This page brings together free online books, topic searches, and audiobooks related to Western fiction, including frontier life, cowboys, outlaws, ranching, wilderness adventure, and settlement of the American West. The materials range from older public domain works to modern novels.
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 vintage books and audiobooks. See those sections for more information.
Search for an Author’s Books
Try searching for books by author. In the search bar in this link, in the creator field, replace LAST, FIRST with the author’s name. Save books you like to your Internet Archive account by clicking “Favorite” while logged in.
Topics – Read Free Western Books Online – Free Western Novels
The topic links below lead to Internet Archive search results related to western novels. 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.
Western Novels to Read for Free – Wild West Short Stories
Western Authors – Read Western Books Online Free
Free Old Cowboy Books – Old Western Short Stories
Vintage books were nearly always published before 1930. They can be read online or downloaded.
Free Western Audiobooks – Western Audio Books Free to Download
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 fiction books about cowboys, pioneers, women in the west, and the works of many popular authors of western novels.
All Librivox audiobooks are free and can be streamed online or downloaded for offline listening.
- Stories and Books Online by James Fenimore Cooper, including “Last of the Mohicans”
- Books by Edward S. Ellis
- Books by Zane Grey
- Books by Emerson Hough
- Books by Caroline Lockhart
- Books in German by Karl May
- Books by Frank Gee Patchin in the “Pony Rider Boys” Series for Young People
- Books by William MacLeod Raine
- Books by Charles Alden Seltzer
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: