sometimes sinister events that occur around her.

⇢ Ebook ⇢ Audiobook

Mansfield Park

Jane Austen wrote Mansfield Park at Chawton Cottage between 1811 and 1813.

The story centers on Fanny Price, who is sent to live with her wealthy aunt and uncle at their estate, Mansfield Park.

Despite her poverty-stricken upbringing, Fanny grows into an intelligent and moral young woman.

As she navigates her relationships with her family, she develops a strong sense of self-awareness and morality. The novel explores themes of love, marriage, class, and morality.

⇢ Ebook ⇢ Audiobook

Lady Susan

Lady Susan is Jane Austen’s novella, most likely written in 1794, but published for the first time in 1871.

The main character, Lady Susan, is a beautiful and manipulative widow, who schemes to find wealthy husbands for both herself and her daughter.

The novella explores themes of love and marriage, as Lady Susan examines the different paths she can take to find a suitable partner.

It’s worth noting that Lady Susan is considered one of Austen’s most enigmatic and controversial characters.

⇢ Ebook ⇢ Audiobook

Bonus: The Letters of Jane Austen

Letters of Jane Austen insight into the life and mind of the writer, and offer a glimpse of the world she lived in.

One of the collections of the letters was selected by Sarah Chauncey Woolsey from Austen’s nephew Lord Edward Bradbourne, and published in 1908 by Little, Brown, and Company.

The collection includes letters written between 1796 and 1817. Among them, there are several letters to her sisters, including Cassandra.

The final letter is from Cassandra Austen to her niece Miss Knight, after the death of Jane.

⇢ Ebook

Book cover images: Project Gutenberg, Wikimedia Commons.

Jane Austen Collection on Zazzle

Jane – a collection featuring Jane Austen’s original, remastered handwriting from her letter to sister Cassandra, written in April 1811. 

The design is available in dark and light colors on dozens of products, including t-shirts, leggings, notebooks, stickers, wireless chargers, laptop sleeves, and iPhone cases.

Keep exploring. Here are other popular lists and tips:

Every year, at least a few of the books that enter the public domain are worth adding to your reading list or reading challenge.

When the book is in the public domain, you can use or reuse it without limitations. It’s because the book’s intellectual property rights have expired or are not applicable any longer.

And every year, at least a few of these publications are books are worth adding to your

Book Riot has just released a list of the books that enter the public domain in 2023 in the United States. Unfortunately, they link to paid versions of these books on Amazon – which is against the idea of the public domain.

Why should you buy a book today, if you can get it free of charge in a few months, on public domain platforms, such as Project Gutenberg or Internet Archive?

And the 2023 public domain book list is highly attractive. You can find here Franz Kafka’s Amerika, Now We Are Six by A.A. Milne, Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse, Pomes Penyeach by James Joyce or Ernest Hemingway’s Men Without Women.

All you have to do is wait for these titles to be released by the public domain sites. I recommend checking out Project Gutenberg every few weeks. You can add the list of books added in the last 30 days as a bookmark to your browser. On a Mac computer, press Command+D, and on a PC press Control+D.

For your convenience, I have included the links to search term (title+author) on Project Gutenberg. Once the book is released, you will be able to find it in the search results page.

You can add books to your e-reader or e-reading app by picking up EPUB3. This file format is compatible with Kobo, Apple Books, Nook, Google Play Books – and also Amazon Kindle (mobi is no longer supported).

Project Gutenberg is a volunteer effort to digitize and archive cultural works, to encourage the creation and distribution of ebooks. It is the oldest digital library, with over 60,000 free ebooks.

Best new books in the public domain in 2023

1. To the Lighthouse

Virginia Woolf

Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse is considered to be one of the most significant works of modernist literature, and a feminist classic.

The book centers around the Ramsay family and their visits to the Isle of Skye in Scotland between 1910 and 1920.

The novel explores the complex relationships between the family members and their thoughts and feelings. The novel is written in a stream-of-consciousness style and explores themes of love, loss, and grief.

⇢ Check

2. Amerika

Franz Kafka

Also known as The Man Who Disappeared, the story takes place in the United States and is about a sixteen-year-old European immigrant named Karl Rossmann.

After an incident with a housemaid, he sent away from his home in Europe to start a new life in America.

He is taken in by two cousins, but quickly finds himself in a strange and often difficult world of constant change and challenge.

⇢ Check

3. Men Without Women

Ernest Hemingway

Men Without Women is a collection of short stories written by Ernest Hemingway, first published in 1927.

The stories focus on the inner lives of men in post-World War I Europe and the United States, exploring themes of masculinity, isolation, and loss.

The collection includes some of Hemingway’s most famous works, such as Hills Like White Elephants and The Killers.

⇢ Check

4. Now We Are Six

A.A. Milne

Now We Are Six is a collection of children’s poetry written by A.A. Milne, the author best known for his books about the teddy bear Winnie-the-Pooh.

The book contains thirty-five poems concerned with the world of childhood. The title poem, “Now We Are Six”, is one of the most famous of all of Milne’s poems.

Other popular poems from the book include “The King’s Breakfast”, “Cradle Song”, “Binker”, and “The Friend”.

⇢ Check

5. Steppenwolf

Hermann Hesse

Steppenwolf is a novel by German-Swiss author Hermann Hesse. It is the story of a man named Harry Haller and his internal spiritual struggle.

The novel is set in Germany in the 1920s and examines the mental and spiritual effects of modern life on the protagonist.

The novel is considered to be one of Hesse’s most important works and is among the most famous and influential novels of the 20th century.

⇢ Check

6. Pomes Penyeach

James Joyce

A is a collection of twelve poems written by James Joyce and published in 1927.

The poems contain a number of Joycean neologisms (“rosefrail”, “moongrey” and “sindark”, for example) created by melding two words into a new compound.

The collection covers a range of topics, including love, death, and nature.

⇢ Check

7. The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

It’s a final collection of twelve short stories, written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and featuring the famous detective Sherlock Holmes.

The stories were originally published in The Strand Magazine between October 1921 and April 1927. 

Among the stories in The Case Book of Sherlock Holmes are: ”The Adventure of the Three Gables,” “The Adventure of the Illustrious Client,” and “The Adventure of the Creeping Man”.

⇢ Check

8. Mosquitoes

William Faulkner

Mosquitoes is a short story set in a wealthy family’s summer home near the Mississippi River in the Gulf Coast region of the United States.

It follows the interaction between the family, who are summer visitors, and the local working-class people who live by the river.

The story explores themes of class, social customs, and the impact of the passage of time on a small town.

⇢ Check

9. Unnatural Death

Dorothy L. Sayers

A mystery novel by British author Dorothy L. Sayers. It’s the third novel in the Lord Peter Wimsey series.

The story follows Lord Peter’s investigation into the death of an elderly woman who had apparently died of natural causes, but whose relatives suspect foul play.

Lord Peter must use his detective skills to uncover the truth and unmask the culprit.

⇢ Check

10. The Big Four

Agatha Christie

The Big Four is a work of detective fiction by Agatha Christie and first published in the UK in January 1927.

The novel features Hercule Poirot, Arthur Hastings and Inspector Japp. The story revolves around a criminal organization known as “The Big Four”, whose members are determined to rule the world.

The structure of the novel is different from other Poirot stories, as it began from twelve short stories that had been separately published.

⇢ Check

Keep exploring. Here are other popular lists and tips:

Celebrate the World Book Day 2022 by reading brilliant new books from Bolivia, Israel, Japan, Netherlands, and Ghana. You can download them to your Kindle free of charge by April 27.

UNESCO’s World Book and Copyright Day 2022 is on April 23, and Amazon celebrates it every year with Read the World giveaway.

For a limited time – and this year it’s by April 27 – ten most interesting books written by talented, award-winning authors from around the world are offered for Kindle users free of charge.

Regular prices of these selected books are between $3.99 and $4.99. However, the pleasure is not about the savings but the books themselves. 

Among them, you will find a memoir (The Puma Years by Laura Coleman), a thriller (Carol Wyer’s An Eye for an Eye), or a fantasy novel (To the Sky Kingdom by Tang Qi).

All the books were released by Amazon Crossing – a publishing house with a mission to introduce readers to award-winning authors from around the world. Amazon Crossing offers over 500 titles, including the ones that were free during previous World Book Day giveaways.

It’s worth noting that these free Kindle books can be downloaded by all Amazon users, regardless of where they live. There are no geographical restrictions.

Which of the following books are you going to read? I will download (as usual) all the titles, but on the top of my reading list are the titles by African authors: The Ardent Swarm by Yamen Manai and Ousman Umar’s North to Paradise.

Are you getting ready for World Book Day 2022? Here are other ways to celebrate.

⇢ Read the World

Read the World 2022 – free Kindle books to download

The Puma Years

Bolivia

Laura Coleman

In this rapturous memoir, writer and activist Laura Coleman shares the story of her liberating journey in the Amazon jungle, where she fell in love with a magnificent cat who changed her life.

Laura was in her early twenties and directionless when she quit her job to backpack in Bolivia. Fate landed her at a wildlife sanctuary on the edge of the Amazon jungle where she was assigned to a beautiful and complex puma named Wayra. Wide-eyed, inexperienced, and comically terrified, Laura made the scrappy, make-do camp her home. And in Wayra, she made a friend for life.

Set against a turbulent and poignant backdrop of deforestation, the illegal pet trade, and forest fires, The Puma Years explores what happens when two desperate creatures in need of rescue find one another.

⇢ Kindle

The Ardent Swarm

Tunisia

Yamen Manai

From an award-winning Tunisian author comes a stirring allegory about a country in the aftermath of revolution and the power of a single quest.

