Project Gutenberg app for iPhone and iPad: 75,000+ complete public-domain books
Project Gutenberg eBook Reader is a free app for iPhone and iPad that carries more than 75,000 complete public-domain books from Project Gutenberg, covering fiction, history, philosophy, poetry, drama and more. Nothing is abridged and nothing is a sample. These are the whole texts, and every one of them is in the public domain, so the texts themselves, whether Shakespeare, Dickens, Austen or Tolstoy, cost nothing (the free version has ads and limits on opening books; Premium pays for the app, not the texts).
The Explore tab groups the library by subject. The Literature shelf alone lists 39,925 books and Science & Technology 3,592, with dozens more subjects such as History and Poetry behind them. Each book page shows its category, how many times it has been downloaded, a reading-ease score, a short summary and subject tags, so you can judge a title before opening it. The app is an independent reader built on Project Gutenberg's public files; it is not affiliated with the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.
How to read Project Gutenberg books offline on iPhone without juggling EPUB files
The usual way to get a Gutenberg book onto an iPhone is to visit the mobile site, download an EPUB, then open it in Apple Books or another reader. This app removes those steps. Search or browse, tap a title, and the book downloads to your device. Every book in the catalog can be stored for offline reading, so it opens on a flight, on the subway or anywhere without Wi-Fi.
The reader itself is typeset to feel like paper. You choose a real page-curl turn or smooth vertical scrolling, pick light, sepia or dark, and adjust the typeface, text size and margins. Highlights come in four colors, you can keep bookmarks, and the full table of contents lets you jump to any chapter. Close the app mid-chapter and it reopens where you stopped.
- Page-curl turn or vertical scrolling
- Light, sepia and dark reading themes
- Adjustable typeface, text size and margins
- Highlights in four colors, plus bookmarks
- Full table of contents to jump between chapters
- Resumes where you left off
Read-along audiobook app that highlights words as the narrator reads
A growing set of classics in the app come as read-along audiobooks: a narrator reads the text while the words highlight on the page in sync, so you can read and listen at the same time or close your eyes and just listen. In the Listen tab each title shows a progress counter (Moby-Dick shows 0 / 138, Middlemarch 0 / 86) and the same book can be opened as text or as audio.
Playback keeps going in the background and on the lock screen, speed is adjustable, and skip-back and skip-forward buttons make it easy to replay a sentence. Whether you were reading or listening, the app resumes from the same spot. One honest limit: audio exists for a growing collection of titles, not for all 75,000 books, so most of the library is text-only for now. For a free public domain audiobooks app on iPhone that keeps the text in view, this is the core feature.
Free classic books app with no account: what is free and what Premium unlocks
There is no account and no sign-up: install the app and open a book. The free version includes catalog search, offline downloads and read-along audiobooks, but it shows ads and places limits on opening books and audiobooks.
Gutenberg Premium removes the ads and lifts all limits, so every book and every audiobook opens without interruption. It is sold as a Weekly or Yearly auto-renewable subscription or as a one-time Lifetime unlock; prices are shown inside the app and may vary by region. Subscriptions renew automatically unless auto-renew is turned off at least 24 hours before the current period ends, and you can manage or cancel them in your App Store account settings. The books themselves stay public domain either way: Premium pays for the app, not the texts.
How to find a specific author or subject among 75,000 free classics
Search covers all 75,000+ titles by book or by author and returns results in an instant. Typing "tolstoy", for example, splits results into 82 books and 1 author, and each row shows the download count and reading-ease score so you can pick the most-read edition or the easiest one first.
Beyond search, the Explore tab offers curated shelves, popular authors and picks based on what you are reading, and lists can be sorted by most downloaded, recently added, title or reading ease. Sorting classic books by reading ease is useful for English learners and for anyone who wants an accessible entry point into an author's work before tackling the harder novels. Set the app to Light, Dark or follow your system, and the reader matches.
