Books & Publishing

The wider archive

Enduring books that belong to everyone, prepared as readable Minecraft volumes. Each one says where its text came from, why it is free to share, and whether it is on a shelf in the world yet.

10 works cataloged
Free to read
Player books come first on /books

Player books How works are chosen Back to Books

Honest numbers

What is cataloged, and what is held

A text online is not a book on a shelf. A work counts as preserved only when every one of its volumes has been printed and shelved in the central library.

Works cataloged

Volumes readable online

Works preserved in Minecraft

Volumes held on library shelves

Collection

Enduring classics

PoetryAvailable online · Awaiting physical preservation
Shakespeare's Sonnets
William Shakespeare, first published 1609
The 154 sonnets, on time, beauty, love and the poems' own power to outlast their writer.
5 volumes · 0 held
Short storyAvailable online · Awaiting physical preservation
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
Washington Irving, first published 1820
Schoolmaster Ichabod Crane courts a farmer's daughter in a sleepy Hudson valley town, until a ride home past the haunted bridge.
3 volumes · 0 held
NovelAvailable online · Awaiting physical preservation
A Christmas Carol in Prose; Being a Ghost Story of Christmas
Charles Dickens, first published 1843
Ebenezer Scrooge is visited by three spirits on Christmas Eve, and wakes a different man.
7 volumes · 0 held
NovelAvailable online · Awaiting physical preservation
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Lewis Carroll, first published 1865
Alice follows a white rabbit down a hole into a world of riddles, tea parties and a furious queen.
8 volumes · 0 held
NovelAvailable online · Awaiting physical preservation
The Time Machine
H. G. Wells, first published 1895
An inventor travels to the year 802,701 and finds what has become of humankind.
7 volumes · 0 held
Short storyAvailable online · Awaiting physical preservation
The Gift of the Magi
O. Henry, first published 1905
A young couple with almost no money each sell their most precious thing to buy the other a Christmas present.
1 volume · 0 held
Guide or referenceAvailable online · Awaiting physical preservation
The Elements of Style
William Strunk, first published 1918
Strunk's short rules for clear English: omit needless words, use the active voice, put statements in positive form.
4 volumes · 0 held
Short storyAvailable online · Awaiting physical preservation
The Velveteen Rabbit, or How Toys Become Real
Margery Williams, first published 1922
A stuffed rabbit learns from the old Skin Horse what it means for a toy to become Real.
1 volume · 0 held

Collection

Voices and freedom

EssayAvailable online · Awaiting physical preservation
Areopagitica
John Milton, first published 1644
Milton's speech to Parliament against licensing books before they are printed, an early argument for a free press.
4 volumes · 0 held
Short storyAvailable online · Awaiting physical preservation
The Yellow Wallpaper
Charlotte Perkins Gilman, first published 1892
A woman confined to an upstairs room for a rest cure writes about the wallpaper she cannot stop watching.
2 volumes · 0 held

How works are chosen

Preserve faithfully, say plainly what is held

What gets in

Staff choose each work by hand. Nothing is imported in bulk.
Each work records its source, the date it was copied and a checksum of the file, so anyone can check the text.
Each work records why it is free to share: when it was first published and when its author died.
Every change to the text is listed on the work's page. Nothing is abridged or summarized.

What preserved means

A long book becomes several Minecraft volumes, cut at chapters where it can be. Together they hold the whole text.
Volumes are printed at the printworks from real materials, each copy numbered, like any player book.
A work is preserved when every volume is printed and shelved in the central library. If one goes missing, the page says so.
An archive edition credits the original author. Aurelune printed it; Aurelune did not write it.

Spotted a wrong credit, a rights problem or a mistake in a text? Tell staff on Discord, naming the work. Recommending a book for the archive works the same way; a recommendation is reviewed before anything is added.