Sidi lives a hermetic life as a bee whisperer, tending to his beloved “girls” on the outskirts of the desolate North African village of Nawa. He wakes one morning to find that something has attacked one of his beehives, brutally killing every inhabitant.

In this brilliantly accessible modern-day parable, Yamen Manai uses a masterful blend of humor and drama to reveal what happens in a country shaken by revolutionary change after the world stops watching.

⇢ Kindle

North to Paradise

Ghana

Ousman Umar

The inspiring true story of one man’s treacherous boyhood journey from a rural village in Ghana to the streets of Barcelona—and the path that led him home.

Ousman Umar is a shaman’s son born in a small village in Ghana. Though his mother died giving birth, he spent a contented childhood working the fields, setting traps in the jungle, and living off the land.

Still, as strange and wondrous flying machines crisscrossed the skies overhead, Ousman dreamed of a different life. And so, when he was only twelve years old, he left his village and began what would be a five-year journey to Europe.

⇢ Kindle

Where the Desert Meets the Sea

Israel

Werner Sonne

An illuminating and heart-stirring historical novel set in post-WWII Palestine, where the boundaries of love and friendship are challenged by the intractable conflicts of war.

Jerusalem, 1947: Judith, a young Jewish survivor of the Dachau concentration camp, arrives in Mandatory Palestine, seeking refuge with her only remaining relative, her uncle. When she learns that he has died, she tries to take her own life in despair.

After awakening in the hospital, Judith learns that Hana, a Muslim Arab nurse, has saved her life by donating her own blood. While the two women develop a fragile bond, each can’t help but be drawn deeper into the political machinations tearing the country apart.

⇢ Kindle

An Eye for an Eye

England

Carol Wyer

DI Kate Young is on leave. She’s the force’s best detective, but her bosses know she’s under pressure, on medication and overcoming trauma.

But when Staffordshire Police summon her back to work on a murder case, it’s a harder, more suspicious Kate Young who returns. With a new ruthlessness, she sets about tracking down a clinical, calculating serial killer who is torturing victims and leaving clues to taunt the police.

Spurred on by her reporter husband, Young begins to suspect that the murderer might be closer than she ever imagined.

⇢ Kindle

The Other Man

India

Farhad J. Dadyburjor

Heir to his father’s Mumbai business empire, Ved Mehra has money, looks, and status. He is also living as a closeted gay man. Thirty-eight, lonely, still reeling from a breakup, and under pressure from his exasperated mother, Ved agrees to an arranged marriage.

Then Ved’s world is turned upside down when he meets Carlos Silva, an American on a business trip in India.

As preparations for his wedding get into full swing, Ved finds himself drawn into a relationship he could never have imagined—and ready to take a bold step. Ved is ready to embrace who he is and declare his true feelings regardless of family expectations and staunch traditions.

⇢ Kindle

The Easy Life in Kamusari

Japan

Shion Miura

Yuki Hirano is just out of high school when his parents enroll him, against his will, in a forestry training program in the remote mountain village of Kamusari. No phone, no internet, no shopping.

At first, Yuki is exhausted, fumbles with the tools, asks silly questions, and feels like an outcast. Kamusari is the last place a city boy from Yokohama wants to spend a year of his life. But as resistant as he might be, the scent of the cedars and the staggering beauty of the region have a pull.

Yuki learns to fell trees and plant saplings. He begins to embrace local festivals, he’s mesmerized by legends of the mountain, and he might be falling in love.

⇢ Kindle

Mother Dear

Netherlands

Nova Lee Maier

Helen lives a decent, uncomplicated life. Satisfied in her career, she’s raising three happy teenagers, and her family has the most envied house on the street. Admittedly, she’s growing just a little disenchanted with her marriage to her workaholic husband, Werner. 

For disaffected, young petty criminals Ralf and Brian, it was a scheme to make some cash: a quick home invasion. The targets they’ve chosen are Helen and Werner. With Ralf as a lookout, Brian disappears into Helen and Werner’s house. But he never comes out.

And Helen’s nightmare is just beginning. She can’t possibly imagine how much worse it can get or just how far she’ll need to go to protect her family.

⇢ Kindle

To the Sky Kingdom

China

Tang Qi

When the immortal Bai Qian finally meets her intended husband, the heir to the Sky Throne, she considers herself in luck – until an old enemy returns to threaten everything she holds dear…

And when a war god depletes his spiritual energy, his devoted student sustains his body with her own heart’s blood until the god’s scattered soul reassembles…

Spanning a thousand years of tangled lives, To the Sky Kingdom is a story of epic battles, passion, evil, and magic. In its journey across worlds and time, it delves into the powerful forces that drive mortals and gods alike toward revenge, loyalty – and love.

⇢ Kindle

The Caiman

Venezuela

María Eugenia Manrique

When Faoro the clockmaker adopts a baby alligator, he has no idea that someday their story will travel far and wide. 

But the town of San Fernando de Apure would never forget this kind young man and his adoring alligator, who played with the neighborhood children, took part in Faoro’s wedding, and, eventually, mourned his loss. Now their story is being shared with the world.

In this delightful picture book first published in Venezuela, the author brings us back to her own childhood to tell the story of a man who loved animals and how his friendship with his alligator sparked a lasting legacy.

⇢ Kindle

Keep exploring. Here are other popular lists:

[ef-archive number=5 tag=”lists”]

You can find Kindle compatible books not only on Amazon. Thousands of these books are free of charge, and you can download them to your Kindle completely legally from other online websites.

In the post below, we will list not only the sites with public domain books that you can use to collect free Kindle books, but also tips that will let you better manage and enjoy these sideloaded docs on your Kindle e-reader or in a Kindle application.

In general, there are up to 100,000 free classic books that are available completely for free for your Kindle, and the best place to get them is actually not the Kindle Store (although you can find here some of the classics, as well).

There are a couple of things to keep in mind to make adding own books to Kindle easier and quicker, so let’s start with the tips.

Download free Kindle books – tips

Pick up the right format – epub

For a long time, to add your own book to the Kindle from another online source, you had to pick up a mobi format, while all other ebook stores use epub.

It changed in August 2022. Since that time, the compatible Kindle format is epub. The mobi format is not supported any longer.

In other words, if you want to download any book from the sites listed in the second part of this overview, please make sure to pick up epub, not mobi.

You won’t add epub files with DRM

If you were using another ebook store, such as Kobo, Barnes & Noble Nook, or Google Play Books, may assume that – as these sites use epub format by default – you will be able to quickly transfer these books to the Kindle.

No, you won’t be able to add epub files from other stores to Kindle. These files, even if you have downloaded the free books from these stores, are in a vast majority protected with some kind of DRM (Digital Rights Management).

An epub file with DRM won’t be added to your Kindle library, because Amazon won’t be able to open it.

Enjoy free Kindle books in the Kindle app

You can start collecting the library of Kindle books even before buying a Kindle e-reader.

There are many free Kindle apps available for computers and smartphones/tablets, including Mac, Windows, iOS, Android, and BlackBerry operating systems.

The key to Kindle ecosystem is your Amazon account. All ebooks you add to your Kindle virtual library will be synced across devices and apps registered with that account.

Not only the latest read location, but also bookmarks and notes will be synced, and this is one of the most important benefits ebooks can give.

How to add own books to Kindle

There are a couple of ways you can add own books to the Kindle e-reader or tablet/smartphone app:

1. The most popular way is to send a file to the email address associated with your device. If you buy a Kindle or download a Kindle app, first thing to do is to sign in with your Amazon account. Since that time this device/app is given a special email address to which you can send the files. You can find it in the Settings section.

2. You can also use a Send to Kindle application. It’s available for Mac and Windows, but you can also get it for Chrome and Firefox browsers. While the desktop version lets you add files stored on a computer disc, the browser extension helps add web content.

3. If you use a cloud storage service like Dropbox, you can upload the file to it from your computer, and use a Dropbox application on your tablet or phone to download the file to Kindle app.

4. If you have a Kindle e-reader, connect Kindle to your computer and drag the files into Documents folder inside the Kindle disc image.

5. If you have a Kindle app installed on your smartphone or tablet, you should be also able to add the file if you tap on it. A list of applications capable of opening it should be displayed, and if the file is in mobi format, you should see a Kindle app.

How to manage own ebooks in the Kindle library

The books you have added yourself to your Kindle library are separated from the ones you have purchased and downloaded from the Kindle Store.

• Books from the Kindle Store are called “Books” – these are all the titles that you purchased or downloaded for free from the Kindle store, including free samples.
• Books from other sources are called “Docs” – these are the files that you have added to Kindle by sending them via email, using Send to Kindle extension, or sideloading from your computer.

The two sections can be seen in filter options in both Kindle e-readers and Kindle apps for iPad/iOS and Android. Your own books are displayed with a blank page until you open them and the original cover image (if it exists) is properly rendered.

The Books vs. Docs split is even deeper on Amazon Fire tablet. Native Kindle books can be managed using “Books” app. However, if you add your own books, you should look for them in the “Docs” app, not “Books.”

Please note that you won’t be able to read your sideloaded books in the online Kindle reader at read.amazon.com. Also, any highlights and notes you have made to sideloaded books will not show up here.

Download free Kindle books – online sources

1. Project Gutenberg

Project Gutenberg is the longest-established ebook site in the world and the top place to download free classics. It’s the primary repository of free public domain ebooks.

When the title enters public domain, it means the rights to this work have expired and the book is publicly available. On Project Gutenberg the public domain books are free to download.

It’s quite possible that elsewhere you will find the same classic titles in ebook format, for which you’ll have to pay. This is what may happen in the Kindle Store, for instance. You can get Jane Austen’s book for free from Project Gutenberg, and find out that the same title costs one or two dollars in Amazon’s Kindle Store.

A good thing about books from Project Gutenberg is that if the original print edition had illustrations, you will be also able to get them in the ebook version. If you want the illustrations, make sure to download Kindle (with images) file. Please, keep in mind that ebook files with images take much more space.

Currently, there are well over 60,000 ebooks in the Project Gutenberg catalog. You can start browsing from Frequently Downloaded Ebooks section or go directly to the Latest Releases.

The site offers a very useful Dropbox, Google Drive, and OneDrive integration. If you connect your cloud service, you will be able to download ebooks with just one click.

It’s worth noting that you can access and download Project Gutenberg ebooks on your tablet or smartphone, in a browser, as the site is mobile friendly.

2. Smashwords

Smashwords is a top online site with ebooks from independent authors and publishers. There are currently over 500,000 from over 100,000 self-published authors. You’ll be able not only to download books in mobi or pdf format, but also read them online in your browser.

Smashwords is a leading source of newly released independent ebooks. What’s more, if you are looking for free Kindle books in languages other than English, visit Smashwords, and you should find here books in your mother tongue.

To see which books are free to read in your internet browser, go to Smashwords’ catalog of free ebooks. Then, change the way entries are being displayed – from stacks to list. Do it by clicking the bullet list icon in the top right.

This way, next to each title you will see a list of available formats. Keep in mind that the format that’s compatible with Kindle is called “mobi.”

Currently, there are between 50,000 and 100,000 free ebooks on Smashwords. That number depends on how authors promote their books. Sometimes they make a book free for a limited time. It usually happens with first volumes of book series.

3. Kindle Store

Did you know that there are many free ebooks in the Kindle Store? The thing is how to find them.

The best way to get free books is to go to “Bestsellers in Kindle Store” and pick up “Top 100 Free”. You will be able to see the most popular free titles in the Kindle Store.

The list is being updated a couple of times a day, so it collects the hottest free titles that are currently available.

The other way to find free Kindle books is to search Amazon. While being in the Kindle Store, in the search box type “free kindle books.” This method gives an idea how many books are free in Amazon’s own ebook platform.

Please, keep in mind that to access free books in the Kindle Store, you have to be signed in with your Amazon account and have a Kindle or Kindle app registered with the same credentials.

Otherwise, you would not be able to get free ebooks from the Kindle Store to your device. The process of delivering an ebook is different from downloading a file to your computer’s disc. It’s performed via your personal Kindle library in the cloud.

4. Internet Archive

The Internet Archive is a non-profit digital library with a mission of “universal access to all knowledge.” The website is a huge digital library of text, audio and video files.

The catalog includes over 25,000,000 fully accessible books and other text files. From here, you can also start browsing a collection of 1.3 million contemporary ebooks that you will be able to borrow for free once you register an account.

The ebook section is available at archive.org/details/texts. Sub-collections include American Libraries, Canadian Libraries, books from Project Gutenberg, titles from the Million Books Project, and books for children.

When you find an interesting book, click on its cover and a read-online panel will open right away. To find downloadable files, scroll down the page a bit. On the right side, you will see all available formats

In most cases, mobi format will be included – here it is called Kindle.

5. Open Library

Open Library is Internet Archive’s separate project, focused on collecting library records. Its goal is to create one web page for every book ever published. On a page of a single book, you’ll find all its documented editions.

Compared to the Internet Archive, with its vast catalog and advanced search features, the Open Library website is simpler and more user-friendly, and you can find the books you need much quicker.

When you go to Classic Books section, you will find over 3 million books that are “accessible,” which means they are free to read online or download.

To find a Kindle format of a book you like to read, open the page with its details. Then, in the left-side column, right under the book cover, you will see “Download Options.” Click on “mobi” and the file will start downloading immediately.

Open Library is more than just a catalog of free classic books. It also shows contemporary books that are free to read if you decide to borrow them.

To do that, you may need to register at Open Library or find the book in your local library using WorldCat or Library Link. Each library book is marked with a “Borrow” button instead of “Read.”

6. ManyBooks

ManyBooks offers free books in a clean and friendly interface. The site is ad supported but these ads are displayed usually at the bottom of the browser window and are not too disturbing.

Most books are sourced from Project Gutenberg and other sites that offer books with a Creative Commons license.

In total, over 50 thousand books are available, all with nicely designed covers. Plus, each book is available in several file formats, a lot more than what you can find elsewhere.

The major disadvantage on ManyBooks is that if you want to download the file, you will have to register an account. It’s up to you whether you want to do this or use other sites such as Project Gutenberg or Internet Archive.

To see download options, select the book you want, open the book’s product page, and click on a big button saying “Free Download.” Then, choose “mobi” from a list of available formats.

If you don’t want to sign up for ManyBooks, you can read any book for free in your internet browser. After you find the book you want to read, go to this book’s details page and click on a large “Read Online” button.

7. Goodreads

The largest book discovery site, Goodreads, offers also books in mobi/Kindle format – they are uploaded by Goodreads users and displayed in a special catalog.

Books with Free Download catalog on Goodreads is not huge – there are only 2,500 titles listed here, but they are very interesting ones.

For instance, you can download Harry Potter: The Prequel by J.K. Rowling, a short story set about three years before the birth of Harry Potter. It recounts an adventure experienced by Sirius Black and James Potter.

Books that you can download in full length from Goodreads are labeled with “Download eBook” button on the list of results.

When you open a book page, you will see a row of buttons. Click on ‘Download eBook” to see a list of available formats. Please note that not all books are offered in a format that’s compatible with Kindle.

8. BookRix

BookRix is a platform that offers books from self-published authors combined with free books from the public domain.

A catalog of free ebooks is an essential part of the website. On the top of a list, you will find the most popular categories, including literary fiction, fantasy, romance, thrillers, and young adult fiction.

When you enter any category, you will see books sorted by the popularity. On the top, you will see free books offered by contemporary authors.

Many classic titles from the public domain are also included in the BookRix directory of free ebooks. You will find them in the Fiction category.

When you find the book you want to read, click on its cover or title to enter the book details page. Find the “Download” button placed next to the book cover and click on it.

Please note that not all titles are available in mobi format., and there is no way to filter books by format, so you will have to check out Kindle compatibility once you find the book you would like to read.

9. DigiLibraries

The site is an online ebook catalog, where you can find almost 30,000 titles – all of them are free. The site is very clean and easy to explore, and this is what makes it worth exploring.

Most probably, you won’t need a search box at all. Most popular categories are featured on the left sidebar, and you can just pick up the one you are interested in to see books listed by popularity.

Plus, if a category is large enough, you can further narrow down the list of displayed books by selecting one of sub categories. There are several categories to choose from.

The most popular are Poetry, Juvenile Fiction, and Literary Collections.

It’s easy to download a Kindle compatible file. Simply, find “Download options” panel located on the right side of the book’s cover, and click on “Mobi Kindle” icon to start downloading the file.

Keep exploring. Here are other popular posts and lists:

To celebrate World Book Day 2021, Amazon has made ten brilliant books from around the world free to download for a limited time.

Every year, in the middle of April, Amazon reveals a list of most interesting foreign-language books that have been translated to English and published by Amazon Crossing.

To celebrate the World Book Day, Amazon makes these brilliant new titles free to download for Kindle users. You can find the entire list in the dedicated Read the World 2021 page.

On the 2021 list of World Book Day free Kindle books in translations you will find a thrilling novel from a Polish author Szczepan Twardoch, an unsparing post-WW2 memoir by a prize-winning Dutch journalist Alexander Münninghoff, and a touching children’s book by Argentinian author and Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award nominee María Wernicke.

Besides the Twardoch’s novel and Münninghoff’s biography, I will also get The Broken Circle by Enjeela Ahmadi-Miller, a sweeping account of escaping Afghanistan during the Soviet invasion of 1980s, as well as an epic novel about the devastation of war – A Single Swallow by a Chinese author Zhang Ling.

UNESCO’s World Book and Copyright Day 2021 is on April 23, and you should be able to download the following books for free by this day. After that date, the books will be available at regular prices that are usually not higher than $4.99.

If you want to read thousands of free Kindle books, consider getting Kindle Unlimited membership. You can find this year’s most popular books in this list.

⇢ Read the World

10 free Kindle books – World Book Day 2021

Some Days

María Wernicke

Argentina

In this touching story of family and loss, a young girl imagines a passageway in her yard that takes her to a place of safety and love.

A young girl tells her mother about a passageway in their yard. Down this passageway, it is not cold, there is no danger, and nothing bad can ever happen—and the person she longs for is with her again. The only problem is that, on some days, the passageway is not there. But maybe, together, mother and daughter can find a way to carry that feeling with them always.

First published in Argentina, this lovely picture book will tug on the heartstrings of anyone who knows what it means to miss a loved one.

Return to the Enchanted Island

Johary Ravaloson

Madagascar

A young man comes of age amidst the enchanted origin myths of his island country.

In this exhilarating prize-winning novel—only the second to be published in English from Madagascar—a young man comes of age amidst the enchanted origin myths of his island country.

Named after the first man at the creation of the world in Malagasy mythology, Ietsy Razak was raised to perpetuate the glory of his namesake and expected to be as illuminated as his Great Ancestor. But in the chaos of modernity, his young life is marked only by restlessness, maddening insomnia, and an adolescent apathy.

You, Me, and the Colors of Life

Noa C. Walker

Germany

A moving, hopeful story about the power of love and the power of living a life filled with joy.

