Century Past Free Online Library
Helping readers find books in the world’s largest free online English language libraries. Plus free magazines, newspapers and article collections. We comply with U.S. copyright laws.
We Already Did Your Searches for You!
Century Past has carried out hundreds of searches on the biggest free online libraries to provide you ‘Collections‘ of books on numerous subjects. These subject collections, for both Fiction and Nonfiction books, can quickly be found throughout our 400 webpages by using our Directories, in the menu at the top of every page.
You Get the Best, from Libraries with Millions of Books!
Nearly all our collections contain modern books, scanned and saved by the Internet Archive in their Lending Library of 3.6 million books, published from 1928 to 2017. You can read all these books online with a free log-on at Internet Archive. One-quarter of that 3.6 million are available to download for 14 days, and can be renewed.
Century Past also has Vintage Collections of books published before 1928, now in the public domain. These can be read online or downloaded at the Internet Archive, or read online at the also-huge HathiTrust Digital Library.
Everything on Century Past is free. We don’t even require a log-on.
Update: A 2023 court ruling required Internet Archive to discontinue lending books that are available for sale electronically. Many recently published books on Century Past are now unavailable. You can filter out unavailable books from our ‘collections’ by checking the ‘Lending Library‘ box under ‘Availability‘ in the left column.
Online Library of Nonfiction Books
Century Past gives you access to 2 million+ nonfiction books at Internet Archive in a way that makes it easy for you to find books on your topic. We divided broad subjects among 150 webpages, with links on each page that show search results for topics within that subject. You use our Subject Directory or A-Z Index to find the right page, and browse through the collections.
Every page also has Suggested Books – individual titles found in libraries on that subject – with publisher descriptions. Many pages have Vintage Book collections and modern Textbooks.
Fiction Books Collection
Gigantic selection of novels by popular authors in Romance, Mystery, Suspense, Sci-fi, Historical, Inspirational, Action, Fantasy, & more. Plus World Literature, Short Stories & Vintage Novels. Reading guides too.
See our 40+ webpages of fiction. Books for Adults, Young Adults & Children. Most links open books at Internet Archive. Start at our Fiction Directory.
Magazines
Big collection of current magazines and back issues, published in the U.S. and other countries. Also many titles no longer published, and smaller online-only magazines. Start at our Magazine Directory.
Free Online Newspaper Library
Links to hundreds of current newspapers & other news sources, and archives of past newspapers. Most are free & in English. The U.S., and many countries worldwide.
Start at our U.S. Newspapers page.
A library of free online articles from magazines and newspapers, organized by subject. More than half the pages are History-related.
Plus links to free digital collections of historical maps & vintage photos.
Articles, Maps, Photos
The Great Lakes States Past & Present
Free books and articles for Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio & Wisconsin, from earliest times to the present, all free. Each state, and the Great Lakes region, has pages for over a dozen subjects. Historical maps too.
Start at the Great Lakes States Directory.
For more information about this site, see About Century Past.