This page brings together free online books, topic searches, audiobooks and open access books related to literature and literary fiction, including classic novels, modern literary works, international authors, drama, and influential storytelling traditions. The materials range from older public domain works to modern scholarly studies.
The Topics section below helps readers find books within the huge Internet Archive collection. Each topic link generates an Internet Archive search focused on that subject. Browsing the topics and selecting those of interest is usually easier and more effective than searching Internet Archive directly.
Sections below Topics provide links to audiobooks and open access books. See those sections for more information.
Topics – World’s Classic Classics of Literature Texts
The topic links below lead to Internet Archive search results related to classic literature from many countries. Each link opens a books-and-documents search focused on a particular topic.
Search results generally include fully readable books. For some subjects, Internet Archive also contains other media, such as images, audio, or video files. These can be selected from the media options above the search results. Filters on the left side of Internet Archive pages can help narrow search results by year, language, or related subjects.
World Classic Literature Texts from Selected Countries PDF
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- English
- English Medieval
- English 16th and 17th Centuries
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- European
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- French 18th Century
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- German 18th Century
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- Italian 19th Century
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- Russian 19th Century
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- Spanish 19th Century
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Literature World Classics by Subject PDF
Classic Classics in Foreign Languages Translated to English
Collections – World Classic Classics Literature Texts PDF
The selected free online books below provide an alternative to searching Internet Archive through the Topics section above. These individual titles were chosen as especially useful or representative works related to subjects on this page.
The Harvard Classics Shelf of Fiction (Vols 1-20)
Wikipedia Article on the Harvard Classics, with Table of Contents
Eliot, Charles W., ed.
Collier & Son 1917
This collection of 20 volumes of great literature was a follow-on project to Harvard President Charles Elliot’s 50-volume collection of world fiction and non-fiction, entitled “The Harvard Classics”. You can find more info about both projects, with a Table of Contents for the fiction collection, at the Wikipedia article link. This also has links to more Wikipedia articles on the books contained in the collection.
Great Books of the Western World (Vols 1-54)
Great Books of the Western World Wikipedia Article – Western Classic Literature
Hutchins, Walter Maynard, ed.
Encyclopedia Britannica 1952
This collection of ‘Great Books’ was conceived in the 1940s as a way of putting the core books of western civilization, as understood by the editors, together in one place. You can read more about the history of this series at the Wikipedia article at the second link, which also contains the complete Table of Contents for the series.
Library of the World’s Best Literature, Ancient and Modern – Audio Version
Warner, Charles Dudley, eds
R.S. Peale 1897
“In the Library of the World’s Best Literature, the editors drew from literature of all times and all kinds what they considered the best pieces of human writing, and compiled an ambitious collection of 45 volumes (with a 46th being an index-guide). Besides the selection and translation of a huge number of poems, letters, short stories and sections of books, the collection offers, before each chapter, a short essay about the author or subject in question. In many cases, chapters contemplate not one author, but certain groups of works, organized by nationality, subject or period; there is, thus, a chapter on Accadian-Babylonian literature, one on the Holy Grail, and one on Chansons, for example.
There are 10 volumes in this Librivox audio collection, each volume containing about 40 to 60 selections, recorded aloud by volunteers.
World Classic Classics in Librivox Audio Books
These audiobook links lead to public domain recordings from LibriVox at Internet Archive. The books recorded by Librivox volunteers were nearly all published before 1930. Recordings include classic short stories, memoirs, poetry, dramas, and novels, along with biographies of writers.
All Librivox audiobooks are free and can be streamed online or downloaded for offline listening.
MP3 Audio Books of Classics in English
Librivox World Classic Classics Audio in Other Languages
Open Access World Literature Classic Texts and Textbooks PDF Free Download
The Open Access books and other materials below are modern works made freely available online by universities, academic publishers, the Library of Congress, and other organizations. Many reflect current scholarship and research.
Some works may only be read online, but many can also be downloaded as PDF or EPUB files.
Related Pages on Century Past
See our Century Past directories for hundreds of webpages of Books; Magazines; Articles, maps, & photos; and Newspapers. You’ll find the same directories on the top Menu. Here are a few suggested pages: