Thomas Pynchon was one of the last great holdouts: the rare writer who had refused to allow his work to be sold in e-book format.

Now he’s changed his mind.

Mr. Pynchon, the author of “The Crying of Lot 49,” “Gravity’s Rainbow” and “V.,” has struck a deal with the Penguin Press to publish his entire backlist in digital form.

The announcement is another step toward the ubiquity of the e-book, even for authors who stubbornly resisted.

A few years ago, e-book sales were tiny when compared with print sales, but in the last six months, it has not been uncommon for a new novel to sell more e-book copies than print ones. Authors whose work is not for sale in that format risk missing a large and growing segment of the reading population.

Older titles have been especially tantalizing for publishers, who have turned them into e-books and made easy sales.

Mr. Pynchon has avoided the press for most of his life and, characteristically, declined to speak about his decision. But Ann Godoff, the president and editor in chief of the Penguin Press, said in an interview that Mr. Pynchon had agreed that it was time to get on board.

“It wasn’t exactly the elephant in the drawing room, but we just felt that the moment was right,” Ms. Godoff said. “There has been a great desire to have all of Tom’s books in digital format now, for many years. He didn’t want to not be part of that.”

One of his motivations, she said, was simple. “I think he wants to have more readers,” she said. “Every writer wants to have as many readers as they can possibly get. But I don’t think this will change his public profile, in terms of him being out there in public. In fact, I know it won’t.”

The e-book versions of all eight Pynchon books — seven novels and one story collection — will go on sale on Wednesday and will be priced from $9.99 to $12.99. Penguin declined to discuss the financial terms of the deal.

Mr. Pynchon, 75, joins a group of prominent authors who have, sometimes reluctantly, agreed to sell their work digitally. Only in November, Ray Bradbury, the science fiction writer who died last week, said he would allow his dystopian classic “Fahrenheit 451” to be sold as an e-book, despite his previous proclamation that e-books “smell like burned fuel.”

Judy Blume, the beloved author of books for children and teenagers, allowed 13 of her older books, including “Blubber,” “Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret.” and “Starring Sally J. Freedman as Herself,” to be sold as e-books beginning last March. J.K. Rowling, the author of the “Harry Potter” series, consented to the sale of her e-books this year.

Mr. Pynchon, known for dense, complex narratives, is one of modern literature’s most revered authors. He received the National Book Award for “Gravity’s Rainbow” in 1974. Two of his most recent books, “Inherent Vice,” published in 2009, and “Against the Day,” released in 2006, have not received the rave reviews of his earlier work. For example, in her review of “Inherent Vice” in The New York Times, Michiko Kakutani wrote that “compared with ‘Gravity’s Rainbow’ or ‘V.’ or ‘Mason & Dixon,’ this novel is Pynchon Lite.”

The release of Mr. Pynchon’s e-books will be accompanied by a marketing and publicity campaign from his publisher, including a slickly produced video (see above).

For Penguin, Mr. Pynchon’s books present a challenge in formatting: because they are often long and have complicated page layouts, they were difficult to convert to e-book form. It took the publisher a long time to complete the job with accuracy.

Ms. Godoff said the release of the e-books had not changed Mr. Pynchon’s personal preferred reading format.

“I think he reads in print,” she said.