Faced with challenges from an early age, Janica has learned to celebrate and enjoy every day as a gift. Her life-affirming attitude fascinates Thomas, a shy young man who begins to see the rich colors of life in a whole new light.

As she reveals a world he never could have imagined for himself, Thomas falls head over heels for the strong young woman and becomes part of her quirky circle of friends and her loving family.

The Son and Heir

Alexander Münninghoff

The Netherlands

A prize-winning Dutch journalist’s unsparing memoir of growing up amid the excesses, triumphs, and devastation of post–World War II Europe.

In this revelatory memoir, the author confronts his parents’ complex past as he reconstructs the fortunes and disillusions of an entire family upheaved during the changes of twentieth-century Europe.

The Münninghoffs were driven by greed, rebellion, and rage. An embattled dynasty, they were torn between the right and the wrong side of history. Their saga haunted Alexander’s life for the next seventy years.

The Strange Journey of Alice Pendelbury

Marc Levy

France

Alice Pendelbury believes everything in her life is pretty much in order but she has yet to meet the most important person in her life…

Alice Pendelbury believes everything in her life is pretty much in order—from her good friends to her burgeoning career. But even Alice has to admit it’s been an odd week.

Not only has her belligerent neighbor, Mr. Daldry, suddenly become a surprisingly agreeable confidant, but he’s encouraging her to take seriously the fortune-teller who told her that only by traveling to Turkey can Alice meet the most important person in her life.

The King of Warsaw

Szczepan Twardoch

Poland

The ferociously original story of a city ignited by hate and a man in thrall to power.

It’s 1937. Poland is about to catch fire. In the boxing ring, Jakub Szapiro commands respect, revered as a hero by the Jewish community. Outside, he instills fear as he muscles through Warsaw as enforcer for a powerful crime lord.

Murder and intimidation have their rewards. He revels in luxury, spends lavishly, and indulges in all the pleasures that barbarity offers. For a man battling to be king of the underworld, life is good. Especially when it’s a frightening time to be alive.

Amora

Natalia Borges Polesso

Brazil

An exquisite collection of stories exploring the complexity of love between women.

Together, these stories and the women who inhabit them reveal an illuminating portrait of the sacred female romance, with all its nuances, complexities, burdens, and triumphs revealed.

Violence, sickness, chaos, tenderness, beauty, and freedom adorn these pages in a mosaic of unforgettable moments, including a lesbian granddaughter discovering unexpected commonalities with her grandmother, a teenager’s tryst with her friend after disenchanting sex with a boy, and an old couple’s dreamy Sunday-morning ritual.

The Broken Circle

Enjeela Ahmadi-Miller

Afghanistan

An emotional and sweeping memoir of love and family and survival in the violent, changing landscape of Afghanistan in the early 1980s.

Before the Soviet invasion of 1980, Enjeela Ahmadi remembers her home—Kabul, Afghanistan—as peaceful, prosperous, and filled with people from all walks of life.

But after her mother, unsettled by growing political unrest, leaves for medical treatment in India, the civil war intensifies, changing young Enjeela’s life forever. Amid the rumble of invading Soviet tanks, Enjeela and her family are thrust into chaos and fear when it becomes clear that her mother will not be coming home.

A Single Swallow

Zhang Ling

China

An epic and intimate novel about the devastation of war, forgiveness, redemption, and the enduring power of love.

On the day of the historic 1945 Jewel Voice Broadcast—in which Emperor Hirohito announced Japan’s surrender to the Allied forces, bringing an end to World War II—three men, flush with jubilation, made a pact. After their deaths, each year on the anniversary of the broadcast, their souls would return to the Chinese village of their younger days.

It’s where they had fought—and survived—a war that shook the world and changed their own lives in unimaginable ways. Now, seventy years later, the pledge is being fulfilled by American missionary Pastor Billy, brash gunner’s mate Ian Ferguson, and local soldier Liu Zhaohu.

At the End of the Matinee

Keiichiro Hirano

Japan

A delicate, timeless, award-winning ode to love’s fragility and its resilience.

Bestselling author Keiichiro Hirano offers a timeless ode to love’s fragility and its resilience in this delicate, award-winning novel.

Classical guitarist Satoshi Makino has toured the world and is at the height of his career when he first lays eyes on journalist Yoko Komine. Their bond forms instantly.

⇢ Read the World

World Book Day 2021 free Kindle books in translation

Keep exploring. Here are other popular posts and lists for Kindle users:

[ef-archive number=5 tag=”lists”]

Every year, new publications enter the public domain. It means their intellectual property rights have expired or are not applicable any longer.

The content of these works becomes available for public use. Anyone is free to use or reuse it. What does it mean, exactly?

You are allowed not only to legally download the ebook edition of the book. You can also publish it again, or mix with the content of other books, or freely use the characters in your merchandise.

As a result, you may see that the books that have entered the public domain are available in major ebookstores – both as free and paid products.

Why pay for an electronic version of the public domain book, if you can have it free of charge?

My advice is that if you want to get an ebook version of a classic novel, you should first check out the sites listed below.

The dates books enter the public domain vary between countries. Some rights depend on registrations with a country-by-country basis, but the most important factor is how many years have to pass after the death of the creator.

Which file format to choose?

Since mid-2022, the default file format for ebooks is epub. You will be able to add it to your e-reader or book-reading app, regardless of which platform you use: Kobo, Google Play Books, Apple Books, Barnes & Noble Nook – and also Amazon Kindle.

Yes, you should download epub to your Kindle or Kindle app, as mobi is no longer supported.

Best sites with free public domain ebooks and audiobooks

1. Project Gutenberg

Project Gutenberg is a top destination for free ebooks on the web. It’s a first ebook initiative in the world, established by Michael S. Hart in 1971.

Over 60 thousand publications were digitized by Project Gutenberg volunteers, so far. The books are available for download in several formats (as I said, epub is the most popular one), and you can also read the books online, in your internet browser.

What’s more, over 100,000 free ebooks are available through Project Gutenberg’s partners and affiliates.

You can quickly browse the list of most downloaded books in the last day, week, or month. Each month, between 5 and 15 million books are being downloaded by users from around the world.

An interesting way to browse available titles is through bookshelves – collections of books, based on author, genre, or topic.

2. Europeana

Europeana is a digital platform that provides access to millions of digitized items from European cultural heritage collections.

These items include books, music, artworks, archival documents, and audiovisual content from archives, libraries, and museums across Europe.

Europeana allows users to search the platform for items, explore collections, and create their own personal collections.

More than 2,000 European institutions across Europe contribute to the site, including the British Library and national libraries from many countries.

To find free public domain books, search for the author or title, and in the right-side panel narrow results by Type of Media (select “text”), and by Can I Use This (select “Yes”).

3. Digital Public Library of America

The Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) is a non-profit organization that provides access to millions of digital resources from libraries, archives, and museums across the United States.

It is an online platform that serves as a gateway to the vast and growing collections of digitized materials held by libraries, archives, and museums around the country.

Through the DPLA, users can search, browse, and discover the collections of libraries, archives, and museums, and use those collections to support their research and learning.

Well over 20 million items are classified on DPLA as “text”, with 16 million marked as ready for unlimited re-use. From a book detail page, you’ll be redirected to a relevant website, where you can further read it online or download.

4. Internet Archive

Internet Archive is a non-profit digital library that provides free public access to millions of books, movies, audio recordings, software, and more.

It was founded in 1996 and is one of the largest open-access digital libraries on the internet.

The library has an extensive collection of webpages, music, movies, images, and documents related to the history of the internet, as well as many other topics.

You will find on the Internet Archive, well over 30 million text files, in 25 thousand collections. 20 million files and books are freely downloadable.

5. Open Library

Open Library is a free online library with millions of books, movies, music, websites, and other materials that can be accessed by anyone. It is intended to create “one web page for every book ever published”.

It is managed by the non-profit organization Internet Archive and is part of the larger Open Knowledge Network.

The library provides access to an ever-growing range of public domain and out-of-copyright materials, as well as titles from major publishers, including HarperCollins, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, and Penguin Random House.

If the book is available for free in a digital format, a Read button is shown next to its catalog listing.

6. Feedbooks

Feedbooks is an online platform that provides access to a wide range of e-books, audiobooks, and other digital publications.

The platform is available on multiple devices, including smartphones and tablets. Feedbooks offers a variety of genres, including fiction, non-fiction, children’s books, cookbooks, and much more.

Users can access the platform for free, or upgrade to a premium membership for more features and access to exclusive content.

Feedbooks offers thousands of public domain ebooks in five languages. Unlike in Internet Archive, most of the free books have covers that will look good on your e-reader or e-reading application.

7. Manybooks

For a long time, Manybooks was a popular catalog of public domain ebooks, with over 50 thousand titles, sourced from Project Gutenberg and Internet Archive.

The site has evolved into an ad-supported ebook platform, but the free classic books from the public domain are still there.

The books are available in different file formats, so if you are looking for less popular ones, like Plucker or FictionBook2, Manybooks is a good destination to explore.

To find free public domain books, look on the front page for a section called “Popular Classics.”

8. DailyLit

DailyLit is an online platform that delivers serialized fiction and nonfiction in daily installments directly to readers via email or RSS.

It offers a range of titles from classic and contemporary authors, as well as original short stories.

DailyLit also gives users the option to customize their reading experience by setting their preferred reading speed, choosing the day and time for delivery of installments, and selecting their preferred genres.

Apart from DailyLit’s own serialized fiction, you can find here hundreds of classic novels. Pride and Prejudice and War of the Worlds were two first books offered on platform’s launch in 2006.

