Free classic books to read online

The Writro Library holds 1,656 public-domain books that are out of copyright and free to read online. The most-opened titles are below.

Browse by subject

• Free poetry books to read online
• Free fiction and classic novels to read online
• Free short stories to read online
• Free plays and drama to read online
• Free philosophy books to read online
• Free history books to read online
• Free adventure books to read online
• Free mystery and detective books to read online
• Free children's books to read online
• Free biographies and memoirs to read online
• Free science books to read online

Best Books Ever Listings

• Moby Dick; Or, The Whale — Melville, Herman
• Pride and Prejudice — Austen, Jane
• Crime and Punishment — Dostoyevsky, Fyodor
• The Monk: A Romance — Lewis, M. G. (Matthew Gregory)
• Pride and Prejudice — Austen, Jane
• The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare — Chesterton, G. K. (Gilbert Keith)
• Middlemarch — Eliot, George
• The Turn of the Screw — James, Henry
• Treasure Island — Stevenson, Robert Louis
• Wuthering Heights — Brontë, Emily
• The Brothers Karamazov — Dostoyevsky, Fyodor
• The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom — Complete — Smollett, T. (Tobias)
• The Expedition of Humphry Clinker — Smollett, T. (Tobias)
• The Adventures of Roderick Random — Smollett, T. (Tobias)
• The Metamorphoses of Ovid, Books I-VII — Ovid

Category: Classics of Literature

• The Odyssey: Rendered into English prose for the use of those who cannot read the original — Homer
• Manon Lescaut — Prévost, abbé
• Eloisa : $b or, A series of original letters — Rousseau, Jean-Jacques
• The Iliad — Homer
• Oedipus King of Thebes: Translated into English Rhyming Verse with Explanatory Notes — Sophocles

Category: British Literature

• Romeo and Juliet — Shakespeare, William
• The Mysteries of Udolpho — Radcliffe, Ann Ward
• Sense and Sensibility — Austen, Jane
• Jane Eyre: An Autobiography — Brontë, Charlotte
• Dracula — Stoker, Bram
• The Complete Project Gutenberg Works of Jane Austen: A Linked Index of all PG Editions of Jane Austen — Austen, Jane
• Alice's Adventures in Wonderland — Carroll, Lewis
• The Complete Works of William Shakespeare — Shakespeare, William
• Oliver Twist, Vol. 2 (of 3) — Dickens, Charles
• Dracula — Stoker, Bram
• The String of Pearls; Or, The Barber of Fleet Street. A Domestic Romance. — Prest, Thomas Peckett
• Under the Red Dragon: A Novel — Grant, James
• The strange case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde — Stevenson, Robert Louis
• Lorna Doone: A Romance of Exmoor — Blackmore, R. D. (Richard Doddridge)
• The strange case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde — Stevenson, Robert Louis
• The Gay Adventure: A Romance — Bird, Richard
• The Mystery of Edwin Drood — Dickens, Charles
• Doctor Cupid: A Novel — Broughton, Rhoda
• Robert Orange: Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange — Hobbes, John Oliver
• The Romance of Tristan and Iseult — Bédier, Joseph
• The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. 20 — Stevenson, Robert Louis
• The Passionate Friends — Wells, H. G. (Herbert George)
• The Crack of Doom — Cromie, Robert
• Henrietta Temple: A Love Story — Disraeli, Benjamin, Earl of Beaconsfield
• Romeo and Juliet — Shakespeare, William
• The Hand in the Dark — Rees, Arthur J. (Arthur John)
• A Study in Scarlet — Doyle, Arthur Conan
• Sense and Sensibility — Austen, Jane
• The Empty House and Other Ghost Stories — Blackwood, Algernon
• Love and Freindship [sic] — Austen, Jane
• Sonnets from the Portuguese — Browning, Elizabeth Barrett
• A pair of blue eyes — Hardy, Thomas
• As You Like It — Shakespeare, William
• The innocence of Father Brown — Chesterton, G. K. (Gilbert Keith)
• The House on the Borderland — Hodgson, William Hope
• Lady Audley's Secret — Braddon, M. E. (Mary Elizabeth)
• The Sign of the Four — Doyle, Arthur Conan
• The wisdom of Father Brown — Chesterton, G. K. (Gilbert Keith)
• The Czar's Spy: The Mystery of a Silent Love — Le Queux, William
• The Return of Sherlock Holmes — Doyle, Arthur Conan
• The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes — Doyle, Arthur Conan
• Frankenstein; or, the modern prometheus — Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft
• The Woman in White — Collins, Wilkie
• A Midsummer Night's Dream — Shakespeare, William
• The Moonstone — Collins, Wilkie
• The Valley of Fear — Doyle, Arthur Conan
• His last bow : $b Some later reminiscences of Sherlock Holmes — Doyle, Arthur Conan
• Paul Clifford — Complete — Lytton, Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron
• The Return of Sherlock Holmes — Doyle, Arthur Conan
• Ghost Stories of an Antiquary — James, M. R. (Montague Rhodes)
• The Secret Agent: A Simple Tale — Conrad, Joseph
• The Red House Mystery — Milne, A. A. (Alan Alexander)
• The Great God Pan — Machen, Arthur
• Tales of Terror and Mystery — Doyle, Arthur Conan
• The Zeppelin's Passenger — Oppenheim, E. Phillips (Edward Phillips)
• The Phantom 'Rickshaw, and Other Ghost Stories — Kipling, Rudyard
• The Grand Babylon Hôtel — Bennett, Arnold
• Ann Veronica: A Modern Love Story — Wells, H. G. (Herbert George)
• Love's Labour's Lost — Shakespeare, William
• The Insidious Dr. Fu Manchu — Rohmer, Sax
• The case-book of Sherlock Holmes — Doyle, Arthur Conan
• Unnatural death — Sayers, Dorothy L. (Dorothy Leigh)
• One Woman: Being the Second Part of a Romance of Sussex — Ollivant, Alfred
• Only a girl's love — Garvice, Charles
• Desperate Remedies — Hardy, Thomas
• Two on a Tower — Hardy, Thomas
• The Amazing Marriage — Complete — Meredith, George
• That Which Hath Wings: A Novel of the Day — Dehan, Richard
• Linnet: A Romance — Allen, Grant
• Whose Body? A Lord Peter Wimsey Novel — Sayers, Dorothy L. (Dorothy Leigh)
• Forest Days: A Romance of Old Times — James, G. P. R. (George Payne Rainsford)
• Cranford — Gaskell, Elizabeth Cleghorn
• Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: Illustrated — Doyle, Arthur Conan
• The Mysteries of London, v. 4/4 — Reynolds, George W. M. (George William MacArthur)

