Search free Project Gutenberg ebooks API

Full-text search of Project Gutenberg's public-domain library via Gutendex, normalized with direct EPUB/Kindle/text/HTML download links and a download-count popularity tier. Answers 'find free ebook editions of X', 'which public-domain books match this topic and where do I download them'.

Price$0.01per request

MethodPOST

Route/v1/data/gutenberg-search

StatusLive

MIME typeapplication/json

Rate limit60/minute

Cache86400s public

databooksgutenbergebookpublic-domainliteraturedownloadfree

API URLhttps://x402.hexl.dev/v1/data/gutenberg-search

Integration docs

Example request

{
  "query": "frankenstein",
  "limit": 2
}

Example response

{
  "query": "frankenstein",
  "totalMatches": 8,
  "count": 2,
  "results": [
    {
      "gutenbergId": 84,
      "title": "Frankenstein; or, the modern prometheus",
      "authors": [
        {
          "name": "Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft",
          "birthYear": 1797,
          "deathYear": 1851
        }
      ],
      "languages": [
        "en"
      ],
      "subjects": [
        "Frankenstein's monster (Fictitious character) -- Fiction",
        "Frankenstein, Victor (Fictitious character) -- Fiction",
        "Gothic fiction",
        "Horror tales",
        "Monsters -- Fiction",
        "Science fiction",
        "Scientists -- Fiction"
      ],
      "downloadCount": 115954,
      "popularity": "very-high",
      "downloads": {
        "epub": "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/84.epub3.images",
        "kindle": "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/84.kf8.images",
        "text": "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/84.txt.utf-8",
        "html": "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/84.html.images"
      },
      "summary": "\"Frankenstein; Or, The Modern Prometheus\" by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley is a Gothic novel published in 1818. It tells the story of Victor Frankenstein, a young scientist who creates a living creature from assembled body parts in an unorthodox experiment. When the creature awakens, Victor flees in horror, abandoning his creation. The conscious being must navigate a world that fears him, learning l",
      "readOnline": "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/84.html.images"
    },
    {
      "gutenbergId": 41445,
      "title": "Frankenstein; Or, The Modern Prometheus",
      "authors": [
        {
          "name": "Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft",
          "birthYear": 1797,
          "deathYear": 1851
        }
      ],
      "languages": [
        "en"
      ],
      "subjects": [
        "Frankenstein's monster (Fictitious character) -- Fiction",
        "Frankenstein, Victor (Fictitious character) -- Fiction",
        "Gothic fiction",
        "Horror tales",
        "Monsters -- Fiction",
        "Science fiction",
        "Scientists -- Fiction"
      ],
      "downloadCount": 13608,
      "popularity": "high",
      "downloads": {
        "epub": "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/41445.epub3.images",
        "kindle": "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/41445.kf8.images",
        "text": "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/41445.txt.utf-8",
        "html": "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/41445.html.images"
      },
      "summary": "\"Frankenstein; Or, The Modern Prometheus\" by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley is a Gothic novel written in 1818. It tells the story of Victor Frankenstein, a young scientist who creates a living creature from assembled body parts in an unorthodox experiment. When the creature awakens, Victor flees in horror, setting in motion a tragic tale of creation, abandonment, and revenge. This pioneering work has",
      "readOnline": "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/41445.html.images"
    }
  ]
}

Input schema

{
  "type": "object",
  "required": [
    "query"
  ],
  "properties": {
    "query": {
      "type": "string",
      "description": "Title, author, or keyword."
    },
    "limit": {
      "type": "integer",
      "minimum": 1,
      "maximum": 20,
      "default": 5
    },
    "language": {
      "type": "string",
      "description": "Optional ISO-639 code filter, e.g. 'en'."
    }
  }
}

Output schema

{
  "type": "object",
  "additionalProperties": true
}