9. Library of Congress

Did you know you can read the world’s beloved children’s classics on the Library of Congress website?

The digital collection of Classic Books includes “only” about 60 titles, but they are the ones you can’t find anywhere else.

This catalog looks like a great idea to spend some time with your kids reading together the books in their original look and feel. The books are scanned and digitized beautifully, and the interface looks gorgeous!

10. Google Book Search

Google launched its own ebookstore some time ago, but the earlier book scan project, Google Book Search, is still there.

Perform any search, and you’ll see a list of results. If you see Preview or Full View link under the book’s title, it means you can read its scan in the browser.

11. Loyal Books

The site offers over 7 thousand of free public domain books, like audiobooks or text files. Titles in 30 languages can be found here.

12. The Literature Network

The site calls itself a “searchable online literature for the student, educator, or enthusiast.”

Currently, there are over 3,600 full books and over 4,400 short stories & poems from over 250 authors.

The key to exploring the site is author index, from where you can browse linked books, quotes forum threads, and quizzes.

13. Bartleby

The site offers free Harvard Classics – complete volumes of the most comprehensive and well-researched anthology of all time (read-online, no downloads offered).

14. Authorama

This simple-to-explore site lists free books from a variety of different authors.

The site’s purpose is to bring public domain books from sites like Project Gutenberg into a form easily readable in a web browser.

15. LibriVox

Founded in 2005, LibriVox is a non-profit initiative to record and catalog audio versions of public domain books.

The goal of LibriVox is to make all public domain books available, for free, in audio format on the internet. LibriVox volunteers record chapters of books in the public domain and release the audio files back onto the net.

Volunteers can choose from a variety of books to record, and LibriVox provides the recording tools and guidance to help them.

In August 2022, the site offered as many as 17,000 completed completed audiobooks.

16. Lit2Go

The site offers free stories and poems in an audiobook format. An abstract, citation, playing time, and word count are given for each of the passages.

Many classic books and stories are included in the Lit2Go catalog, from Lewis Carroll, to Aesop, to Anne Brontë, to Jack London.

17. Legamus

The site makes free audiobooks from texts that entered the public domain in Europe.

18. Open Culture

Open Culture is a popular blog that curates access to educational and cultural media.

Among several collections, you can find here a directory of over 800 free ebooks. Most of them are in public domain.

19. Classic Literature Library

The site offers public domain books organized into collections. You can find here the complete works of William Shakespeare, Jules Verne, Charles Dickens or Mark Twain, among others.

20. The Online Books Page

The site, managed by the University of Pennsylvania, offers a clean interface to browse for over 3 million free ebooks from around the web.

21. Great Books and Classics

A repository of works of classic writers and philosophers, from Sophocles to Epicurus, to Sun-Tzu.

The books in digital format can be read here online as html files.

22. Planet Publish

A decent collection of popular works of classic literature, in pdf format.

23. Classical Chinese Literature

Chinese classics, with each character hyperlinked to its definition and etymology.

24. Wolne Lektury

It’s an extremely well-managed collection of free public domain books in the Polish language.

Currently, there are well over 2,000 titles available, either for online reading or ready for download (epub, mobi, pdf formats).

25. Projekti Lönnrot

Public domain books in Finnish and Swedish.

Keep exploring. Here are other popular lists and tips:

If you are going to switch from your Kindle to a more versatile Amazon Fire tablet, you are right assuming that when it comes to ebooks things should be the same.

The moment you register your Fire with the same account as your Kindle is the moment you get full access to all ebooks you have collected so far in your Kindle account.

However, there are a few things that you should keep in mind that make using third-party ebooks more difficult to use on the Fire. It’s especially important, if you are going to download free ebooks from other sources than Amazon Kindle Store.

While the rest of ebook platforms is using the epub format, Kindle e-readers and apps, as well as Amazon Fire tablets support a different one – mobi (also known as prc).

Free ebooks for Amazon Fire – tips

Things to remember

No matter from which source you get free ebooks for your Amazon Fire tablet please keep in mind the following facts:

• All ebooks you add to your Amazon Kindle account can be accessed from any device or app that’s connected with the same account.
• All ebooks you have downloaded from the Kindle Store are managed by the Kindle app, called on your Amazon Fire “Books”.
• Opposite to Kindle, third-party ebooks on your Amazon Fire are not available in Kindle app, but Docs app.
• Docs app provides basic book management tools: reading progress and All/Downloaded filter.
• If you download ebooks from any other site than Amazon, please pick up the file formats called: Kindle, mobi, or prc.
• All ebooks you get to your Fire via microSD card are also available via Docs app.

How to add free ebooks to Amazon Fire

There are a few ways you can add own books to your Amazon account, and from there to the Fire tablet:

1. The most popular way is to send a file to the email address associated with your device. If you buy the Fire tablet on Amazon, it will already come preregistered with your Amazon account. A unique email address is being associated with your Fire, so that you can send your third-party ebooks right to it. You can find it in the Settings section. Here is how to find an email address for sending own ebooks to Kindle and Fire.

2. You can also use a Send to Kindle application. It’s available for Mac and Windows, but you can also get it for Chrome and Firefox browsers. While the desktop version lets you add files stored on a computer disc, the browser extension helps add web content.

3. If you use a cloud storage service like Dropbox, you can upload the file to it from your computer, and use a Dropbox application on your Fire tablet to download the file to Docs app.

4. You can move copy files from your computer to a microSD card and then insert the card into a slot in your Fire tablet. The files become accessible instantly.

How to find my sideloaded books on Amazon Fire tablet

1. Open the Fire tablet. Look for “Docs” app in the Home screen, and open it.

2. At the top, you will see three locations: Local Storage, Cloud Drive, and Send-to-Kindle.

3. The files that you have added to Kindle in the past, should be available in the Send-to-Kindle folder.

4. Tap the file to download it to the Fire tablet. Once the download is finished, tap again to open it in the Books app.

5. To read any sideloaded book, you will need to open it from the Docs app, not Books.

Free ebooks for Amazon Fire – sources

Project Gutenberg

Project Gutenberg is the longest-established ebook site in the world and the top place to download free classics. It’s the primary repository of free public domain ebooks.

When the title enters public domain, it means the rights to this work have expired and the book is publicly available. On Project Gutenberg the public domain ebooks are free to download.

A great thing about ebooks from Project Gutenberg is that if the original print edition had illustrations, you will be also able to get them in the ebook version. If you want the illustrations, make sure to download Kindle (with images) file. Please, keep in mind that ebook files with images take much more space.

Currently, there are over 60,000 ebooks in the Project Gutenberg catalog. You can start browsing from Frequently Downloaded Ebooks section or go directly to the Latest Releases.

The site offers a very useful Dropbox, Google Drive, and OneDrive integration. If you connect your cloud service, you will be able to download ebooks with just one click.

It’s worth noting that you can access and download Project Gutenberg ebooks on your tablet or smartphone, in a browser, as the site is mobile friendly.

Internet Archive

The Internet Archive is a non-profit digital library with a mission of “universal access to all knowledge.” The website is a huge digital library of text, audio and video files.

The catalog includes over 25,000,000 fully accessible ebooks and other text files. From here, you can also start browsing a collection of 1.3 million contemporary ebooks that you will be able to borrow for free once you register an account.

The ebook section is available at archive.org/details/texts. Sub-collections include American Libraries, Canadian Libraries, ebooks from Project Gutenberg, titles from the Million Books Project, and ebooks for children.

When you find an interesting ebook, click on its cover and a read-online panel will open right away. To find downloadable files, scroll down the page a bit. On the right side, you will see all available formats

In most cases, mobi format will be included – here it is called Kindle.

Smashwords

Smashwords is a top online site with ebooks from independent authors and publishers. There are currently over 500,000 titles from over 100,000 self-published authors. You’ll be able not only to download ebooks in mobi or pdf format, but also read them online in your browser.

Smashwords is a leading source of newly released independent ebooks. What’s more, if you are looking for free ebooks in languages other than English, visit Smashwords, and you should find here titles in your mother tongue.

To see which titles are free to read in your internet browser, go to Smashwords’ catalog of free ebooks. Then, change the way entries are being displayed – from stacks to list. Do it by clicking the bullet list icon in the top right.

This way, next to each title you will see a list of available formats. Keep in mind that the format that’s compatible with Amazon Fire is called “mobi.”

Currently, there are between 50,000 and 100,000 free ebooks on Smashwords. That number depends on how authors promote their publications. Sometimes they make an ebook free for a limited time. It usually happens with first volumes of book series.

Kindle Store

Did you know that there are many free ebooks in the Kindle Store? The thing is how to find them.

The best way to get free ebooks is to go to “Bestsellers in Kindle Store” and pick up “Top 100 Free”. You will be able to see the most popular free titles in the Kindle Store.

The list is being updated a couple of times a day, so it collects the hottest free titles that are currently available.

The other way to find free ebooks is to search Amazon. While being in the Kindle Store, in the search box type “free kindle books.” This method gives an idea how many books are free in Amazon’s own ebook platform.

Please, keep in mind that to access free books in the Kindle Store, you have to be signed in with your Amazon account and have a Kindle or Kindle app registered with the same credentials. Otherwise, you would not be able to get free ebooks from the Kindle Store to your device.

The process of delivering an ebook is different from downloading a file to your computer’s disc. It’s performed via your personal Kindle library in the cloud.

Open Library

Open Library is Internet Archive’s separate project, focused on collecting library records. Its goal is to create one web page for every book ever published. On a page of a single ebook, you’ll find all its documented editions.

