eBooks

100 Books found

About the Catalogue

The GONUY Public Domain Literature Library offers 100 free ebooks, each carefully selected for its historical and literary significance. The collection emphasizes primary sources, personal narratives, and political analyses from the 19th and 20th centuries, with a particular focus on wars, revolutions, and social upheavals. The catalogue is edited by Ernest Orwell, Australia, and includes works from Project Gutenberg.

Browsing the Collection

Readers can explore the library by visiting the archive page, where books are organized into four categories: Modern Nations and World Events. Within each category, titles are listed alphabetically. A search function is not provided, but the small size of the catalogue makes browsing straightforward. Each book entry includes a title, author, publisher, keywords, target reader, and a catalogue note that summarizes the work's content and editorial perspective.

Understanding Book Records

Every record contains the following fields: Title (with a link to the book page), Author(s), Publisher (always Project Gutenberg), Keywords (Library of Congress subject headings), Target Reader (typically "Readers of public-domain and historical texts"), and a Catalogue Note that provides an editorial summary or reading guide. These notes are prepared as supplementary catalogue material and aim to orient the reader without substituting for the text itself.

Source Attribution

All texts in this library are sourced from Project Gutenberg, a digital repository of public-domain works. No modifications have been made to the original texts; the catalogue adds only editorial notes, reading guides, and metadata. The library does not claim copyright over any of the works, and users are free to download and share them in accordance with public-domain regulations.

Three Practical Reading Paths

Path 1: The World War I Experience. Begin with personal narratives such as Fighting France by Edith Wharton and The Backwash of War by Ellen N. La Motte, then move to analytical works like Peaceless Europe by Francesco Nitti.
Path 2: The American Civil War. Start with collective accounts like Famous Adventures and Prison Escapes edited by George Washington Cable, then explore memoirs such as Slavery and Four Years of War by Joseph Warren Keifer.
Path 3: Naval and Aerial Warfare. Read firsthand accounts from the sea: The Crisis of the Naval War by John Jellicoe, The U-boat Hunters by James B. Connolly, and Night Bombing with the Bedouins by Robert H. Reece.

About the catalogue project

the catalogue project, oversees the catalogue from Australia. Queries may be directed to the contact page. For more on our approach, see the editorial standards.

Bibliographic dates and catalogue measurements

The catalogue distinguishes the Project Gutenberg digital release from a work’s original or first publication. Project Gutenberg is identified as the digital source for the edition available here; its release year is therefore shown as Gutenberg Release Year, not as the work’s original publication year.

When an explicit first-publication or issue date can be supported directly by the title or issue information, it may be shown separately as First Publication Year. When that date cannot be confirmed, the catalogue displays Not confirmed rather than guessing a year.

Where the source text can be measured reliably, the catalogue may provide word count and estimated reading time. These measurements describe reading scope and are not quality rankings.

The current catalogue contains 4 active subject categories: Revolutions, Modern Nations, Social History, and World Events. Categories are browsing aids and may overlap where a work reasonably fits more than one subject.