Public Domain Stories

A list of literature (stories, poems, novels, etc.) that are in the Public Domain. Includes any story first published before 1923.

Compare Public Domain Character.

Subcategories:

• Classic Literature
• Nineteenth Century Literature

As of January 2012 it became possible in the United States for works to be taken back out of the public domain. Do not be surprised if some of these works stop being public domain should a corporation find sufficient revenue reason for doing so.

Numbers, A-B-C

• The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
• The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
• Agnes Grey
• Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
• Anna Karenina
• Anne of Green Gables (1908) and most of its sequels: Anne of Avonlea(1909), Anne of the Island(1915), Anne's House of Dreams(1917), Rainbow Valley(1919) and Rilla of Ingleside(1921). Only two books, published in 1936 and 1939 respectively, are not yet in the public domain.
• Arabian Nights
• Around the World in Eighty Days
• The Art of War
• The Beggar's Opera (1728)
• Ben-Hur
• Beowulf
• The Bible: While the actual text is in the public domain and many versions of the Bible are free of copyright, certain versions of it are copyrighted in some jurisdictions (e.g., the King James Bible is under perpetual copyright in the United Kingdom).
• Billy Budd
• Black Beauty
• Bleak House
• The Brothers Karamazov
• The Canterbury Tales
• Carmilla
• Candide
• The Castle of Otranto (1764)
• A Christmas Carol
• A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
• The Count of Monte Cristo
• Cousin Bette
• Crime and Punishment

D-E-F

• Daisy Miller (published in book form in 1879)
• Daniel Deronda (1876)
• David Copperfield (published in book form in 1850)
• Dead Souls (1842)
• "Diary of a Madman" (the short story was published in 1835)
• The Diary of Samuel Pepys (1 January 1660 to 31 May 1669)
• The Divine Comedy
• The Doctor in Spite of Himself (1666)
• A Dog of Flanders
• A Doll's House
• Dombey and Son (1848 in book form)
• Don Quixote (published in two volumes, in 1605 and 1615)
• Dracula (1897)
• Dream of the Red Chamber (1791-92)
• Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886)
• Dubliners (1914)
• Effi Briest (1896)
• Eight Cousins (1875)
• El Filibusterismo (1891)
• Emma (1815)
• Evelina (1778)
• Fanny Hill (1748)
• The Faerie Queene
• Father Brown--the first two anthologies in an series of five: The Innocence of Father Brown (1911) and The Wisdom of Father Brown (1914). The next three collections were published in 1926, 1927 and 1935 and so are still under copyright in the U.S. "The Donnington Affair" (1914), which is usually omitted from compilations, is likewise in the public domain.
• Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offences (1895 essay)
• Flatland (1884)
• Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus (1818)
• From the Earth to the Moon (1865)

G-H-I

• Goblin Market
• Great Expectations
• Gulliver's Travels
• Hans Brinker or The Silver Skates
• Hansel and Gretel
• Hard Times
• Heart of Darkness
• Heidi
• The Hunchback of Notre Dame
• The Idiot
• The Iliad
• The Importance of Being Earnest
• In Search of the Castaways
• Ivanhoe

J-K-L

• Jane Eyre
• The first 5 books of John Carter of Mars
• Journey to the Center of the Earth
• Journey to the West (1590s)
• Jude the Obscure
• The Jungle Book
• Kilmeny of the Orchard
• Kim
• King Arthur and anything related to the Holy Grail.
• King Solomon's Mines
• La Dame de Monsoreau
• La Reine Margot
• Lady Audley's Secret
• Lady Susan
• The first 16 books in the Land of Oz series, including:
  • The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900)
  • The Marvelous Land of Oz (1904)
• Le Père Goriot
• Leaves of Grass
• Les Miserables
• Levana and Our Ladies of Sorrow
• Leviathan or The Matter, Forme and Power of a Common Wealth Ecclesiasticall and Civil (1651)
• Little Dorrit
• Little Lord Fauntleroy
• Little Women
• Looking Backward
• Lorna Doone

M-N-O

• Madame Bovary (1856)
• Madame Butterfly (1904)
• Mansfield Park (1814)
• Max Havelaar (1860)
• Michael Kohlhaas (1811)
• Middlemarch (1871-72)
• The Misanthrope (1666)
• The Metamorphosis
• The Miser (1668)
• Moby Dick (1851)
• Moll Flanders (1722)
• The Monk (1796)
• The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794)
• The Mysterious Affair at Styles
• Nicholas Nickleby (published in book format in 1839)
• Noli Me Tangere (1887)
• North and South (1855)
• Northanger Abbey (1817)
• Notes From Underground (1864)
• Oblomov (1859)
• The Odyssey
• Oera Linda Book (first came to light in 1867--no one knows how old the manuscript is or is not)
• Oliver Twist (published in book form in 1838)
• Our Mutual Friend (published in book form in 1865)

P-Q-R

• Paradise Lost (1667)
• Peter Pan (1904 for the play; 1911 for the novel): However, it's not out of copyright in the U.K. Furthermore, Great Ormond Street Hospital claims to own the copyright to all works featuring Peter Pan until 2023--including the U.S. copyright.
• Persuasion (1818)
• The Pickwick Papers
• The Picture of Dorian Gray
• The Pilgrim's Progress (1678)
• Pride and Prejudice (1813)
• The Prince
• Quo Vadis (1895)
• Raffles:
  • The Amateur Cracksman (short story collection--1899)
  • The Black Mask (short story collection--1901)
  • A Thief in the Night (short story collection--1904)
  • Mr. Justice Raffles (novel--1909)
• Ramona (1884)
• The Republic
• The Revenger's Tragedy (1606)
• Robinson Crusoe (1719)
• A Romance of Two Worlds
• Romance of the Three Kingdoms (fourteenth century)
• Romola (1862-63)

S-T-U

• Salammbo (1862)
• Scaramouche (1921)
• The Scarlet Letter
• The Scarlet Pimpernel
• The School for Scandal (1777)
• The Secret Adversary
• Sense and Sensibility (1811)
• Sentimental Education (1869)
• All the works of Shakespeare
• She (1887)
• Sherlock Holmes (first appeared in print in 1887 with A Study in Scarlet): Whether Conan Doyle's Sherlock stories are out of copyright depends on your location. Conan Doyle's stories have been in public domain in Canada since 1980; in the U.K., 2000. In the United States, however, ten stories in The Case Book of Sherlock Holmes which were published between 1923 and 1927, inclusive, are still under copyright and will be for a few years. The last American copyright is due to expire in 2023.
• Siddhartha (1922)
• Sienkiewicz Trilogy (written between 1884 and 1888)
• Silas Marner (1861)
• Silly Novels by Lady Novelists (1856)
• Snow White (the first edition containing this story was published in 1812; the second and much revised edition, which is closer to to what we're now familiar with, came out in 1854)
• The Sorrows of Young Werther (1774)
• Struwwelpeter (1845)
• Swan Lake
• A Tale of Two Cities
• Tartuffe, or The Hypocrite (1664)
• Through the Looking Glass, and What Alice Found There
• The Time Machine
• Tom Jones (1749)
• Treasure Island
• Tristram Shandy (1760-67)
• Ulysses
• Uncle Tom's Cabin

V-W-X

• War and Peace
• The War of the Worlds
• Water Margin (mid-fourteenth century)
• The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
• Wuthering Heights

Y-Z

• The Yellow Wallpaper