Compared to the Internet Archive, with its vast catalog and advanced search features, the Open Library website is simpler and more user-friendly, and you can find the books you need much quicker.

When you go to Classic Books section, you will find over 3 million books that are “accessible,” which means they are free to read online or download.

To find an Amazon Fire compatible ebook format, open the page with its details. Then, in the left-side column, right under the book cover, you will see “Download Options.” Click on “mobi” and the file will start downloading immediately.

Open Library is more than just a catalog of free classic books. It also shows contemporary books that are free to read if you decide to borrow them. To do that, you may need to register at Open Library or find the book in your local library using WorldCat or Library Link. Each library book is marked with a “Borrow” button instead of “Read.”

ManyBooks

ManyBooks offers free ebooks in a clean and friendly interface. The site is ad supported but these ads are displayed usually at the bottom of the browser window and are not too disturbing.

In total, over 50 thousand ebooks are available, all with nicely designed covers. Plus, each title is available in several file formats, a lot more than what you can find elsewhere.

The major disadvantage on ManyBooks is that if you want to download the file, you will have to register an account. It’s up to you whether you want to do this or use other sites such as Project Gutenberg or Internet Archive.

To see download options, select the ebook you want, open the book’s product page, and click on a big button saying “Free Download.” Then, choose “mobi” from a list of available formats.

If you don’t want to sign up for ManyBooks, you can read any ebook for free in your internet browser. After you find the book you want to read, go to this ebook’s details page and click on a large “Read Online” button.

BookRix

BookRix is a platform that offers ebooks from self-published authors combined with free books from the public domain.

A catalog of free ebooks is an essential part of the website. On the top of a list, you will find the most popular categories, including literary fiction, fantasy, romance, thrillers, and young adult fiction.

When you enter any category, you will see books sorted by the popularity. On the top, you will see free ebooks offered by contemporary authors.

Many classic titles from the public domain are also included in the BookRix directory of free ebooks. You will find them in the Fiction category.

When you find the book you want to read, click on its cover or title to enter the book details page. Find the “Download” button placed next to the book cover and click on it.

Please note that not all titles are available in mobi format., and there is no way to filter ebooks by format, so you will have to check out Kindle compatibility once you find the ebook you would like to read.

DigiLibraries

The site is an online ebook catalog, where you can find almost 30,000 titles – all of them are free. The site is very clean and easy to explore, and this is what makes it worth exploring.

Most probably, you won’t need a search box at all. Most popular categories are featured on the left sidebar, and you can just pick up the one you are interested in to see ebooks listed by popularity.

Plus, if a category is large enough, you can further narrow down the list of displayed books by selecting one of sub categories. There are several categories to choose from.

The most popular are Poetry, Juvenile Fiction, and Literary Collections.

It’s easy to download a Kindle compatible file. Simply, find “Download options” panel located on the right side of the book’s cover, and click on “Mobi Kindle” icon to start downloading the file.

Keep reading. Here are other lists and tips:

If you are willing to use your new device for reading ebooks and listening to audiobooks, you are most probably going to check out free book-reading apps and audiobook players in the App Store’s Books category, and test which one suits your needs the most.

Apple Books, the native iOS book-reading app, formerly known as “iBooks” (surprisingly, many users still use this term), is no longer preloaded on your iPad and iPhone. You have to head to the App Store and download it.

You will find lots of free book-reading apps in the Books category. Which one is the best?

The most advanced and versatile apps are offered by major digital platforms.

Besides Apple, it’s Amazon Kindle, Nook, Kobo, and Google Play Books. These apps are free to use, and all you need to do is sign in with the relevant account login and password.

For the Kindle app, use your Amazon credentials; the login for Google Books is the same as for Gmail.

The only problem with apps from major ebook and audiobook platforms is the lack of free content. Yes, you can find a few free titles in the Apple Books or Google Play Books, but it’s enough only to let you test the interface to decide whether this particular platform and app would be suitable.

The thing is that on the web you can find dozens of thousands of free ebooks that you can download to your iPad and iPhone. These books are available in the public domain – their intellectual property rights expired, and anyone can use them without breaking the law.

Among books available in the public domain, you will find the most popular classic titles by Jane Austen, Mary Shelley, Charles Dickens, Franz Kafka, Charlotte Brontë, or Arthur Conan Doyle, to name a few authors.

The latest bestsellers from J.K. Rowling, Stephen King, George R.R. Martin, Margaret Atwood, Jodi Picoult, or Neil Gaiman are not available in the public domain, so you won’t see them in the following list.

Instead of pirating them, try to compare the prices on the ebook platform of your choice. From time to time, even the hottest bestsellers are offered at highly reduced prices, sometimes between $0.99 and $2.99, so it’s just a matter of subscribing to deal alerts.

Before the list, let’s briefly go through two important topics:

• How to download your own books?
• What file format to choose?

How to download my own books to iPad and iPhone?

There are four ways to do it:

• Upload a file to iCloud Drive – if you have a Mac computer, download the file to the disc and move it to the iCloud Drive folder in the Finder. Then, open the Files app on your iPad and tap the file to open it.
• Upload a file to the cloud app – you can do the same using the cloud service of your choice, such as Google Drive or Dropbox.
• Send a file via email – download a file to the computer, add it as an attachment and email yourself. Open the email on your iPad or iPhone and tap the file to open it with the compatible app.
• Use Safari on your iPad or iPhone – some sites work very well on mobile devices. Browse these sites directly on your iPad or iPhone using Safari (or any other browser), find the book, and open it directly, without the need to switch devices.

The fifth method is using directly a book-reading app. I don’t recommend it, if you have chosen the app from a major platform. These platforms don’t make it easy to find free books because they want you to buy them.

Which ebooks are compatible with my app?

Everything depends on which app you choose to serve as an ebook reader on your iPad or iPhone.

Books from the following sites are available in different file formats, so it’s just a matter of selecting the format that is compatible with your app.

To make things simple, as of 2022 all major ebook platforms, including Amazon Kindle, support epub file format.

Ebook formats for iPad and iPhone

9 sites with free books for iPad and iPhone

1. Project Gutenberg

Project Gutenberg is the top place to download free classics from the public domain. The books that are published here are then reused by many other sites – including the ones that you find later in this overview.

The site is powered by thousands of volunteers who are first to digitize books that have just entered the public domain. Dozens of new titles are being added every month. Currently, you can choose from over 60,000 free books.

You can start from exploring the catalog of the most popular ebook downloads. The world’s most loved and adored books are here: Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, works by Edgar Allan Poe, Mark Twain’s A Tale of Two Cities, Little Women by Louisa May Alcott, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, or Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre. And it’s just the beginning!

Project Gutenberg is the longest established site with free ebooks. It was founded by Michael S. Hart, the extraordinary tech visionary who wanted to make digital books freely available to all. Back in 1971 (to be precise, on the 4th of July), he published the first ebook in the world – the electronic version of “U.S. Declaration of Independence.” It is the No.1 book in the Project Gutenberg catalog – and it’s still there: gutenberg.org/ebooks/1.

As the site is available in a mobile version, you can browse its catalog directly on your iPad. Project Gutenberg offers also a one-click download option to three cloud services: Dropbox, Google Drive, and Microsoft’s One Drive.

Books in epub and mobi are available in two versions: with and without illustrations and pictures from original print edition. Plus, there is an option to read each book as a html file, so you can do it on your iPad or iPhone as well, if you don’t feel like downloading the file.

Popular sections to explore:

• Top 100 books – with the number of downloads for yesterday, last week, and last 30 days.
• New books – the newest additions to Project Gutenberg, sorted by the release date.
• Fiction bookshelf – you can find here adventure books, crime and detective fiction, horrors, and romance books.
• Books in foreign languages – on Project Gutenberg, you can find hundreds of books in over 50 foreign languages.

Mobile site: Yes, available at m.gutenberg.org/
Formats: mobi, epub, text, html

2. Internet Archive

The Internet Archive is a non-profit digital library with the mission of “universal access to all knowledge.” The website hosts over 300 billion web pages, books, audio and video files.

The catalog of Books and Texts includes over 2.7 million files, out of which 1.4 million are always free, while 1.2 million are available to borrow. The front page highlights the most viewed books, giving you a hint of what other users were most interested in.

You can browse books by the year of release of the digital version, topics, collection, and language. Collections include American Libraries, Canadian Libraries, books from Project Gutenberg, titles from the Million Books Project, and books for children.

What’s important, the Internet Archive hosts a vast number of foreign-language books. There are over 20 languages with the number of published text works exceeding 1,000 each.

When you find the interesting book, you can read it right away in a browser viewer. Scroll down to see the list of download options in the right-side panel.

Mobile site: Yes, online viewer works on iPhone and iPad as well
Formats: mobi (called “Kindle”), epub, text, pdf, plus usually 10 more

3. Open Library

Open Library is an online platform run by the Internet Archive. It makes a vast catalog of the mother site more accessible and easier to browse.

When you go to Classic Books section, you will find all works from the Internet Archive. These ebooks are “accessible,” and it means they are free to download.

Use the search box to find the book you want to read. When you land on the book description page, you will see a list of all available digital versions, together with available download options. This feature, giving you freedom to choose from a variety of digitized print versions, is unique to the Open Library. By default, on the top of the list, you will see the most downloaded version.

You can immediately read the book by clicking or tapping the “Read” button. Choose the phone icon on the right side of the button to listen to the audio version using Read Aloud technology.

But Open Library is more than just a catalog of free classic books and texts downloaded by users. It also shows contemporary books that are free to read if you decide to borrow them. To do that, you may need to register at Open Library or find the book in your local library using WorldCat or Library Link. Each library book is marked with a “Borrow” button instead of “Read.”

