British Library to Offer 65,000 Free eBooks

From the TIMES ONLINE:

More than 65,000 19th-cen­tu­ry works of fic­tion from the British Library’s col­lec­tion are to be made avail­able for free down­loads by the pub­lic from this spring.

Own­ers of the Ama­zon Kin­dle, an ebook read­er device, will be able to view well known works by writ­ers such as Charles Dick­ens, Jane Austen and Thomas Hardy, as well as works by thou­sands of less famous authors.

You can read the rest about this Microsoft fund­ed ini­tia­tive here. In the mean­time, we’ve made it rel­a­tive­ly easy to down­load major clas­sics to your Kin­dle, iPhone, smart­phone or com­put­er. See our col­lec­tion of Free eBooks (and Audio Books).


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Comments (37)
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  • Odd. “Bleak House” and “Pride and Prej­u­dice” — two books cit­ed in the arti­cle — are in the pub­lic domain (as are all the works of Dick­ens, Austen, and Hardy), and thanks to the tire­less efforts of Project Guteneberg, have been avail­able on the Kin­dle for years.

  • Mike says:

    Sure, Brent, but it’s sig­nif­i­cant that one of the world’s great libraries is dig­i­tiz­ing its own out-of-copy­right hold­ings and mak­ing them read­i­ly avail­able to remote read­ers. In the past, schol­ars have had to trav­el to places like the British Library to do research.

    Those who do not yet read on a dig­i­tal device can still ben­e­fit great­ly from this sort of thing. My neigh­bor­hood book­store has an Espres­so Book Machine, which pro­duces nice qual­i­ty paper­backs in min­utes while you watch. You can get long-out-of print books for a very rea­son­able price ($8 for any Google book or sim­i­lar dig­i­tal file from the pub­lic domain). It was fea­tured on Open Cul­ture ear­li­er:

    http://www.openculture.com/2007/08/the_fifteen_minute_book_machine.html

    A list of book machine loca­tions is here:

    http://www.ondemandbooks.com/our_ebm_locations.htm

  • My spe­cial field is laser pro­cess­ing and ther­mal spray­ing

  • BABATUNDE AYODEJI EMMANUEL A. says:

    I need free books for my stu­dents asso­ci­a­tion library.

  • NOOR HUSSAIN says:

    i need free books from british library to enhance my knowl­edge ‚spe­cialy for the sake of exam.

  • liliana says:

    I hope to improve my eng­lish

  • mohammed abdul sayeed says:

    I have been a fan of the british library every since my child hood I want­ed to take my chil­dren to the britich library in india to show them the trea­sure of knowl­edge pre­served on each & every top­ic by the british libarary.

    but final­ly the the idea cliked yes­ter­day to me to look for british library on line so I am try­ing to look for free ebooks which can help me improve the knowl­edge of my chil­dren who are study­ing accounts,economics & pol­i­tics his­to­ry, & I ound every thing here except accounts & audit

  • Victory says:

    I teach poor chil­dren
    to speak Eng­lish,
    So i need books
    in Eng­lish Free, on my email.

  • Thushantha kumara says:

    I hope to open a library for dis­ad­van­taged chil­dren in my vil­lage. So i need some books from you.
    Thushan­tha from sri lan­ka.
    Mobile: 94 777 82 92 37
    teegeetours@yahoo.com

  • I need a pro­vi­sion of Eng­lish Gram­mar advanced books

  • Dear OPen Cul­ture, I have heard that British Library offer­erd many free ebooks.
    I am a Teacher of Eng­lish in a remote area in Viet­nam, Ba Ngac ham­let, Quang Ngai Province,Vietnam.
    I teach my poor chil­dren. They almost have dif­fi­cul­ties in life. But they are thirsty for knowl­edge. We need books to learn bet­ter such as Eng­lish dic­tio­nar­ies, Eng­lish gram­mar, short Eng­lish sto­ries.
    If you have more funds to do char­i­ty, please help our chil­dren. We are very grate­ful to your help.
    Best wish­es.
    Please con­tact me at 0840988809539.

  • chikhaoui miloud says:

    thank you

  • Tung Wan says:

    I need the Audio of speak Eng­lish like an Amer­i­can as I’m the teacher at School for Youth Improve­me­ny in Keng Tung.I want my stu­dents to have a lis­ten to the Audios. I’m very glad to havea con­tact with you.Thanks for your help.