Category: Biographies

• The Love Letters of Mary Wollstonecraft to Gilbert Imlay — Wollstonecraft, Mary
• My Life — Volume 1 — Wagner, Richard
• Meditations — Marcus Aurelius, Emperor of Rome
• The Confessions of St. Augustine — Augustine, of Hippo, Saint
• Modern English biography, volume 2 (of 4), I-Q — Boase, Frederic
• Emily Brontë — Robinson, A. Mary F. (Agnes Mary Frances)
• The Memoirs of the Conquistador Bernal Diaz del Castillo, Vol 1 (of 2): Written by Himself Containing a True and Full Account of the Discovery and Conquest of Mexico and New Spain. — Díaz del Castillo, Bernal
• Napoleon's Letters to Josephine, 1796-1812: For the First Time Collected and Translated, with Notes Social, Historical, and Chronological, from Contemporary Sources — Napoleon I, Emperor of the French
• Shakespeare's family — Stopes, C. C. (Charlotte Carmichael)
• Harriet Martineau — Miller, Florence Fenwick
• Some Jewish Witnesses For Christ — Bernstein, Aaron
• Autobiography of a Yogi — Yogananda, Paramahansa
• The Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete — Pepys, Samuel
• The Germany and the Agricola of Tacitus — Tacitus, Cornelius
• De Profundis — Wilde, Oscar
• Biographia Literaria — Coleridge, Samuel Taylor
• Life and Letters of Charles Darwin — Volume 1 — Darwin, Charles
• Reminiscences of a Stock Operator — Lefevre, Edwin
• More Letters of Charles Darwin — Volume 1: A Record of His Work in a Series of Hitherto Unpublished Letters — Darwin, Charles
• The Roll of Honour, Volume 1 : $b A biographical record of all members of His Majesty's naval and military forces who have fallen in the war — Ruvigny et Raineval, Melville Henry Massue, marquis de
• Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson — Rowlandson, Mary White
• The Anabasis of Alexander : $b or, The history of the wars and conquests of Alexander the Great — Arrian
• Ecce Homo: Complete Works, Volume Seventeen — Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm
• Modern English biography, volume 1 (of 4), A-H — Boase, Frederic
• Rizal's own story of his life — Rizal, José
• The Waterloo Roll Call: With Biographical Notes and Anecdotes — Dalton, Charles
• Selected Works of Voltairine de Cleyre — De Cleyre, Voltairine
• My Life and Loves, Vol. 1 (of 4) — Harris, Frank
• A Little English Gallery — Guiney, Louise Imogen
• The Life of Florence Nightingale, vol. 2 of 2 — Cook, Edward Tyas, Sir

