Read a novel or short story online, as it was first printed.
Read classic novels online free, chapter by chapter, in texts proofed line by line against a first or early edition. Twelve public domain books, no abridgements, no modernised spelling. Book clubs, teachers and libraries can ask for printed packs and large-print sets, each quoted by email.
On the shelf this month
Five of the twelve, picked for a month of long evenings. Reading times are worked out at 238 words a minute, which is an average adult pace on a screen. You will be faster or slower. Nobody is timing you.
A small catalogue, counted honestly
Every figure here comes from our own twelve books. The word counts are rounded to the nearest thousand from our set texts, so the total is an estimate, and we say so.
1906 The Four Million · 1914 Dubliners · 1917 Chekhov in Garnett's translation · 1918 My Ántonia · 1920 The Age of Innocence · 1925 The Great Gatsby and Mrs Dalloway
Read short stories online in one sitting
Dubliners is fifteen stories. Start with “Araby”. It takes eleven minutes. O. Henry's New York gives you twenty-five more, most under a quarter of an hour, and Constance Garnett's 1917 Chekhov volume carries nine, from a thirteen-minute family quarrel to “The Black Monk” at fifty-five.
We publish every correction, with a date
Most free editions online are scans run through character recognition and never looked at again. Ours are proofed line by line against a scanned first or early edition before a title goes live. That pass takes our editor four to eight weeks per book, which is why we add roughly one title a month and never a batch.
Proofing still misses things. When a reader reports an error, or we catch one ourselves, the fix goes into the book's ledger: date, chapter, what the text said, what it says now, and which edition we checked it against. Nothing is changed silently.
The most common mistake we see in free editions is a missing line break that merges two speakers. We fix those first.
- 2021-01-04Title goes live after full proofing pass. All nine chapters
- 2021-02-11Paragraph break restored between Tom and Daisy's lines; the two speakers had been run together. Chapter I
- 2021-05-20
old sport,old sport. Comma set as a full stop to match the first edition. Chapter V, reported by a reader - 2021-09-02Section-break ornament restored where our layout had dropped it. Chapter VI
- 2022-03-15Straight quotes in one paragraph replaced with curly quotes. Text unchanged. Chapter VII
Book club reading packs, quoted by email
Reading is free. What costs money is paper and our time. Reading-group packs are quoted by email. Tell us how many readers and when you meet.
- Reading-group packQuoted on requestA printed copy of the proofed text per reader, with the chapter planner and discussion notes our editor writes for that book. Priced on group size and the length of the book.
- Large-print setQuoted on requestLarge print classic novels set in a bigger size with wider line spacing, for members who find standard paperbacks tiring. Same text, same ledger.
- Custom collectionQuoted on requestStories picked across the three anthologies for a term or a theme. Teachers use these most. We can only draw on our own twelve titles.
From your email to books on the table
You write to us
Which book, how many readers, standard or large print, and the date of your first meeting. The form below or a plain email both work.
The correspondent reads it
One person answers every inquiry. If the book is not in our catalogue, you hear that first, not last.
You get a written quote
The total, what is in the pack, and the date it can be ready. Nothing is charged through this site. You reply yes or no.
We print and send
The printed text matches the online text on the day we print, including every ledger correction up to then.
Before you ask
Is reading really free?
Yes. Every chapter of every title is free to read online with no account. The texts are public domain in the United States. We earn from printed packs, not from readers.
Why only twelve books?
Because each one is proofed in full against an early edition. Twelve books read properly beat twelve thousand files scraped from somewhere.
Can you add a modern novel for our club?
No. We only publish work that is out of copyright in the US, which today means before 1930. If your club reads current fiction, a bookshop will serve you better than we can.
Do you shorten or modernise anything?
No abridgements. If a chapter is slow, it was slow in 1851 too. Old spellings stay, with a note where they might trip you.
Ask for a pack quote, or ask about a book
Three of us, one office. Every message is read by a person and answered by email.
Austin, Texas 82798
United States