Mobile site: Yes, online viewer powered by the Internet Archive
Formats: mobi, epub, text, pdf, daisy – availability of formats depends on the version of the book

4. Smashwords

Smashwords is the popular ebook platform that offers with the largest number of books published by independent authors from around the world. You can find here books in several languages, all are DRM-free, and many authors offer their publications for free.

Out of over 500,000 ebooks, well over 80,000 are free to download. A few thousands are usually on sale, with price cuts reaching 80%. Plus, many authors offer also their titles for the prices that readers set.

To quickly get to the list of free books, simply use the combination of the three top filter bars. For instance, here is the link to: All Books – Free – Over 100K Words.

You’ll need some time to learn how to navigate the site. Only the top slider features books that are chosen via the catalog selection. Underneath, you will find “Bestselling Books,” “Most Downloaded Books,” or ‘Highly Rated Books” – and most of these books are pay-what-you-like.

To enter the entire catalog of the free books, make sure to click on a “+” button in the top right corner of the “Featured New Releases” slider. This way, you will see a paged catalog of mostly free titles. However, only the book covers are visible.

Another way to search is picking up a favorite category and then limiting the results by “Free” selector at the top.

Mobile site: Yes
Formats: mobi, epub, lrf, pdf, online reader

5. Europeana Collections

Europeana is a popular platform with digitized artworks, books, and films from European libraries, museums, and cultural institutions. It includes almost 60 million items, out of which over 12 million are digitized texts of all kinds.

Opposite to the sites listed above, Europeana collects rare editions and other items you could only find in long-established libraries. Treat is as an aggregator of digitized collections from the most prestigious sources, such as Bodleian Libraries or Bibliothèque nationale de France.

Most books are offered in pdf format so this source is good only for iPad, and only if you use a book reading app that supports this file format.

To find the book, simply write down the term in a search box. Then, use the search filter on the left side to limit the number of results by media (select yes for “full text” field and then “pdf” for file format), providing country,

Mobile site: Yes
Formats: mainly pdf

6. ManyBooks

ManyBooks offers free books in a clean and friendly interface. Most books are sourced from Project Gutenberg and sites that offer books with a Creative Commons license.

In total, over 50 thousand books are available for download, all with proper covers – they would look great in your book-reading app’s library view. Plus, each book is available in several file formats, a lot more than what you can find elsewhere.

There are two disadvantages to keep in mind. First, the site displays ads. Secondly, you have to sign up if you want to download the files. There is also an online reader, but sometimes you will have to wait too long until it loads the content.

Mobile site: Yes, online reader available
Formats: epub, mobi, and many others

7. DigiLibraries

This is another site that makes searching for free ebooks a bit easier. The books are shown by category right in the front page, so you can quickly get an idea how many titles are in a topic you are most interested in.

Unfortunately, the site recently started displaying ads, and it makes using it much less pleasant.

Mobile site: Yes
Formats: epub, mobi, and pdf

8. BookRix

BookRix is a platform that offers books from self-published authors combined with free books from the public domain. A catalog of free downloadable ebooks is an essential part of the website. It’s easy to find and explore – on the top of a list, you will find the most popular categories, including literary fiction, fantasy, romance, thrillers, and young adult fiction.

When you enter a category, you will see books sorted by the popularity. On top, you will see free books offered by contemporary authors. Most classic titles are included in the Fiction category.

Books are only offered in epub format, so if you are using the Kindle iOS app, you won’t be able to add the files unless you convert them to mobi. Also, some self-published books are not available for download; you can only read them online in your browser. This feature works on mobile devices, as well.

Mobile site: Yes, browser reader available
Formats: epub

9. Bookboon

Bookboon is a company focused on providing free and paid textbooks for students and businesses.

The site offers textbooks written by professors from the world’s top universities. There are over 1,000 books that are free to download, but to do that, you have to sign up.

One thing to know is that the free books come with adverts that can take even 15% of the content of each book.

You can find on Bookboon several interesting books from the following categories: engineering, IT & programming, economics & finance, career & study advice, marketing, strategy & management, or languages.

Mobile site: Yes
Formats: pdf

Keep exploring. Here are other posts and tips:

• Find John Bolton’s Audible audiobook on Amazon.
• Instead of paying $31, start 30-day free Audible trial.
• The audiobook is yours after you cancel the subscription.

John Bolton’s highly anticipated, controversial White House memoir, The Room Where It Happened, has been released a few days ago. The former National Security Advisor creates a precise rendering of his days in the Oval Office and describes President Trump’s presidency in detail, from Syria’s chemical attack, to the upheaval in Venezuela, to inconsistent relations with North Korea’s dictator Kim Jong Un.

Many readers are wondering whether they can get The Room Where It Happened for free with one of their current digital subscriptions.

Unfortunately, the book is not included in either Kindle Unlimited or Amazon Prime Reading. As it’s published by Simon & Schuster, there is very little chance it will join these subscription-based services at all.

It means that to read the memoir, you will have to buy it as a regular customer. The Kindle edition costs $16.99 right now (compared to the list price, you save 48%, down from $32.50).

There is, however, a way to download the book completely free of charge, and completely legally, as long as you are eager to give a try to its audiobook version.

The Room Where It Happened Audible audiobook costs normally $30.62. Narrated by Robert Petkoff, it offers over 20 hours of listening length, with the epilogue being read by John Bolton himself. The audiobook already tops the Audible Top 100 bestseller list.

Do you want to get it free of charge? You can!

Many Amazon customers are aware of Audible subscription service called “Gold Membership,” but only few have noticed that – opposite to Kindle Unlimited – all audiobooks you get via the membership are yours forever. So, in other words, you will be able to keep John Bolton’s memoir (or any other audiobook, no matter its price) even after you cancel Audible membership. Sounds great, right?

How to get John Bolton audiobook free with Audible membership?

1. Head to Amazon website, to The Room Where It Happened product page, and select “Audiobook” as a format.

2. On the right side, check “Free with Audible trial,” and click the yellow “Get Audible Free” button.

3. Review your order: on the left side, you will see John Bolton’s audiobook, as well Audible 30-day free trial. Click “Continue.”

4. The audiobook is now added to your account. Later in the post, you will learn how to download it to your Kindle e-reader, Amazon Fire tablet, or Audible app.

As you started your Audible free trial, you will enjoy the service for 30 days free of charge. After that period, you will be automatically charged $14.95 per month.

7 days before your trial ends, you will be notified by email. If you cancel the subscription before the free trial period ends, you will not pay a penny for the Audible Gold Membership, and – as the audiobook you have downloaded is yours forever, you can listen to John Bolton’s Trump biography as long as you want.

How to download Audible audiobook

To your Kindle e-reader – Audible audiobook player is integrated into Kindle’s system. All you need to do is open your Kindle and sync the content with your Kindle cloud library. After audiobook cover appears in the home screen, tap it and start listening using Bluetooth connected earphones or speaker.

To your iPad and iPhone – head to the App Store and download Audible app. Sign in with the credentials you used to start your free Audible trial. Download the book to your iPad or iPhone and start listening!

To your Amazon Fire tablet – Audible app is preloaded on a tablet. After you start your 30-day free trial with the John Bolton free audiobook, it should automatically appear in your Audible app library. If you are prompted to sign in, use the same credentials as the ones you used to start Audible subscription.

To your Android tablet or smartphone – head to the Google Play Store and download Audible app. Sign in with the credentials you used to start your free Audible trial. Download the book and start listening!

[ef-reco id=”134815″ title=”Read also” info=”Top article”]

The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir

John Bolton

As President Trump’s national security advisor, John Bolton spent many of his 453 days in the room where it happened, and the facts speak for themselves. The result is a White House memoir that is the most comprehensive and substantial account of the Trump Administration and one of the few to date by a top-level official.

With almost daily access to the president, John Bolton has produced a precise rendering of his days in and around the Oval Office. What Bolton saw astonished him: a president for whom getting reelected was the only thing that mattered, even if it meant endangering or weakening the nation.

Bolton discovered a president who thought foreign policy is like closing a real estate deal – about personal relationships, made-for-TV showmanship, and advancing his own interests. As a result, the US lost an opportunity to confront its deepening threats, and in cases like China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea ended up in a more vulnerable place.

Narrators: Robert Petkoff, John Bolton
Listening length: 20 hours and 52 minutes
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
Price: $0 (with Audible free trial), $30.52 (regular)

⇢ Get for free

Keep exploring. Here are other posts and tips for audiobook lovers:

[ef-archive number=5 tag=”audiobooks”]

Almost 7.5 million free ebooks were downloaded from Project Gutenberg since mid-November 2022. Apart from all-time classics, you will find on the list three picaresque novels by Tobias Smollett.

Are you making a list of books to read during Christmas, or include in the New Year’s reading challenge?

Why not checking out the titles that are free to download because they are available in the public domain?

A leading source of free public domain books is Project Gutenberg. Founded in 1971 by Michael Hart, it’s the longest established digital library.

Currently, the site offers free access to over 60,000 eBooks that can be read online or downloaded in a variety of formats, for all possible ebook apps and e-reading devices.

The site provides useful stats about ebook downloads, Top 100 Ebooks in the Last 20 Days, where you can see the most popular titles based on how many times they were downloaded or read online.

Between November 15 and December 15, 2022, users downloaded from Project Gutenberg almost 7.5 million ebook files. Books from the Top 100 ranking were downloaded over 3 million times.

You will find on the list such well-known classic books as The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde, Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, or Frankenstein by Mary Shelley.

Surprisingly, these iconic classics don’t occupy the top of the list. Apparently, users are no longer interested in the books everyone knows. They are heading to Project Gutenberg to discover new books and read lesser-known authors.

Have you heard of Tobias Smollett, a Scottish poet and author living in the 18th century? He is best known for his picaresque novels.

Picaresque novels are stories of an anti-hero’s adventures in a disreputable world. They usually feature a roguish protagonist who is forced to rely on his wits, charm, and cunning to survive misadventures.

Three books by T. Smollett made it to the Top 20 Most Downloaded Ebooks, including The Adventures of Roderick Random. These three books alone were downloaded over 400,000 times in the last 30 days!

You have no other choice. You should add one of Smollett’s picaresque novels to your reading list.

You can download ebooks from Project Gutenberg to any e-reader or book-reading app. Make sure to pick up the file called EPUB3. This file format is compatible with Kobo, Apple Books, Nook, Google Play Books, and Amazon Kindle, among other platforms.

Yes, you should pick up EPUB3 for your Kindle or Kindle app. It’s because Amazon Kindle moved away from mobi format, and now it’s epub that’s officially supported.

Most downloaded free ebooks in December 2022

1. A Room with a View

E. M. Forster 

Set in Italy and England, the story is both a romance and a humorous critique of English society at the beginning of the 20th century.

The novel brought Forster recognition when it was first published and is now considered a modern classic.

The story centers on Lucy Honeychurch, a young upper-middle-class Englishwoman, and her experiences with love, independence, and travel.

Number of downloads: 173,860

⇢ Download

2. Middlemarch

George Eliot

Middlemarch is a novel by George Eliot, set in the fictional Midlands town of Middlemarch during 1829–1832 and follows several intersecting stories with a large cast of characters.

The novel explores the social and political changes in England during the early 19th century, particularly the impact of industrialization and the reform of local government.

Middlemarch is widely regarded as one of the greatest novels in the English language.

Number of downloads: 163,420

⇢ Download

3. Little Women

Louisa May Alcott 

Little Women is a classic novel by Louisa May Alcott, originally published in 1868. It follows the lives of four sisters, Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy March, and their experiences growing up in Massachusetts during the Civil War.

The book has been adapted for stage and screen numerous times and has been lauded for its strong female characters and its exploration of themes of love, family, and independence.

Number of downloads: 149,498

⇢ Download

4. The Enchanted April

Elizabeth Von Arnim

The Enchanted April is a 1922 novel by British writer Elizabeth von Arnim.

It tells the story of four very different women who rent an Italian villa for the month of April and, through the beauty of the surroundings, find contentment, joy, and transformation.

The novel was adapted into a film in 1992, starring Miranda Richardson and Joan Plowright.

Number of downloads: 147,040

⇢ Download

5. The Blue Castle

L. M. Montgomery 

A 1926 novel by Canadian author Lucy Maud Montgomery, best known for her novel Anne of Green Gables.

The book tells the story of Valancy Stirling, a 29-year-old spinster who is stuck in a restrictive life, but finds freedom and adventure when she begins to explore the world around her.

Number of downloads: 142,565

⇢ Download

6. The Complete Works of William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare 

This is a comprehensive collection of the writings of William Shakespeare. It includes all of his plays, sonnets, and other poems, as well as various other works attributed to him.

The book includes, among others: The Sonnets, All’s Well That Ends Well, Hamlet, Macbeth, and Romeo and Juliet. The Comedy of Errors, The Merchant of Venice, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream are also included.

This free ebook is an invaluable resource for any student or fan of Shakespeare’s work.

Number of downloads: 141,385

⇢ Download

7. Moby Dick; Or, The Whale

Herman Melville

A classic novel by Herman Melville tells the story of the obsessive quest of Ahab, captain of the whaling ship Pequod, for revenge on the giant white sperm whale that on the ship’s previous voyage bit off Ahab’s leg at the knee.

The novel is a great exploration of themes of fate, revenge, and the power of nature. It has been adapted into numerous films and television shows over the years.

D. H. Lawrence called Moby-Dick “one of the strangest and most wonderful books in the world” and “the greatest book of the sea ever written.”

Number of downloads: 141,139

⇢ Download

8. The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom — Complete

T. Smollett

The novel, first published in 1753, follows Ferdinand Count Fathom, a handsome and charismatic con artist who is adept at convincing people to part with their wealth.

After being sent away from his home in England, Fathom continues to travel across Europe and experience numerous adventures.

Through the course of the novel, Fathom is forced to confront his own moral boundaries and ultimately selects a path of redemption.

Number of downloads: 138,321

⇢ Download

9. Cranford

Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

First published in 1851, the novel is set in the fictional town of Cranford, a small market town in the north of England.

We follow the lives of the town’s many female inhabitants, who are mostly middle-class and elderly spinsters, as they go about their everyday lives and gossip about their neighbors.

The novel is known for its humorous, gentle satire of Victorian life and its strong female characters.

Number of downloads: 138,019

⇢ Download

10. The Expedition of Humphry Clinker

T. Smollett

The Expedition of Humphry Clinker, first published in 1771, is widely considered to be one of the first picaresque novels in English literature.

The novel follows the adventures of its protagonist, Humphry Clinker, as he and his companions journey from London to Scotland and back again.

Along the way, they encounter a variety of characters and settings, and the novel offers a vivid picture of life in 18th century Britain.

Number of downloads: 134,589

⇢ Download

11. The Adventures of Roderick Random

T. Smollett

Here is another novel from T. Smollett. It follows the exploits of Roderick Random, a young man from a well-to-do family who is disinherited and forced to make his own way in life.

Random goes on a series of adventures, ranging from romance and duels to a naval battle and a stint in a debtors’ prison. 

The novel is noted for its realistic and humorous depiction of 18th-century life and for its exploration of themes such as social mobility, corruption, and injustice.

Number of downloads: 132,845

⇢ Download

12. History of Tom Jones, a Foundling

Henry Fielding

This comic novel by English author Henry Fielding, first published in April 1749, follows Tom Jones, an illegitimate foundling, from infancy to adulthood. 

Tom’s journey takes him through various social circles and tests of morality, eventually leading him to true love and a fulfilling, prosperous life.

The novel was well-received when it was first published, and it has since become one of the most beloved novels in the English literature.

Number of downloads: 125,892

⇢ Download

13. My Life — Volume 1

Richard Wagner

My Life is an autobiography by German composer Richard Wagner.

First published in German in 1889, it contains a detailed account of Wagner’s life and works, as well as his personal reflections on his life and times.

Number of downloads: 122,418

⇢ Download

14. Twenty Years After

Alexandre Dumas

Twenty Years After is a historical novel by Alexandre Dumas, first published in 1845. It is the sequel to The Three Musketeers and part of the D’Artagnan Romances series.

The novel follows the adventures of d’Artagnan’s sons as they fight to protect France from the machinations of Cardinal Mazarin, the chief minister of King Louis XIV.

The novel also follows the fortunes of the other musketeers, Athos, Porthos, and Aramis, and their respective families.

Number of downloads: 122,260

⇢ Download

15. Frankenstein; Or, The Modern Prometheus

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

Published in 1818, this famous classic novel follows a young scientist named Victor Frankenstein who creates a hideous sapient creature out of body parts of the dead.

The creature is rejected by society and ultimately seeks revenge on his creator.

The book combines elements of the Gothic novel and the Romantic movement, and is considered one of the first true science-fiction stories.

Number of downloads: 67,212

⇢ Download

16. A Christmas Carol

Charles Dickens

First published on December 19, 1843, this novella is considered one of the most popular and beloved Christmas stories of all time.

The story follows the miser Ebenezer Scrooge as he is visited by the ghosts of Christmas past, present, and future, who show him the error of his ways, and how to be a better man.

The tale of redemption of the human spirit has been adapted for stage, film, and television many times over the years.

Number of downloads: 61,046

⇢ Download

17. Pride and Prejudice

Jane Austen

The world’s beloved novel of manners is set in rural England at the beginning of the 19th century and follows the relationship between Elizabeth Bennet and her love interest Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy.

We follow the five Bennet sisters as they navigate their way through their family’s financial struggles, the pressures of marriage and society, and their own personal feelings.

Through witty dialogue and character development, Austen explores themes of love, class, and pride.

Number of downloads: 55,220

⇢ Download

18. The Scarlet Letter

Nathaniel Hawthorne

The Scarlet Letter is a classic novel by American author Nathaniel Hawthorne, published in 1850.

The book tells the story of Hester Prynne, a young woman who conceives a child while living in an oppressive Puritan society.

The novel examines the effects of societal pressure on an individual, as well as themes of sin, guilt, and redemption.

Number of downloads: 29,696

⇢ Download

19. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

Lewis Carroll

A classic novel by Lewis Carroll tells the story of a young girl named Alice who falls down a rabbit hole into a fantasy world populated by peculiar, anthropomorphic creatures.

The tale plays with logic, giving the story lasting popularity with adults as well as children. Its narrative course and structure have been enormously influential, notably in the fantasy genre.

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is considered to be one of the most characteristic examples of the genre of literary nonsense. 

Number of downloads: 26,550

⇢ Download

20. The Picture of Dorian Gray

Oscar Wilde

Dorian Gray is a handsome young man whose life is forever changed after he has a mysterious portrait of himself made.

The portrait ages while Dorian himself stays young and beautiful, and he soon learns the hard way that the consequences of his vanity and hedonism are dire. 

The novel is considered a classic of English literature, and is a cautionary tale about the power of beauty, morality, and the ability of art to influence life.

Number of downloads: 24,172

⇢ Download

All images: Project Gutenberg, Wikipedia.

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