Category: Crime, Thrillers and Mystery

• Carmen — Mérimée, Prosper
• The Green Mummy — Hume, Fergus
• Time Crime — Piper, H. Beam
• The Phantom of the Opera — Leroux, Gaston
• Celebrated Crimes (Complete) — Dumas, Alexandre
• The Mystery of the Yellow Room — Leroux, Gaston
• The Secret of the Night — Leroux, Gaston
• The Yellow Crayon — Oppenheim, E. Phillips (Edward Phillips)
• Washington Confidential — Lait, Jack
• The problem of Cell 13 — Futrelle, Jacques

Banned Books from Anne Haight's list

• The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes — Doyle, Arthur Conan
• The Sorrows of Young Werther — Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von
• History of Tom Jones, a Foundling — Fielding, Henry
• Gulliver's Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World — Swift, Jonathan

Category: Adventure

• A Honeymoon in Space — Griffith, George Chetwynd
• The Lady of the Lake — Scott, Walter
• The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsène Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar — Leblanc, Maurice
• Thuvia, maid of Mars — Burroughs, Edgar Rice
• The Silent Barrier — Tracy, Louis
• Cynthia's Chauffeur — Tracy, Louis
• A Journey to the Centre of the Earth — Verne, Jules
• The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood — Pyle, Howard
• The Rover Boys on the Farm; or, Last Days at Putnam Hall — Stratemeyer, Edward
• The Blue Lagoon: A Romance — Stacpoole, H. De Vere (Henry De Vere)
• Gulliver's Travels into Several Remote Regions of the World — Swift, Jonathan
• The Camp Fire Girls Solve a Mystery; Or, The Christmas Adventure at Carver House — Frey, Hildegard G.
• The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia — Sidney, Philip
• Complete Short Works of George Meredith — Meredith, George
• Monte-Cristo's Daughter — Flagg, Edmund
• The Landloper: The Romance of a Man on Foot — Day, Holman
• Blue-grass and Broadway — Daviess, Maria Thompson
• The Car of Destiny — Williamson, C. N. (Charles Norris)
• Set in Silver — Williamson, C. N. (Charles Norris)
• The Riddle of the Sands — Childers, Erskine
• Love-at-arms : $b being a narrative excerpted from the chronicles of Urbino, during the dominion of the high and mighty Messer Guidobaldo da Montefeltro — Sabatini, Rafael
• The Knights of the Cross, or, Krzyzacy: Historical Romance — Sienkiewicz, Henryk
• The Wonderful Wizard of Oz — Baum, L. Frank (Lyman Frank)
• One of the Six Hundred: A Novel — Grant, James
• The Treasure of Pearls: A Romance of Adventures in California — Aimard, Gustave
• The Pirate: Andrew Lang Edition — Scott, Walter
• Peter Pan : $b [Peter and Wendy] — Barrie, J. M. (James Matthew)
• Tarrano the Conqueror — Cummings, Ray
• She who sleeps : $b A romance of New York and the Nile — Rohmer, Sax
• The Travels of Marco Polo — Volume 1 — Polo, Marco
• One Wonderful Night: A Romance of New York — Tracy, Louis
• Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea — Verne, Jules

Category: Novels

• The Blue Castle: a novel — Montgomery, L. M. (Lucy Maud)
• Dainty's Cruel Rivals; Or, The Fatal Birthday — Miller, Alex. McVeigh, Mrs.
• On the Cross: A Romance of the Passion Play at Oberammergau — Hillern, Wilhelmine von
• The Heather-Moon — Williamson, C. N. (Charles Norris)
• The Torrents of Spring — Turgenev, Ivan Sergeevich
• A Heart-Song of To-day (Disturbed by Fire from the 'Unruly Member'): A Novel — Savigny, Annie G. (Annie Gregg)

