Electronic Texts
| TIP: Press Ctrl/f and enter a part of a word or phrase in the Find what: box and click on Find Next to search for a type of text. For example, type non-fiction to search for non-fiction. Other categories listed are poetry, plays, fiction, letters, literary criticism, fables, myths, and short stories. |
Aesop's
Fables
This "online collection of
Aesop's Fables includes a total of 655+ Fables, indexed in table format, with
morals listed. There are many more on the way. Most were translated into English
by Rev. George Fyler Townsend (1814-1900) and Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914) the
rest are from Jean De La Fontaine in French and translated to English by several
good internet souls."
Alex
Catalogue of Electronic Books
(includes poetry, plays, fiction, and non-fiction)
This well-chosen collection has three parts: American Literature, English
Literature, and Western Philosophy. All the works available here, as in most
public collections of electronic books, are within the public domain. No materials
published after the early 20th century are present. One note of caution for
beginning philosophy students: Leibnitz’ “Monadology” does
not date from the 19th century as indicated here. Only the translation is
from 1898. The original was published in 1714.
American
Verse Project (poetry)
"The American Verse Project is a collaborative project between
the University of Michigan Humanities Text Initiative (HTI) and the University
of Michigan Press. The project is assembling an electronic archive of volumes
of American poetry prior to 1920. The full text of each volume of poetry is
being converted into digital form and coded in Standard Generalized Mark-up
Language (SGML) using the TEI Guidelines, with various forms of access provided
through the WWW."
Anne
Frank: The Writer
This Holocaust Exhibit includes the full text of Anne Frank's original diaries
and more.
Bartleby.com
(reference books, poetry, fiction, nonfiction, fables, myths, literary
criticism)
Bartleby’s free electronic offerings feature reference books,
verse, fiction, and non-fiction. Unlike most electronic book sites that offer
“plain text,” the full text of Bartleby’s electronic offerings
can be searched by keyword. Many up-to-date reference books are offered including
dictionaries, the Columbia Encyclopedia (a large single volume work), the
Columbia Gazetteer, quotations books, and thesauri, etc. The non-fiction section
features the Harvard Classics, American historical documents, essays, and
early 20th century scientific papers. The ads on this site can be a bit irritating.
Bibliomania
(fiction, non-fiction, poetry, articles, short stories, plays, literary criticism)
"Bibliomania has thousands of e-books, poems, articles, short stories
and plays all of which are absolutely free. You can read the world's greatest
fiction by authors such as Dickens and Joyce, Sherlock Holmes mysteries, all
Shakespeare's plays, or just dip into some short stories by writers such as
Mark Twain, Anton Chekov and Edgar Allan Poe."
Christian
Classics Ethereal Library (reference, non-fiction, fiction)
The “Classics” section of this site includes authors such as Boethius,
Dante, Donne, Milton, and Pascal who are read as much for their contribution
to literature or philosophy as for their religious views. The site includes
the Bible in many languages and translations and important religious reference
books. The full text of all materials on the site may be searched.
Collection
of Electronic Texts
This site provides material compiled by Robert Bain, a professor at the University
of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. The page includes the digitized texts of numerous
Southern writers as well as biographical information about the authors.
Cornell
University Library Historical Monographs
"The Cornell University Library Historical Monographs is a collection
of selected monographs with expired copyrights chosen from a variety of disciplines.
These were monographs that were brittle and decaying and in need of rescue."
Digital
Book Index (reference, fiction, non-fiction, poetry, plays, myths,
folklore)
"Digital Book Index provides access to more than 80,000 titles
records from more than 1800 commercial and non-commercial publishers, universities,
and various private sites. About 48,000 of these books, texts, and documents
are available free, while many others are available at very modest cost."
Registration (at no cost) is required.
Electronic
Text Center (reference, fiction, non-fiction, poetry, newspapers,
drama)
The site contains transcribed books and manuscripts in the humanities in English
and fifteen other languages. Many of the materials listed as “publicly
available” seem not to be, but many older texts do display properly
on the screen.
Emory
Women Writers Resource Project (non-fiction)
"The Emory Women Writers Resource Project is a collection of edited and
unedited texts by women writing in English from the seventeenth century through
the nineteenth century."
The
English Server Fiction Collection (fiction, short stories, fables,
criticism)
"This site offers works of and about fiction collected from our members,
contributing authors worldwide, and texts in the public domain."
eScholarship
Editions: University of California Press
(non-fiction, fiction, poetry, criticism)
"More than 400 . . . titles are available to the general public"
at this site.
The
EServer Drama Collection (plays, criticisms)
"This site contains a collection of original plays and screenplays, criticism
and links to other sites concerned with theatre. It publishes both classic
and contemporary works."
E-Server.org
(fiction, non-fiction, plays, poetry)
"The EServer is a unique website where 281 writers, artists, editors
and scholars gather to publish and discuss their works (currently 31849 of
them in all). . . . The EServer (founded in 1990 as the English Server) attempts
to provide an alternative niche for quality work. . . . [They] offer 44 collections
on such diverse topics as contemporary art, race, Internet studies, sexuality,
drama, design, multimedia, accessible publishing and current political and
social issues."
