The texts listed here are all available in their entirety. We’ve got short stories, poetry, plays, folktales, and whole novels. All free to read.
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Find full, free texts to read online. A treasure trove of literature to love.
Featured Short Stories
- “The Story of an Hour” – Kate Chopin
- “The Tell Tale Heart” – Edgar Allan Poe
- “The Metamorphosis” – Franz Kafka
Featured Poetry
- “Hope Is the Thing With Feathers” – Emily Dickinson
- “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” – T. S. Eliot
- “The Tiger” – William Blake
Featured Plays
- A Doll’s House – Henrik Ibsen
- Romeo & Juliet – William Shakespeare
- The Importance of Being Earnest – Oscar Wilde
Featured Novels
- The Great Gatsby – F. Scott Fitzgerald
- The Time Machine – H.G. Wells
- Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
Featured Folktales & Mythology
- “Hansel and Gretel” – Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm
- “The Girl Who Married the Pine Tree” – Native American Folktale
- “Prometheus” – Ancient Greek Myth
Free Texts Online
Listed by Genre
Short Stories
- Bierce, Ambrose – “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge”
- Chopin, Kate – “The Story of an Hour”
- Christie, Agatha – “The Adventure of the Western Star”
- Christie, Agatha – “The Case of the Missing Will”
- Conan Doyle, Arthur – “A Scandal in Bohemia”
- Conan Doyle, Arthur – “The Red-Headed League”
- De Maupassant, Guy – “The Thief”
- Fitzgerald, F. Scott – “The Cut-Glass Bowl”
- Fitzgerald, F. Scott – “Head and Shoulders”
- Hemingway, Ernest – “My Old Man”
- Hemingway, Ernest – “Up In Michigan”
- Joyce, James – “Araby”
- Kafka, Franz – “Metamorphosis”
- Mansfield, Katherine – “The Garden Party”
- Poe, Edgar Allan – “The Tell-Tale Heart”
- Poe, Edgar Allan – “The Masque of the Red Death”
- Wells, H.G. – “The Beautiful Suit”
- Wilde, Oscar – “The Selfish Giant”
- Wilkins Freeman, Mary E. – “The Shadows on the Wall”
Folktales & Mythology
- Aesop – Aesop’s Fables
- Grimm, Jacob and Wilhelm – “Hansel and Gretel”
- Grimm, Jacob and Wilhelm – Grimm’s Fairy Tales
- Native American – Cherokee, “How the World Was Made”
- Native American, “The Girl Who Married the Pine Tree”
- Native American, “The Boy Who Snared the Sun”
- Ancient Greek, “Prometheus”
- Ancient Greek, “Orpheus and Eurydice”
- Ancient Greet, “Icarus and Daedalus”
- Chinese Mythology, “Friends with Foxes”
- Chinese Mythology, “The Guardian of the Gate of Heaven”
Poetry
- Blake, William – “The Tiger”
- Blake, William – “London”
- Blake, William – Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience
- Coleridge, Samuel Taylor – “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”
- Dickinson, Emily – “Hope Is the Thing with Feathers”
- Dickinson, Emily – Selected Poems
- Eliot, T. S. – “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”
- Eliot, T.S. – “The Waste Land”
- Emerson, Ralph Waldo – “Each and All”
- H.D. – “The Garden”
- Keats, John – “Ode on a Grecian Urn”
- Kilmer, Joyce – “Trees”
- Lowell, Amy – “The Travelling Bear”
- Wheatley, Phillis – “On Virtue”
- Whitman, Walt – “Song of Myself”
- Whitman, Walt – “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d”
- Whitman, Walt – “On the Beach at Night Alone”
- Whitman, Walt – Selected Poems
- Wordsworth, William – “Lines Written a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey”
Plays
- Hurston, Zora Neale – De Turkey and De Law
- Ibsen, Henrik – A Doll’s House
- O’Neill, Eugene – ILE
- O’Neill, Eugene – The Hairy Ape
- Shakespeare, William – Hamlet
- Shakespeare, William – Romeo & Juliet
- Shakespeare, William – Julius Caesar
- Shaw, Bernard – Pygmalion
- Sophocles – Oedipus the King
- Sophocles – Oedipus at Colonus
- Sophocles – Antigone
- Wilde, Oscar – The Importance of Being Earnest
- Yeats, William Butler – The Land of Heart’s Desire
Novels
- Austen, Jane – Pride and Prejudice
- Conrad, Joseph – Heart of Darkness
- Christie, Agatha – The Secret Adversary
- Fitzgerald, F. Scott – The Great Gatsby
- Melville, Herman – Moby-Dick
- Shelly, Mary (Mary Wollstonecraft Shelly) – Frankenstein
- Stevenson, Robert Louis – The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
- Wells, H.G. – The Time Machine
- Wells, H.G. – The Island of Dr. Moreau
- Wilde, Oscar – The Picture of Dorian Gray
Non-Fiction
- Douglass, Frederick – Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
- Du Bois, W.E. B. – The Souls of Black Folk
- Eliot, T.S. – “Hamlet and His Problems”
- Eliot, T.S. – “Tradition and the Individual Talent”
- Emerson, Ralph Waldo – “Nature”
- Emerson, Ralph Waldo – “Self-Reliance”
- Martin, Edward Sandford – “The Tyranny of Things”
- Milne, A. A. – “A Word for Autumn”
- Newman, John Henry – “What Is a University?”