  • rekha says:

    I wants free books to improve my eng­lish so that i would get good pay job & wher­er i would inde­pen­dent­ly write and speack eng­lish flu­ent­ly. Bt iwant free down­loads of such books to enhance of self progress. Please reply

  • omer iqbal says:

    assalam e allikum my name iz omer want 2 speak eng­lish can u tell me more book . those books who helps me in improve my sreak­ing skill i am from pak­istan

  • Pouya Pourakbarian says:

    I am in great and urgent need of a lot of sci­ence-fic­tion sto­ries, but they are so orig­i­nal and some­what old that I can­not find them at local book­shops, and buy­ing all of them will cost me a for­tune. How can I get what I need as fast as pos­si­ble? I am par­tic­u­lar­ly look­ing for sto­ries by Isaac Asi­mov, Arthur C. Clark, Ray Brad­bury, even some sto­ries by Jules Verne.

  • Onimisi says:

    Pls i need to improve in speak­ing gud british English..send me any book that help me .

  • ab222 says:

    i need to improve my eng­lish gram­mer send to me any book wwill help me

  • em moradpour says:

    HI ‚I LIKE TO IMPROVE MY US ENGLISH ESPECIALLY SPEAKING ENGLISH ‚PLEASE SEND TO MY ADDRESS MAIL AUDIO BOOKS ‚EBOOKS ‚PROGRAMS OR ETC ‚THANKS

  • Melvin Anthony says:

    Hi, i would like to improve my US Eng­lish vocab­u­lary. Please email me appro­pri­ate eBooks etc., Thanks in advance

  • Andrews says:

    I just get to need some free key ebooks on Micro,Macro n prin­ci­ples of Economics..plis send them to my email,waiting tohere from u.thanks

  • Andrews says:

    I need free Ebooks on Eco­nom­ics ‚plis help out.thanks

  • sunil says:

    I am in very urgent­ly need of dig­i­tal image pro­cess­ing book for engi­neer­ing. Please get me as soon as pos­si­ble. Thank you

  • Kapil Sharma says:

    i need to improve my eng­lish gram­mer send to me any book will help me.
    Thanks
    Kapi Shar­ma

  • Chuni lal agnani says:

    Dear sir.hi.
    My name is chu­ni lal from pakistan..i open small libarary in my home city Radhan.if u kind­ly send me some books i thank­ful to u very much..
    Chu­ni lal libarary
    main bazar.Radhan distt.dadu.sindh.pakistan

  • hudhud says:

    can you pleas­esend me a free copy of this book
    A Crit­i­cal Intro­duc­tion to Twen­ti­eth-Cen­tu­ry Amer­i­can Dra­ma

    Vol­ume 2. Williams, Miller, Albee

    i need the book so much

  • hudhud says:

    please i am in Iraq and it so hard for me now to find this book can you help me

  • Parvaiz Ahmad says:

    Respect­ed sir,
    I need sec­ondary source on Meira chand’s nov­els and her nov­el The Bon­sai tree in pri­ma­ry source as well.
    Thanks in advance

  • redouane redouane says:

    I need some inter­est­ing books to read

  • niyas says:

    i wan­na improve my lan­guage , so please help .. i need some eng­lish books with sym­ble lan­guage

  • Bibhuti Chatterjee says:

    Dear sir,
    Greet­ings. I am look­ing for­ward to study Eng­lish lit­er­a­ture in MA ‚in Eng­lish . I am an ex-Army ser­vice­man , need ur help time & again in Eng­lish poet­ry , prose, dra­ma and aspects of lan­guage .
    Thank­ing g you sir.
    Bib­huti Chat­ter­jee.

  • folk talk to children says:

    iam ale­mayehu from Ethiopia , I am look­ing british folk talk for may chil­dren . i am glad if you send folk tolk
    tank you for your help

  • Bibhuti Chatterjee says:
  • Feleke Meried says:

    I love to read books writ­ten by British authors on my mobile.Could you please send me info on how I would be able to download,if there is a link or website,I appre­ci­ate much.

  • Matthew faerber says:

    How can i get a down­load of the books of Harold bloom or Daniel j Boorstein. I do have PDF files

  • BIR SARU says:

    I am inter­est­ed to improve my eng­lish lan­guage

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