FREE BOOKS: 70 Legal Sites To Download Books On A Large Variety Of Topics (UPDATED)

Looking for the next great book to sink your teeth into? Look no further.

Below are 70 links to websites that provide free e-books on a huge variety of topics.

Browse works by Mark Twain, Joseph Conrad and other famous authors here.

1. The Online Books Page

The University of Pennsylvania hosts this book search and database.

2. Project Gutenberg

This famous site has over 27,000 free books online.

3. Page by Page Books

Find books by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and H.G. Wells, as well as speeches from George W. Bush on this site.

4. Classic Reader



Here you can read Shakespeare, young adult fiction and more.

5. Planet eBook

Download free classic literature titles here, from Dostoevsky to D.H. Lawrence to Joseph Conrad.

6. The Spectator Project

Montclair State University’s project features full-text, online versions of The Spectator and The Tatler.

7. Bartleby

Bartleby has much more than just the classics, but its collection of anthologies and other important novels made it famous.

8. Free Classic Literature

Find British authors like Shakespeare and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, plus other authors like Jules Verne, Mark Twain, and more.

Textbooks

If you don’t absolutely need to pay for your textbooks, save yourself a few hundred dollars by reviewing these sites.

9. Wikibooks

From cookbooks to the computing department, find instructional and educational materials here.

10. Online Science and Math Textbooks

Access biochemistry, chemistry, aeronautics, medical manuals and other textbooks here.

11. MIT Open Courseware Supplemental Resources

Find free videos, textbooks and more on the subjects of mechanical engineering, mathematics, chemistry and more.

12. Free Business Textbooks

Find free books to go along with accounting, economics, and other business classes.

Math and Science

Turn to this list to find books about math, science, engineering, and technology.

13. Online Mathematics Texts

Here you can find online textbooks likeElementary Linear Algebra and Complex Variables.

14. Science and Engineering Books for free download

These books range in topics from nanotechnology to compressible flow.

15. Free Tech Books

Computer programmers and computer science enthusiasts can find helpful books here.

Children’s Books

Even children’s books are now available online. Find illustrated books, chapter books and more.

16. byGosh

Find free illustrated children’s books and stories here.

17. Mrs. P’s Magic Library

Mrs’P reads classic children’s stories out aloud. Most children aged 3+ to 6+ as well as some for 9 to 11-year-olds can enjoy the melodic voice of Kathy Kinney.

18. Storyline Online

An award-winning children’s story site featuring the narrations of famous actors such as Eva Longoria, Kevin Costner, and Elijah Wood.

Like all good websites for children, Storyline Online is interactive.

19. International Children’s Digital Library

The online children’s library has a single purpose mission of providing free access to children’s literature from around the world.

20. Open Library

Open Library is a part of The Internet Archive. It is just one of the websites that offer classic literature for free and is host to more than 29,000 children’s books.

Philosophy and Religion

For books about philosophy and religion, check out these websites.

21. Open culture

Open Culture features a growing list of Free Philosophy eBooks, including essential works by Aristotle, Hegel, Kant, Nietzsche, Wittgenstein, and many other philosophers.

22. Online Christian Library

A Christian online library supported by Northwestern Theological Seminary and Northwestern Christian University.

23. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

A world of philosophical and religious content in written format.

24. Virtual Religion Index

A website designed to advance research in matters of religion.

25. Oxford Religion Encyclopedia

The Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Religion is part of the larger online Oxford Research Encyclopedia, a dynamic digital encyclopedia continuously updated by the world’s leading scholars and researchers.

Plays

From Shakespeare to George Bernard Shaw to more contemporary playwrights, visit these sites.

26. Fiction Plays

ReadPygmalion, Uncle Vanya, The Playboy of the Western World, and more.

27. ProPlay

This site has children’s plays, comedies, dramas, and musicals.

28. Plays Online

This site catalogs “all the plays [they] know about that are available in full-text versions online for free.”

29. The Complete Works of William Shakespeare:

All of Shakespeare’s comedies, tragedies, and histories made available thanks to MIT.

30. Free Classic Literature

Find authors like Shakespeare and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, plus other authors like Jules Verne, Mark Twain, and more.

Modern Fiction, Fantasy, and Romance

These websites boast collections of graphic novels, romance novels, fantasy books and more.

31. Free Online Novels

Here you can find Christian novels, fantasy and graphic novels, adventure books, horror books and more.

32. Baen Free Library

Find books by Scott Gier, Keith Laumer and others.

