Gutenberg Reader

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Project Gutenberg · free & public domain

Find a book, open it, start reading.

Search the Project Gutenberg library by title, author or subject. Every match comes back as a card with its author, language and download count — and opens straight into a clean, full-width reading view.

Search the library

Title, author or subject - e.g. 'sherlock holmes' or 'jane austen'.
Two-letter language code to filter by - e.g. 'en', 'fr', 'de'.
Common codes

Library

Results, coverage, next page and source status all render below, exactly as the source returned them.

Coverage is printed under the grid as the total number of Project Gutenberg matches the source reported — not a count of the cards on screen. Next page is printed beside it: when it is empty, this page is every match; when it holds a value, more pages exist at the source. Neither is ever hidden or replaced.

About reading & results


How a book opens

Each card's action opens that book's text/html format from the result's formats list, in a single-column reading view with generous line-height.

  • If there is no HTML edition, it falls back to the plain-text format URL.
  • If neither exists, it falls back to the book's Project Gutenberg page.
  • Reading-view text size and light/dark mode are display settings for the current session only — they are not saved anywhere.
What each card shows
  • Title as Project Gutenberg records it, plain — no invented subtitles.
  • Author(s) listed on the record.
  • Language code returned for that edition.
  • Download count reported by the source, formatted with thousands separators.
Source and status

Books come from the Project Gutenberg catalogue. The run's source and source status are printed with the results so you can see whether the catalogue answered normally, and nothing on this page is inferred when the source is silent.

Browse the full catalogue directly at gutenberg.org.