Whidbey Writers Workshop MFA Library
Books & Literature Online

Collections of libraries and archives of literature in electronic formats that can be read online or downloaded. All links open in a new window.

• 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.
• Alex Catalogue of Electronic Texts Collection of public domain documents from American and English literature as well as Western philosophy.
• Bartleby.com Etexts, focusing on classics and general reference works.
• Bibliomania Houses an extensive online collection of texts ranging from fiction and poetry to general non-fiction and reference works.
• Blackmask Online A very large selection of electronic online texts by a wide variety of authors from a wide range of literature; many works can also be downloaded in .zip file-format.
• Bootlegbooks Several dozen classic works of drama, fiction, nonfiction, reference, or poetry.
• Bralyn E-text Archive E-texts, indexed and searchable, including literature, history, social sciences, humor and culture.
• byGosh.com Free, online illustrated childrens stories, 20 best out-of-copyright novels of the 20th century, out-of-copyright nonfiction of the 20th century. Also children's stories.
• Classic Reader A collection of classic fiction and non-fiction, poetry, and children's stories.
• 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.
• ClassicAuthors.net Includes archives of now public-domain works by various well-known American and British authors.
• 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.
• 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.
• Electronic Texts and Publishing Links to electronic texts, electronic text archives, electronic publishers and booksellers, compiled by the Library of Congress.
• Free Electronic Books Educational texts.
• Google Books
• Gruntose Features selected electronic texts, including Doyle, Dumas, and Dana.
• Hypertexts in American Studies American literature including works by Poe, Jefferson, Madison, and Twain.
• Instinct.org Online Texts Selected online texts on a variety of topics.
• Learn Library Offers books, poems, speeches, plays and essays; includes reader discussion forums.
• 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.
• Literature of the Fantastic A fair-sized collection of classic works of fantasy/sf, along with fantasy/sf-related websites.
• 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.
• 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.
• Making of America A digital library of primary sources in 19th-century American social history from the antebellum period through Reconstruction.
• Master Texts Collection of English literature.
• Medieval and Classical Library Collection of literary works of classical and medieval civilization.
• OwlEyes As well as other literature-education resources, the site provides brief biographical notes on various canonized authors along with links to a selection of online texts by each.
• Oxford Text Archive 2,500 texts, corpora, and reference works. Some are freely available.
• Page by Page Books Hundreds of books in the public domain, divided into HTML pages.
• Project Gutenberg A huge archive of e-texts created by volunteers. Index of texts available, newsletters, articles, and information on volunteering.
• PSU's Electronic Classics Series Classics of literature in Adobe Acrobat PDF format.
• Public Bookshelf A collection of books in the public domain which can be downloaded.
• Read Print A free online library with thousands of books.
• SearchEBooks Specialized search engine for searching the full text of thousands of online books available on the web.
• The Classics in ASCII Public domain fiction and non-fiction etexts at Textfiles.com.
• The EServer Includes a variety of literature-related materials, including etext archives of prose, poetry, fiction, non-fiction; links.
• The Internet Public Library Online public library features directories of online texts, newspapers, magazines, reference materials with special sections for youth.
• The Online Literature Library A small, but easily-navigated selection of online etexts from English literature.
• Open Content Alliance The Open Content Alliance (OCA) represents the collaborative efforts of a group of cultural, technology, nonprofit, and governmental organizations from around the world that will help build a permanent archive of multilingual digitized text and multimedia content.
• Wordtheque Contains a database of multilingual novels, technical literature, and translated texts.
• World eBook Library Books in the public domain, available in HTML. Also offers online access to books in PDF, by subscription, for individuals and institutions.