33. Romance novels

This website has books by Patricia Cornwell and other romance novelists.

34. Get Free Ebooks

This site’s largest collection includes fiction books.

35. SF and Fantasy Books Online



Books here include Arabian Nights,Aesop’s Fables and more.

Foreign Languages

For books in a foreign language like French, Spanish and even Romanian, look here.

36. Project Laurens Jz Coster



Find Dutch literature here.

37. Manybooks

Download Italian books here. Browse by author, title, or subject.

38. Biblioteca romaneasca

Find Romanian books on this site.

39. Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes

Look up authors to find a catalog of their available works on this Spanish site.

40. KEIMENA

This page is entirely in Greek, but if you’re looking for modern Greek literature, this is the place to access books online.

41. Corpus Scriptorum Latinorum

Access many Latin texts here.

42. CELT

CELT stands for “the Corpus of Electronic Texts” and features important historical literature and documents.

43. Projekt Gutenberg-DE

This easy-to-use database of German language texts lets you search by genres and author.

History and Culture

Refresh your memory of world history, the classics and U.S. history here.

44. The Perseus Project

Tufts’ Perseus Digital Library features titles from Ancient Rome and Greece, published in English and original languages.

45. bookrix.com

History – Download free eBooks or read books online for free. Discover new authors and their books in our eBook community.

Rare Books

Look for rare books online here.

46. Questia

Questia has 5,000 books available for free, including rare books and classics.

47. The McGill Library Rare Books and Special Collections

Rare materials collected since the 1850s. A rich amount of high-quality classic books of diverse topics.

48. The collections of the Free Library of Philadelphia’s Rare Book Department

Ranging in age and scope from cuneiform tablets (the first writing of mankind, c. 3000 BCE) to examples of contemporary fine printing.

Arts and Entertainment

This list features books about celebrities, movies, fashion and more.

49. Chest of Books



This site has a wide range of free books, including gardening and cooking books, home improvement books, craft and hobby books, art books and more.

50. Free e-Books

Find titles related to beauty and fashion, games, health, drama and more.

51. Free Music Books



Find sheet music, lyrics, and books about music here.

52. SimplyScripts

A database of hundreds of downloadable scripts, movie scripts, screenplays, and transcripts of current and classic television, anime, unproduced projects, and radio shows.

Mystery & Crime

Here you can find mystery books from Sherlock Holmes to more contemporary authors.

53. Bookrix

Read online or download Mystery & Crime eBooks for free. Browse through our eBooks while discovering great authors and thrilling books.

54. Adelaide

The list presented here represents many of the early works of the genre.

55. OmniMystery

Features a select list of 100 mystery, suspense, and thriller ebooks currently available as a free download.

Poetry

These poetry sites have works by Emily Dickinson, Edgar Allan Poe, and others.

56. The Literature Network



This site features forums, a copy of The King James Bible, and over 3,000 short stories and poems.

57. Poem Hunter



Find free poems, lyrics and quotations on this site.

58. Google Poetry

Google Books has a large selection of poetry, fromThe Canterbury Tales to Beowulf to Walt Whitman.

Audio Books

Here you can find free books in audio format.

59. LibriVox

A non-profit initiative which records public domain books and releases them as free audiobooks. Hosts over 10,000 projects of a variety of genres.

60. Loyal Books

Shares free audiobooks from titles in the public domain.

61. Mind Webs

A strongly-executed, haunting old-time radio dramatization of over 150 of the most classic science fiction short stories.

62. Podiobooks

A great option for newer releases, with many of the books read by the authors themselves.

63. Open Culture

Open Culture has combed through a large list of audiobooks offered by other places online and compiled them into one expansive list to browse.

Miscellaneous

For even more free book sites, check out this list.

64. Banned Books

Here you can follow links of banned books to their full text online.

65. World eBook Library

This monstrous collection includes classics, encyclopedias, children’s books and a lot more.

66. DailyLit



DailyLit has everything from Moby Dick to the more recent phenomenon, Skinny Bitch.

67. A Celebration of Women Writers



The University of Pennsylvania’s page for women writers includes Newbery winners.

68. ManyBooks.net

Download mysteries and other books for your iPhone or eBook reader here.

69. Authorama

Books here are pulled from Google Books and more. You’ll find history books, novels and more.

70. Prize-winning books online

Use this directory to connect to full-text copies of Newbery winners, Nobel Prize winners and Pulitzer winners.

Do you know of any other great free ebook resources online?

Let us know by joining the conversation in the comments, and please share this article if you found it helpful.