Public domain treasures -- now available for downloading

Wednesday, August 30, 2006 at 9:55 AM

Posted by Adam Langley, Software Engineer

We've often highlighted oldies but goodies on this blog -- Aesop's fables, Shakespeare's plays, Richardson's novels -- so we're thrilled to share the news that starting today, you can freely download, print and save out-of-copyright titles to read at your own pace.

You'll find everything from classic novels to ancient philosophical texts, to any number of practical or creative works that have entered the public domain since the earliest days of the printed word.

To easily locate public domain titles you can download in full, simply select the "Full view" radio button on Google Book Search, then click the new "Download" button that now appears on out-of-copyright titles.

(Please note that we do not enable downloading of any books currently under copyright. Unless we have the publisher’s permission to show more, we display only small snippets of text –- at most, two or three sentences surrounding your search term -– to help you determine if you’ve found what you’re looking for.)