Fond Books
Free to Read

174 Classic Books You Can Read Free Online

1605–1929

Copyright expires, and when it does a book belongs to everyone. These 174 titles are old enough to read free and legally right now, and every one of them won a major prize or earned a place on one of our curated lists. Standard Ebooks supplies the carefully typeset editions and Project Gutenberg the rest. Nothing here costs anything, and we earn nothing when you click.

Before 1800 (7)

The Nineteenth Century (85)

The Prize Years, 1900 to 1929 (82)

Where These Come From

Every text here is hosted by Standard Ebooks or Project Gutenberg, both of which publish only books whose copyright has expired. We link what they hold rather than judging copyright ourselves, so a book appears here when one of them has cleared and published it.