Google Presents the Classics (for Free)

There’s more to Google Book Search than a good lawsuit.
These days, they’re serving up the classics — all in the public domain
— for free. Literary folks can now read and search the complete
collection of Shakespeare’s works. And, in some cases, you can even
download PDF versions to your computer. (Check out Exploring Shakespeare with Google.) Beyond the Bard, you can also get The Iliad and The Odyssey, from the original bard, Homer. A little Dante’s Inferno in Italian, plus Machiavelli’s The Prince in translation. And Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. I think you get the picture. If it’s old and classic, you can nab it at Google Book Search.

Resources:

• Other Major eText Collections: check out this Open Culture page.

• Google’s Scary Stories – For Halloween, Google put together a nice page where you can read or download some spooky classics on the cheap. Here, you’ll find Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Henry Jame’s Turn of the Screw, Robert Louis Stevenson’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hide, and more. For more info, see Google’s Blog entry.

• Related Google Blog Entries
  • Download the Classics
  • Preserving Public Domain Books
  • A New Way to Browse Books – On Google’s Blog, they mention that, with the help of Ajax, they just improved the usability of Book Search. It’s worth reading how you can now get the most out of the product.

• On Open Culture also see Google, Copyright and the Courts