Public Domain Stories

A list of literature (stories, poems, novels, etc.) that are in the Public Domain. In the USA, this includes any story first published before 1927. A comprehensive list is impossible to make; Project Gutenberg has over forty thousand in English alone.

Also, a work's PD status will vary between countries due to differences in copyright laws. For an example, the status of the Fu Manchu series differs radically between several significant markets:

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• In the US, only the first three books are PD.
• In the EU, UK, Australia, and Mexico, none of the series is PD.^Explanation Under EU, UK, and Australian law, works by an individual creator are under copyright for 70 years after the creator's death. The term under Mexican law is 100 years after death. Fu Manchu's creator Sax Rohmer didn't die until 1959.
• In Canada and New Zealand, the entire series is PD.^Explanation Instead of life plus 70 years, Canada's copyright term prior to 2019 was life plus 50 years. NZ still uses "life plus 50". The series thus entered the PD in both countries in 2010.

Compare Public Domain Character.

Subcategories:

• Classic Literature
• 18th Century Literature
• 19th Century Literature
• Literature of the 1900s
• Literature of the 1910s

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• Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
• Arthurian Legend
• The Art of War (Machiavelli)
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• The Art of War (Sun Tzu)
• The Beautiful and Damned
• 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).
• Beowulf
• Brazilian Folklore
• Caleb Williams
• The Canterbury Tales
• Candide
• Crime and Punishment
• Emma
• "Enoch Arden"
• The Epic of Gilgamesh: One of the earliest surviving works of great literature.
• The Faerie Queene
• Flatland
• The Great Gatsby
• Gulliver's Travels
• The Hunchback of Notre Dame
• The Iliad
• Ivanhoe
• John Carter of Mars – the first five books in the US; the entire series in the EU, UK, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and Mexico.^note before 1982, Mexico's term was life plus 30, and none of that country's three later term extensions (to life plus 50, 75, and 100) were retroactive.
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• Juan Bobo
• Kama Sutra
• The first 20 books in the Land of Oz series, and an additional 7 that failed to have their copyright renewed, including
  • The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
  • The Marvelous Land of Oz
  • Ozma of Oz
  • Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz
  • The Road to Oz
  • The Emerald City of Oz
  • The Patchwork Girl of Oz
  • Tik-Tok of Oz
  • The Scarecrow of Oz
  • Rinkitink In Oz
  • The Lost Princess Of Oz
  • The Tin Woodman Of Oz
  • The Magic of Oz
  • Glinda of Oz
  • The Lost King Of Oz
  • Handy Mandy In Oz
  • Queen Zixi of Ix
• Lady Susan
• Mansfield Park
• Mountain Folklore
• Mrs. Dalloway
• My Father's Dragon (the sequels had their copyrights renewed, but not the first book)
• Nautical Folklore
• Northanger Abbey
• The Odyssey
• Orlando: A Biography
• Paul Bunyan
• Peter Pan, though not in the UK, where a hospital earns perpetual royalties.
• Persuasion
• Pride and Prejudice
• Quest for Fire: The original French version La Guerre du feu is public domain but the various English translations are not.
• Raffles
• Reynard the Fox
• Right Ho, Jeeves
• Rob Roy
• Robin Hood
• The Sea Fairies
• The Sea Wolf
• Sense and Sensibility
• All the works of William Shakespeare
• Sherlock Holmes - all of the original Arthur Conan Doyle canon, save for The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes (collecting his last twelve stories).
• The Story of Valentine and His Brother
• Swan Lake
• The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter
• Tarzan – the first nine novels and first short story collection in the US; same status as John Carter of Mars in other territories
• "To Build a Fire"
• War and Peace
• William Tell
• Winnie-the-Pooh - the first book is public domain in the U.S. as of 2022, with the second book set to follow in 2024; the British copyright on the text will expire in 2027, at which point all A. A. Milne works will be public domain in the U.K. However, the illustrations will not become PD in the UK until 2047; illustrator E.H. Shepard lived until 1976.
• Dom Casmurro

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