Folklore and
Mythology Electronic Texts
Professor D. L. Ashliman, University of Pittsburgh, has created a lengthly
list of links to Web sites that include folklore and mythology in full text.
Humanities
Text Initiative (reference, non-fiction, literary criticism,
fables)
"The HTI collaborates with the other units of the University of Michigan
library to select texts for conversion, create metadata to describe the electronic
text and the source document, and deliver the material via the World Wide
Web. The HTI also has partnered with a number of other groups and institutions
to create and deliver electronic resources including an online journal of
book reviews, a catalog of electronic texts available via the Internet, and
a linguistics database, as well as the more familiar collections of poetry
and prose. "
The Internet Public Library
(fiction, non-fiction, plays, fables, reference, articles, newspapers)
"The IPL Books Collection (formerly known as Online Texts) contains over
20,000 titles that can be browsed by author, by title, or by Dewey Decimal
Classification. They can also be searched."
Making
of America (non-fiction, articles)
"Making of America (MoA) is a digital library of primary sources
in American social history from the antebellum period through reconstruction.
The collection is particularly strong in the subject areas of education, psychology,
American history, sociology, religion, and science and technology. The collection
currently contains approximately 8,500 books and 50,000 journal articles with
19th century imprints."
The
National Academies Press
Look for full text online books at the site under "Special Collections."
The
Norton Anthology of English Literature (fiction, non-fiction,
criticism, poetry, plays, lyrics)
"The Norton Online Archive is an ongoing project that at present includes
more than 150 fully edited texts, ranging from the Middle Ages through the
Victorian Period."
The
Oxford Text Archives (fiction, non-fiction, plays, fables,
poetry)
"The Oxford Text
Archive hosts AHDS Literature, Languages and Linguistics. The OTA works closely
with members of the Arts and Humanities academic community to collect, catalogue,
and preserve high-quality electronic texts for research and teaching. The
OTA currently distributes more than 2000 resources in over 20 different languages,
and is actively working to extend its catalogue of holdings."
Page
by Page Books (fiction, short stories, speeches, fables)
This site includes "hundreds of classic books" that can be read
page by page.
Project
Gutenberg (fiction, non-fiction, plays, poetry, short stories,
criticism)
As the web site itself indicates, “Project Gutenberg is the Internet's
oldest producer of free electronic books (eBooks or etexts).” More than
10,000 titles are available, both fiction and non-fiction. Most are in English
or translated into English, but many are also available in French, German,
and other languages. The selection can be somewhat random. For the ancient
Greek philosopher Plato, for example, most of the dialogues, including “The
Republic” are here, but not “The Laws”. However, along with
the dialogues is a book about Plato by the nineteenth century critic, Walter
Pater. Minority authors are relatively few, but those who published books
long ago, including Frederick Douglass, W. E. B. Du Bois, and Phillis Wheatley
are in the collection. In all, Project Gutenberg makes available much of the
best of the European and American cultural tradition that is in the public
domain according to American copyright law.
Schoenberg
Center for Electronic Text & Image (non-fiction, fiction,
criticism)
"SCETI, a fully integrated
digital library, was created in 1996 to publish virtual facsimiles of rare
books and manuscripts in the Penn Library's collections. Its ongoing mission
is to make accessible to the global community of scholars and researchers
primary source materials that would otherwise be difficult to access. the
site is free and open to all in the interests of knowledge and learning."
SearcheBooks.com
(criticism, poetry, plays, fiction, non-fiction)
This search tool allows users to search electronic books by author, title,
or subject.
UCIAS
Digital Volumes (non-fiction)
"UCIAS publishes peer-reviewed articles, monographs and edited
volumes drawn from research projects, workshops, seminars, conferences, and
related efforts of internationally oriented institutes, centers, and programs
involving University of California and UC-affiliated scholars."
Universal
Library (fiction, non-fiction, plays, poetry, fables)
The project is hosted by Carnegie Mellon University. They hope to create "a
free-to-read, searchable collection of one million books, primarily in the
English language, available to everyone over the Internet. Within 10 years,
it is . . . [expected] that the collection will grow to 10 million books."
Victorian
Women Writers Project (fiction, non-fiction, poetry, letters,
short stories)
"The goal of the Victorian Women Writers Project is to produce highly
accurate transcriptions of works by British women writers of the 19th century."
Wright
American Fiction (fiction, short stories)
"The Wright American Fiction online collection attempts to include every
novel published in the United States from 1851 to 1875. It includes works
by well known writers such as Louisa May Alcott, Mark Twain, Nathaniel Hawthorne,
Herman Melville, and Harriet Beecher Stowe, along with a great many forgotten
authors, whose works may have been very popular in their own time."
All quoted material is from the respective source.
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