What are the best public domain books that you’ve read? My currently downloaded books include “The Time Machine”, “Pride and Prejudice”, “Frankenstein”, “War and Peace”, “On Liberty”, “Metamorphosis” (all from Librivox), etc. I especially like “Crime and Punishment” and “Brothers Karamazov” and others by Dostoevsky since they delve deeper into human psychology, values, and morality. Also to add, Librivox is so fucking cool and now I have something to listen to on my daily bus/car rides.
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I’d recommend reading Orwell’s earlier works (which might or might not be public domain in the US, but is in Canada, Australia and parts of the EU). Like “Down and Out in Paris and London”. Nothing at all like 1984 or Animal Farm, but still really good.
My fiancée absolutely loves the Count of Monte Cristo. I have not yet read it.
I like Lovecraft’s stories.
It’s great, but the translation in public domain is not as good as the one by Robin Buss in recent years. I think some translations even ignore large parts of the book, e.g. the opium-smoking harem part. That’s the general issue with translated foreign language books from the 1800s/early 1900s.
Not a book suggestion, but I cannot recommend Standard Ebooks highly enough as a source of public domain ebooks. Professionally typeset, with consistent standards, all while being free and volunteer-driven!
Thank you for the link. I didn’t know about Standard Ebooks: looks like a very broad range of material!
Saving this for later. I love project Gutenberg, but the quality is kinda all over the place.
I absolutely adore Anne of Green Gables by L. M. Montgomery and Little Women by Louisa May Alcott.
As an aside, I tried so hard to read Crime and Punishment(twice), but I don’t think I ever finished it. Or if I did I can’t remember the ending. Maybe I had a bad translation, or maybe I have a short attention span, I don’t know…
(Sorry for the edit, I hit send before I was done typing)
As I mentioned in another comment, the translations in public domain are often not as good as modern ones. They might shy away from certain things/censor stuff (or in the case of The Count of Monte Cristo, just completely ignore large parts of the book), and either way they use more archaic language that usually doesn’t flow as smoothly. Of course there are exceptions to this, but this is my general impression. Though, to be honest, I didn’t like Crime and Punishment that much either haha. I didn’t understand why people saw it as one of the greatest books ever written.
I’m throwing in The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins, which I really enjoyed, and The Voyage of the Beagle by Charles Darwin, which is a really interesting travel journal. Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea by Jules Verne is also great. And since you like Dostoevsky, maybe try Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgenev?
People always praise Frankenstein, but I thought it was poorly written and frankly nonsensical. Shelley’s The Last Man is better, but a bit dull.
Frankenstein, Count of Monte Cristo, HPL
Great stuff
Frankenstein really is a fantastic read. Anything by Ray Bradbury, I read the short story “The Pedestrian” in school and it had a strong impression on me.
“Starting forth” the best book to learn about forth or programming in general