Arthurian Legends

• King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table — Malory, Thomas, Sir

Category: American Literature

• Little Women; Or, Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy — Alcott, Louisa May
• Blow The Man Down: A Romance Of The Coast — Day, Holman
• The King in Yellow — Chambers, Robert W. (Robert William)
• Moods — Alcott, Louisa May
• A farewell to arms — Hemingway, Ernest
• Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin — Franklin, Benjamin
• The Prairie Wife — Stringer, Arthur
• What Will People Say? A Novel — Hughes, Rupert
• That Girl Montana — Ryan, Marah Ellis
• Life on the Mississippi — Twain, Mark
• The Shunned House — Lovecraft, H. P. (Howard Phillips)
• The Green Mouse — Chambers, Robert W. (Robert William)
• Torchy and Vee — Ford, Sewell
• The Gay Cockade — Bailey, Temple
• The Damned Thing: 1898, From "In the Midst of Life" — Bierce, Ambrose
• Eighty Years and More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 — Stanton, Elizabeth Cady
• The Works of Edgar Allan Poe — Volume 2 — Poe, Edgar Allan
• By Advice of Counsel — Train, Arthur Cheney
• Friday, the Thirteenth: A Novel — Lawson, Thomas William
• A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill — Rice, Alice Caldwell Hegan
• The Works of Edgar Allan Poe — Volume 1 — Poe, Edgar Allan
• The Entailed Hat; Or, Patty Cannon's Times — Townsend, George Alfred
• The call of Cthulhu — Lovecraft, H. P. (Howard Phillips)
• The Cask of Amontillado — Poe, Edgar Allan
• Children of the Whirlwind — Scott, Leroy
• At the mountains of madness — Lovecraft, H. P. (Howard Phillips)
• Changeling, and Other Stories — Byrne, Donn
• The Great Gatsby — Fitzgerald, F. Scott (Francis Scott)
• A Pickle for the Knowing Ones — Dexter, Timothy
• The Dunwich horror — Lovecraft, H. P. (Howard Phillips)
• In Jeopardy — Sutphen, Van Tassel

Category: Poetry

• The Home Book of Verse — Volume 2 — Stevenson, Burton Egbert
• India's Love Lyrics — Hope, Laurence

Adventure

• The Count of Monte Cristo — Dumas, Alexandre
• Twenty years after — Dumas, Alexandre
• Catriona — Stevenson, Robert Louis
• Around the World in Eighty Days — Verne, Jules
• The Thirty-Nine Steps — Buchan, John
• Mr. Standfast — Buchan, John
• The three musketeers — Dumas, Alexandre

Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches

• The Love Letters of Henry VIII to Anne Boleyn; With Notes — Henry VIII, King of England

Category: Historical Novels

• Hypnerotomachia: The Strife of Loue in a Dreame — Colonna, Francesco

Bestsellers, American, 1895-1923

• The History of Sir Richard Calmady: A Romance — Malet, Lucas
• The Hound of the Baskervilles — Doyle, Arthur Conan
• The Real Adventure — Webster, Henry Kitchell
• The Daughter of Anderson Crow — McCutcheon, George Barr
• The Hound of the Baskervilles — Doyle, Arthur Conan
• The Enchanted April — Von Arnim, Elizabeth

Africa

• The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African: Written By Himself — Equiano, Olaudah

Category: German Literature

• Erotica Romana — Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von
• Undine — La Motte-Fouqué, Friedrich Heinrich Karl, Freiherr de

African American Writers

• Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave — Douglass, Frederick
• Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Written by Herself — Jacobs, Harriet A. (Harriet Ann)

Category: French Literature

• Camille (La Dame aux Camilias) — Dumas, Alexandre
• The Red Lily — Complete — France, Anatole
• The Hero of the People: A Historical Romance of Love, Liberty and Loyalty — Dumas, Alexandre
• Cameron of Lochiel — Aubert de Gaspé, Philippe

Anarchism

• Anarchism and Other Essays — Goldman, Emma

Banned Books List from the American Library Association

• The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Complete — Twain, Mark
• Adventures of Huckleberry Finn — Twain, Mark

Category: History - Ancient

• The City of God, Volume I — Augustine, of Hippo, Saint

Category: Children & Young Adult Reading

• Grimms' Fairy Tales — Grimm, Jacob

American poetry

• Spoon River Anthology — Masters, Edgar Lee