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Project Gutenberg API: Search free books

Finds free public-domain Project Gutenberg books by title, author or topic, with authors, languages, subjects, recent downloads, and reading and download links. Public-domain status is based on the United States.

gutenberg.org (opens in a new tab)Version 1ReadNo sign-inVerified Nov 2, 2026

Unofficial. Not affiliated with or endorsed by Project Gutenberg.

Inputs

Values from the run on Oct 23, 2026, shown under Output.

Sort optionalsort

Sort by popularity, newest release, or title; for example popular.

newest

One of popular, newest, title. Default popular.

Query, requiredquery

Book title, author, or topic, for example Sherlock Holmes.

Jane Austen

Language optionallanguage

Language name or two-letter code, for example French or fr; default any.

French

Default any.

Max Results optionalmax_results

Maximum number of books to return, for example 20; at most 100.

5

Whole number from 1 to 100. Default 20.

Output

From a run on Oct 23, 2026, shortened for this page.
{  "books": [    {      "title": "Raison et sensibilité, ou les deux manières d'aimer (Tome 4)",      "authors": [        {          "name": "Austen, Jane",          "birth_year": 1775,          "death_year": 1817        }      ],      "subjects": [        "England -- Social life and customs -- 19th century -- Fiction",        "Inheritance and succession -- Fiction",        "England -- Fiction"      ],      "languages": [        "French"      ],      "ebook_number": 37634,      "book_page_link": "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/37634",      "cover_image_link": "https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/37634/pg37634.cover.medium.jpg",      "read_online_link": "https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/37634/pg37634-images.html",      "epub_download_link": "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/37634.epub3.images",      "downloads_last_30_days": 448,      "plain_text_download_link": "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/37634.txt.utf-8"    },    {      "title": "Persuasion",      "authors": [        {          "name": "Austen, Jane",          "birth_year": 1775,          "death_year": 1817        }      ],      "subjects": [        "England -- Social life and customs -- 19th century -- Fiction",        "Psychological fiction",        "Young women -- Fiction"      ],      "languages": [        "French"      ],      "ebook_number": 36777,      "book_page_link": "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/36777",      "cover_image_link": "https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/36777/pg36777.cover.medium.jpg",      "read_online_link": "https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/36777/pg36777-images.html",      "epub_download_link": "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/36777.epub3.images",      "downloads_last_30_days": 897,      "plain_text_download_link": "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/36777.txt.utf-8"    },    {      "title": "Raison et sensibilité, ou les deux manières d'aimer (Tome 3)",      "authors": [        {          "name": "Austen, Jane",          "birth_year": 1775,          "death_year": 1817        }      ],      "subjects": [        "England -- Social life and customs -- 19th century -- Fiction",        "Inheritance and succession -- Fiction",        "England -- Fiction"      ],      "languages": [        "French"      ],      "ebook_number": 35163,      "book_page_link": "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/35163",      "cover_image_link": "https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/35163/pg35163.cover.medium.jpg",      "read_online_link": "https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/35163/pg35163-images.html",      "epub_download_link": "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/35163.epub3.images",      "downloads_last_30_days": 618,      "plain_text_download_link": "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/35163.txt.utf-8"    }  ]}
Price
1 credit per completed run (1¢ with pay as you go); failed runs are free.
Method
gutenberg.org/search_free_books
Returns
title, authors, languages, subjects, downloads, read/epub/text/cover links, ebook number

Use it from your agent

Give your agent this line. It reads SKILL.md, gets a Fous API key and connects the Fous MCP server. Its run then takes the method gutenberg.org/search_free_books with the inputs above.

Ask your agent

  • Find free public domain books by Jane Austen sorted by popularity
  • Show me the newest free ebooks about ancient Rome in French
  • I need public domain novels by Mark Twain, sorted alphabetically by title, up to 50 results
  • Search Project Gutenberg for Sherlock Holmes stories in English with download links
  • Looking for free German-language books on philosophy, 10 results sorted by newest release
  • Gets the plain text of a public-domain Project Gutenberg book by title, optionally matching its author and language. Chooses the most downloaded matching edition with a plain-text file, removes the Gutenberg header and license, and can cut the text after a chosen number of words.

    gutenberg.org/get_book_text
  • Finds Open Library books by search words, optionally narrowed by author and subject, sorted by relevance or publication age. Returns work-level results; free_online means at least one edition is marked public or borrowable, not that a loan is available now.

    openlibrary.org/search_books
  • Searches Google Books by words, author, subject or ISBN, with language, free-ebook and newest-first options. Ratings counts are not shown by the public book feed; newest sorts the available matches by publication date.

    books.google.com/search_books
  • Finds an Open Library author by name, link or key and lists their works with first publication year, edition count, cover and an author profile.

    openlibrary.org/list_author_books
  • Looks up a Google Books book by title or ISBN. Returns its details, reader ratings and the Google Play ebook offer in a chosen country.

    books.google.com/get_book
  • Finds Bible verses on Bible Gateway that contain the search words or relate to a topic. Returns the verse text and links in Bible order.

    biblegateway.com/search_bible
  • Gets a book's catalog details from Open Library by its title, with an optional author or ISBN to identify the right book. Reading availability reflects listed editions; details may be missing when the catalog has none.

    openlibrary.org/get_book
  • Finds poems matching a topic or occasion, or poems by a named poet, in Poetry Foundation search order. Older magazine poems without public text have no first two lines; untagged poems have no themes or occasions.

    poetryfoundation.org/search_poems