Anyone who loves to read classics can read these books free at any time online. Project Gutenberg, named for the inventor of the printing press, is the next generation of libraries. Instead of going to a library, a vast library of free books that are in the public domain is available for downloading.
According to the site, Project Gutenberg was the first site to offer free ebooks. It continues to do so on a mass scale, including free online books in more than 20 languages.
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There are a few books in the Project Gutenberg library that are under copyright, but they are distributed through the site with permission from the copyright holder. These often have formatting or distribution restrictions that the public domain works don't.
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There are several ways to read the free books online that are available through Project Gutenberg. Most titles have several formats available, including HTML, PDF and plain text.
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