- Thoreau, Henry David – Walden
- Wells, Ida B. – “Mob Rule in New Orleans”
Listed by Author
Austen, Jane – Pride and Prejudice
Bierce, Ambrose – “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge”
Blake, William – “The Tiger”
Blake, William – “London”
Blake, William – Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience
Chopin, Kate – “The Story of an Hour”
Christie, Agatha – “The Adventure of the Western Star”
Christie, Agatha – “The Case of the Missing Will”
Christie, Agatha – The Secret Adversary
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor – “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”
Conan Doyle, Arthur – “A Scandal in Bohemia”
Conan Doyle, Arthur – “The Red-Headed League”
Conrad, Joseph – Heart of Darkness
De Maupassant, Guy – “The Thief”
Dickinson, Emily – “Hope Is the Thing with Feathers”
Dickinson, Emily – Selected Poems
Douglass, Frederick – Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
Du Bois, W.E. B. – The Souls of Black Folk
Eliot, T. S. – “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”
Eliot, T.S. – “The Waste Land”
Eliot. T.S. – “Hamlet and His Problems”
Eliot, T.S. – “Tradition and the Individual Talent”
Emerson, Ralph Waldo – “Each and All”
Emerson, Ralph Waldo – “Nature”
Emerson, Ralph Waldo – “Self-Reliance”
Fitzgerald, F. Scott – “The Cut-Glass Bowl”
Fitzgerald, F. Scott – “Head and Shoulders”
Fitzgerald, F. Scott – The Great Gatsby
Grimm, Jacob and Wilhelm – “Hansel and Gretel”
Grimm, Jacob and Wilhelm – Grimm’s Fairy Tales
H.D. – “The Garden”
Hemingway, Ernest – “My Old Man”
Hemingway, Ernest – “Up In Michigan”
Hurston, Zora Neale – De Turkey and De Law
Ibsen, Henrik – A Doll’s House
Joyce, James – “Araby”
Kafka, Franz – “The Metamorphosis”
Keats, John – “Ode on a Grecian Urn”
Kilmer, Joyce – “Trees”
Lowell, Amy – “The Travelling Bear”
Mansfield, Katherine – “The Garden Party”
Martin, Edward Sandford – “The Tyranny of Things”
Melville, Herman – Moby-Dick
Milne, A. A. – “A Word for Autumn”
Newman, John Henry – “What Is a University?”
O’Neill, Eugene – ILE
O’Neill, Eugene – The Hairy Ape
Poe, Edgar Allan – “The Masque of the Red Death”
Poe, Edgar Allan – “The Tell-Tale Heart”
Shakespeare, William – Hamlet
Shakespeare, William – Romeo & Juliet
Shakespeare, William – Julius Caesar
Shaw, Bernard – Pygmalion
Shelly, Mary (Mary Wollstonecraft Shelly) – Frankenstein
Stevenson, Robert Louis – The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Sophocles – Oedipus the King
Sophocles – Oedipus at Colonus
Sophocles – Antigone
Thoreau, Henry David – Walden
Wells, H.G. – “The Beautiful Suit”
Wells, H.G. – The Time Machine
Wells, H.G. – The Island of Dr. Moreau
Wells, Ida B. – “Mob Rule in New Orleans”
Wheatley, Phillis – “On Virtue”
Whitman, Walt – “Song of Myself”
Whitman, Walt – “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d”
Whitman, Walt – “On the Beach at Night Alone”
Whitman, Walt – Selected Poems
Wilde, Oscar – The Importance of Being Earnest
Wilde, Oscar – The Picture of Dorian Gray
Wilde, Oscar – “The Selfish Giant”
Wilkins Freeman, Mary E. – “The Shadows on the Wall”
Wordsworth, William – “Lines Written a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey”
Yeats, William Butler – The Land of Heart’s Desire
“It is what you read when you don’t have to that determines what you will be when you can’t help it.”
― Oscar Wilde
Philo Culturo 