Introduction

Embarking on a journey through classic literature is not just an educational endeavor, but also an economically savvy choice, thanks to the abundance of books that are in the public domain. These works, free from copyright restrictions, are available for anyone to download and enjoy without cost. This blog post offers a curated list of 100 classic books, all in the public domain, complete with publication years. We also provide resources on where you can find these timeless treasures online.

List of 100 Public Domain Books:

1. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, 1813
2. Moby Dick by Herman Melville, 1851
3. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, 1861
4. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky, 1866
5. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle, 1892
6. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë, 1847
7. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy, 1869
8. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde, 1890
9. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy, 1877
10. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, 1899
11. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, 1818
12. Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë, 1847
13. The Odyssey by Homer, 8th Century BC
14. The Iliad by Homer, 8th Century BC
15. The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri, 1320
16. Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift, 1726
17. The Republic by Plato, 380 BC
18. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens, 1859
19. Dracula by Bram Stoker, 1897
20. Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes, 1605 (Part 1), 1615 (Part 2)
21. Candide by Voltaire, 1759
22. Les Misérables by Victor Hugo, 1862
23. Emma by Jane Austen, 1815
24. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas, 1844
25. Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens, 1838
26. Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe, 1719
27. The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, 1850
28. Paradise Lost by John Milton, 1667
29. Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman, 1855
30. Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson, 1882
31. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, 1865
32. The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling, 1894
33. Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen, 1811
34. Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie, 1911
35. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, 1884
36. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, 1843
37. Tess of the d’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy, 1891
38. The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas, 1844
39. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert, 1856
40. The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame, 1908
41. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott, 1868
42. Mansfield Park by Jane Austen, 1814
43. Middlemarch by George Eliot, 1871
44. Persuasion by Jane Austen, 1817
45. Dubliners by James Joyce, 1914
46. Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray, 1848
47. The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett, 1911
48. Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen, 1817
49. The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane, 1895
50. The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde, 1895
51. Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse, 1922 (Note: May still be copyrighted in some countries)
52. Bleak House by Charles Dickens, 1853
53. The Jungle by Upton Sinclair, 1906
54. The Time Machine by H.G. Wells, 1895
55. The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli, 1532
56. To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf, 1927 (Note: May still be copyrighted in some countries)
57. The Trial by Franz Kafka, 1925 (Note: May still be copyrighted in some countries)
58. Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson, 1886
    

59. Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham, 1915
60. The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford, 1915
61. The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper, 1826
62. The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells, 1898
63. The Awakening by Kate Chopin, 1899
64. Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe, 1852
65. The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky, 1880
66. Faust by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1808 (Part 1), 1832 (Part 2)
67. Beyond Good and Evil by Friedrich Nietzsche, 1886
68. Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche, 1883-1891
69. The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka, 1915 (Note: May still be copyrighted in some countries)
70. A Room with a View by E.M. Forster, 1908
71. The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway, 1926 (Note: May still be copyrighted in some countries)
72. The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio, 1353
73. The Turn of the Screw by Henry James, 1898
74. Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan, 1678
75. The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer, 14th century
76. The Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1774
77. The 120 Days of Sodom by Marquis de Sade, 1785
78. The Man Who Would Be King by Rudyard Kipling, 1888
79. Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse, 1922 (Note: May still be copyrighted in some countries)
80. Bleak House by Charles Dickens, 1853
81. The Jungle by Upton Sinclair, 1906
82. The Time Machine by H.G. Wells, 1895
83. The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli, 1532
84. To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf, 1927 (Note: May still be copyrighted in some countries)
85. The Trial by Franz Kafka, 1925 (Note: May still be copyrighted in some countries)
86. Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson, 1886
87. Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf, 1925 (Note: May still be copyrighted in some countries)
88. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott, 1868
89. Tess of the d’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy, 1891
90. The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas, 1844
91. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert, 1857
92. The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame, 1908
93. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain, 1876
94. The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux, 1910
95. The Hunchback of Notre-Dame by Victor Hugo, 1831
96. A Study in Scarlet by Arthur Conan Doyle, 1887
97. The Call of the Wild by Jack London, 1903
98. The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton, 1920
99. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum, 1900
100. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas, 1844
101. Flatland by Edwin A. Abbott, 1884
102. The Prince and the Pauper by Mark Twain, 1881
103. The Age of Reason by Thomas Paine, 1794
104. Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe, 1722
105. The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin by Benjamin Franklin, 1791
106. The Federalist Papers by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay, 1788
107. The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling by Henry Fielding, 1749
108. The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe, 1794
109. The Confessions by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, 1782
110. The Jungle by Upton Sinclair, 1906

Where to Find These Public Domain Books:
For readers interested in accessing these classic works, there are several resources available online:

• Project Gutenberg: This volunteer effort digitizes and archives cultural works, making a vast library of books available for free. Visit Project Gutenberg.
• Internet Archive: A non-profit library of millions of free books, movies, software, music, and more. It’s an excellent resource for historical and academic texts. Visit Internet Archive.
• LibriVox: Provides free audiobook versions of public domain works, read by volunteers from around the world. Visit LibriVox.
• Google Books: A significant number of public domain books can be read and downloaded in full from Google Books. Search for the title you are interested in, and filter your search to “Free Google eBooks” to find books in the public domain.

Enjoy exploring these timeless classics that continue to inspire and enrich readers worldwide.

Looking for more books? Here’s a list of the best books published in the 21st Century.