Electronic Text Archives

Access: The Great Books
A compilation of classic authors and their works, along with biographies, background, study guides. Linked to other sites related to the study of literature.
http://www.anova.org/

Alex Catalogue of Electronic Texts
Collection of public domain documents from American and English literature as well as Western philosophy.
http://www.infomotions.com/alex/

ArmenianHouse.org
A private nonprofit project to convert into electronic format and publish the Armenian literary heritage. Also provides information on Armenian culture, history, religion.
http://armenianhouse.org/

Bartleby.com
Etexts, focusing on classics and general reference works.
http://www.bartleby.com/

BBMania
Contains the full text of a number of English-language works including novels by Dickens, H G Wells, James Joyce and Robert Stevenson, as well as translated works.
http://www.cooo.net/

Bibliomania
Houses an extensive online collection of texts ranging from fiction and poetry to general non-fiction and reference works.
http://www.bibliomania.com/

Bookstacks
Free online texts in several languages.
http://www.bookstacks.org/

byGosh.com
Free, online illustrated children's stories, 20 best out-of-copyright novels of the 20th century, out-of-copyright nonfiction of the 20th century. Also children's stories.
http://www.bygosh.com

Classic Book Library
A collection of online ebooks featuring mystery, science fiction and romance.
http://classicbook.info/

Classic Reader
A collection of classic fiction and non-fiction, poetry, and children's stories.
http://www.classicreader.com/

Classical Authors Directory
Portraits, biographies and pictures of 460 classic authors. 1258 online books of classical literature enhanced with annotations from the Encyclopedia of the Self.
http://authorsdirectory.com/

ClassicAuthors.net
Includes archives of now public-domain works by various well-known American and British authors.
http://classicauthors.net/

Classics at the Online Literature Library
Archived electronic texts indexed by author.
http://www.literature.org/authors/

The Classics in ASCII
Public domain fiction and non-fiction etexts at Textfiles.com.
http://www.textfiles.com/etext/

Electronic Library of the Bath House
Primary historical texts and relevant secondary sources pertaining to the bizarre Roman Emperor Elagabalus and related subjects. An offbeat, fascinating introduction to Imperial Roman history, starting on the fringe. Texts in HTML format.
http://members.aol.com/heliogabby/private/hglib.htm

The EServer
Includes a variety of literature-related materials, including etext archives of prose, poetry, fiction, non-fiction; links.
http://eserver.org/

E-texts and Women's History
From About.com, listing of electronic versions of books, poetry, speeches, and other writings that illuminate women's history.
http://womenshistory.about.com/library/weekly/aa020199.htm

Fiction.us
Public domain novels, short stories and plays in HTML format.
http://www.fiction.us/

Free Electronic Books
Educational texts.
http://onlinesapiens.com/books.html

FullBooks.com
A free online collection with thousands of books.
http://www.fullbooks.com/

Gruntose
Features selected electronic texts, including Doyle, Dumas, and Dana.
http://www.gruntose.com/

Hypertexts in American Studies
American literature including works by Poe, Jefferson, Madison, and Twain.
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/hypertex.html

Instinct.org Online Texts
Selected online texts on a variety of topics.
http://www.instinct.org/texts/

The International Children's Digital Library (ICDL)
Provides free access to children's books from around the world. Some books are public domain, others are used by author's permission.
http://www.childrenslibrary.org/

The Internet Archive: Million Book Project
Carnegie Mellon University project to compile digitized texts into a free, searchable digital library.
http://www.archive.org/details/millionbooks

Knowledge Rush
Book lover community, vanity postings, directory of free ebooks, biographies, encyclopaedia.
http://knowledgerush.com

Learn Library
Offers books, poems, speeches, plays and essays; includes reader discussion forums.
http://www.learnlibrary.com/index.htm

Library of Southern Literature
There is a collection of approximately 100 texts in HTML and XML. Documents the riches and diversity of Southern experience as presented in its most important literary works.
http://docsouth.unc.edu/southlit/

Literature of the Fantastic
A fair-sized collection of classic works of fantasy/sf, along with fantasy/sf-related websites.
http://www.sff.net/people/doylemacdonald/lit.htm

Literature Online
Links to third party sites, plus literary and reference databases including English and American poetry, drama, and prose, and The Annual Bibliography of English Language and Literature. Requires paid subscription.
http://lion.chadwyck.com/

Literature Project
A collection of classic books, poems, speeches, and plays. Site offers online chapter-indexed hypertext that can be easily read and searched and each piece includes downloadable e-text of the work.
http://www.literatureproject.com/

Making of America
A digital library of primary sources in 19th-century American social history from the antebellum period through Reconstruction.
http://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/moagrp/

Master Texts
Collection of English literature.
http://www.mastertexts.com

Medieval and Classical Library
Collection of literary works of classical and medieval civilization.
http://omacl.org/

The Online Literature Library
A small, but easily-navigated selection of online etexts from English literature.
http://www.literature.org/

Page by Page Books
Hundreds of books in the public domain, divided into HTML pages.
http://www.pagebypagebooks.com/

Perseus Project
Includes texts from the classical and Renaissance world.
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/

Project Runeberg
Archive of free ebooks of classic Nordic (Scandinavian) literature.
http://runeberg.org/

PSU's Electronic Classics Series
Classics of literature in Adobe Acrobat PDF format.
http://www2.hn.psu.edu/faculty/jmanis/jimspdf.htm

Public Bookshelf
A collection of books in the public domain which can be downloaded.
http://www.publicbookshelf.com/

Publicliterature.org
Contains novels, poems, and religious texts with audio.
http://publicliterature.org

Read Easily
Digital online library provides book lists by author or subject with a "set display" feature for the partially sighted and visually impaired.
http://www.readeasily.com/

Read Print
A free online library with thousands of books.
http://www.readprint.com/

Selected Sources for Electronic Texts
Provides links to electronic texts and archives in a variety of formats ranging from plain text to digital audio and digital braille. Compiled by the National Library Service.
http://www.loc.gov/nls/reference/factsheets/etexts.html

The Society for the Appreciation of the Post-Dialogic Novel
For theories on the status of the contemporary novel, reviewing texts in print form, with an eye toward the form's evolution via hypertexts and immersive environments.
http://members.tripod.com/~dglen/society.htm

The Spectator Text Project at the Center for Electronic Texts in the Humanities
An interactive hypermedia environment for the study of The Tatler (1709-1711), The Spectator (1711-14), and the eighteenth-century periodical in general.
http://tabula.rutgers.edu/spectator/

World eBook Library
Public domain books in HTML, usually one file per chapter. Offers PDF books to members only.
http://www.worldlibrary.net/