About 28 minutes
The Cabman's Story The Mysteries of a London 'Growler' — A Closer Reading
Historical Social Novels
6,365 recorded words. Selected by the catalog's stored reading-time estimate.
View Gutenberg source #17398
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Start with a reading choice
Three of the shortest recorded reading commitments in this catalog. Times are estimates, not quality ratings.
About 39 minutes
The Lifted Bandage — Context and Discussion
Exploration Survival Adventure Tales
8,910 recorded words. Selected by the catalog's stored reading-time estimate.
View Gutenberg source #15894About 48 minutes
Salomy Jane — Context and Discussion
Magic Oz Juvenile Fantasy
10,852 recorded words. Selected by the catalog's stored reading-time estimate.
View Gutenberg source #15192Search the excerpts stored with this catalog
90 of 90 catalog books have a stored excerpt with a Gutenberg source record. Search covers these excerpts only, up to 6,000 characters per book. A missing match does not mean the phrase is absent from the full work.
Read a catalog excerpt example: Story of Chester Lawrence Being the Completed Account of One who Played an Important Part in "Piney Ridge Cottage" — Reading Companion
It was raining when the ship was ready to sail; yet on the pier a large crowd of people stood under dripping umbrellas, waving and shouting farewells to their friends on board. The departing passengers, most of them protected by an upper deck, pressed four deep against the rail, and waved and shouted in return. The belated passenger, struggling with heavy hand baggage, scrambled up the gang-plank. The last visitors were hustled ashore; amid noise and bustle, the plank was drawn away, and the sh…
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Compare two books and their available excerpts
| Book | Recorded words | Estimated minutes | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Cabman's Story The Mysteries of a London 'Growler' — A Closer Reading | 6,365 | 28 | Gutenberg #17398 |
| The Lifted Bandage — Context and Discussion | 8,910 | 39 | Gutenberg #15894 |
| Salomy Jane — Context and Discussion | 10,852 | 48 | Gutenberg #15192 |
How these choices and excerpts are prepared
Choices use stored catalog measurements. Estimates vary with reading speed. A shared category is a catalog label, not a claim that two books have the same argument or literary quality.
Search reads excerpt text stored with this catalog and links to its associated Gutenberg record. The connection is stored in the site database; this tool does not recheck that every excerpt is word-for-word identical to that external record. Excerpt search does not cover every chapter and does not verify historical publication dates.
Catalog snapshot checked: 2026-09-26. Coverage: 90 public books, 90 available source excerpts.
Do more with this book catalog
The EEANN Public Domain Literature Library offers a growing collection of public-domain works, currently featuring 90 books across four thematic categories. These tools help you explore the catalog in ways that suit your interests and reading habits.
Whether you are looking for a specific type of story, comparing works side by side, or planning your next reading session, the library provides practical aids. Each tool draws on catalog data to give you clear, useful guidance.
90
books in this catalog
4
catalog categories
90
books with reading-time data
Made for this collection
Ways the catalog data becomes useful
Book Finder
Narrow down the catalog by category, subject, length, or estimated reading time. See books that match your preferences and discover new reads from the library's public-domain collection.
Compare Books
Place two books side by side and examine their word counts, sentence complexity, and subject matter. This objective comparison helps you understand how different works are constructed.
Reading Companion
Get honest estimates of reading time and effort based on word count and sentence length. Plan your reading schedule with realistic expectations for each book.
Choosing a Book, Comparing Editions, and Tracking Progress
The EEANN Public Domain Literature Library holds ninety works spread across four categories, from Historical Social Novels to Magic Oz Juvenile Fantasy. With that range, the first question is usually not which book is best but which one fits the reading time you actually have. The Book Finder, Compare Books, and Reading Tracker work together to answer that question without pretending to measure literary quality.
Start with the Finder
The Finder narrows the catalog by the signals that matter most before you commit: category, length, estimated reading time, chapter rhythm, sentence flow, and subjects. For instance, if you know you want a historical work but have only a weekend, you can filter by category and then by a shorter reading time. The Finder also lets you leave any criterion as no preference, so nothing is penalized for being outside your usual habits.
A title like A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century — Key Ideas to Explore sits in the Technology Airships Imagined Futures category despite its historical subject, so relying on category alone can mislead. The Finder’s other criteria, especially word count and reading time, add the practical detail that category cannot supply.
Compare Before You Commit
Once two or three books seem plausible, Compare Books lays them side by side. Word count, estimated reading time, text sections, sentence flow, chapter rhythm, and subjects are all visible at once. This is useful when a shorter estimate still feels long because the book is divided into very few sections, or when a moderate word count hides a dense sentence flow.
The comparison is descriptive, not evaluative. A book with longer sentences is not better or worse; it simply asks for a different kind of attention. Seeing those metrics together helps you match a book to your current reading mode, whether that is a quick evening read or a week-long immersion.
Track with Realistic Goals
After you choose, the Reading Tracker turns the book’s total pages into a daily plan. Progress is recorded in pages, not sections or minutes, so the goal stays simple. If the catalog does not list a fixed page count, the tracker estimates pages by dividing the word count by 250 words per page, and you can replace that estimate with the page count from your own edition.
The tracker calculates remaining time and finish date from your daily page goal, and it stores your history in the browser without needing an account. The default goal is 20 pages per day, but you can adjust it. A 500-page book at that pace takes 25 days; at 40 pages a day, it takes about 13. The tools give you the numbers, but the pace is yours to set.