Project Gutenberg News - March 2026
Message from the Executive Director: Accessibility at Project Gutenberg
International Women’s Day and Women’s History Month
Christine de Pizan
100th Anniversary of “The Blue Castle”
Finances
New Releases for February 2026
Top 10 eBooks downloaded for the month of February
Links
Find Project Gutenberg on Social Media
Entering the US public domain in 2026: Agatha Christie's The Murder at the Vicarage.
More info behind window 19 of our advent-style countdown calendar for works entering the #publicdomain on Jan 1st: https://publicdomainreview.org/features/entering-the-public-domain/2026/ #PDin2026
HAPPY PUBLIC DOMAIN DAY! And Happy New Year!
Books published in 1930 will enter the U.S. public domain, such as:
The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett: This novel introduced the world to the famous detective Sam Spade.
As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner: A masterpiece of American literature.
The Murder at the Vicarage by Agatha Christie: This was the first novel to feature the beloved character Miss Marple.
What was your favorite book from PG's catalog in 2025?
I suggest you support Standard Ebooks 📚
“Standard Ebooks is a volunteer-driven project that produces new editions of public domain ebooks that are lovingly formatted, open source, free of … copyright restrictions, and free of cost.” ⚖️
See what’s free to read on January 1 👇
https://standardebooks.org/blog/public-domain-day-2026
Please boost 🙏
#StandardEbooks #PublicDomain #PublicDomainDay #Copyright #Ebooks #OpenSource #FreeSoftware #Python
Happy Public Domain Day! At the start of each year, a new set of works is freed from copyright — ready to be shared, reused, and reimagined. See our highlights — Hannah Arendt, Albert Einstein, Langston Hughes, William Faulkner, and many more. https://publicdomainreview.org/blog/2026/01/public-domain-day-2026/ #publicdomain
Personal Note, January 1 2026: I have a new job: Executive Director of the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Here's what I wrote for PG's January Newsletter.
https://go-to-hellman.blogspot.com/2026/01/new-job-project-gutenberg.html?m=1
Welcome to the Public Domain, MOROCCO (1930) 🎩
🎥 Marlene Dietrich was bending the rules as she pleased. See her iconic suit & daring kiss in this pre-Code classic. 🌸💋
Learn more ➡️ https://blog.archive.org/public-domain-day-2026/
What will enter the #publicdomain in 2025? Each day through December we’ll open a window in our advent-style calendar to reveal our highlights! https://publicdomainreview.org/features/entering-the-public-domain/2025/
(+ for the impatient/curious we've links to lists of new entrants.)
HAPPY PUBLIC DOMAIN DAY!
Books which will enter the US public domain:
William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury
Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms
Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own
Dashiell Hammett, Red Harvest and The Maltese Falcon (as serialized in Black Mask magazine)
John Steinbeck, Cup of Gold (Steinbeck's first novel)
Richard Hughes, A High Wind in Jamaica
Oliver La Farge, Laughing Boy: A Navajo Love Story
Patrick Hamilton, Rope
Cold? Bored? Scrolled long past your doom threshold? How about… a movie?
25 years of humanity at its best
Join us in celebrating Wikipedia’s birthday. via @wikimediafoundation
https://wikimediafoundation.org/wikipedia25/?utm_campaign=wp25cn&utm_source=wp25cnout&utm_medium=out
Denishawn Dance Film (ca. 1916).
Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn founded Denishawn, a visionary dance school in Los Angeles, filmed in rare silent footage (1915–17) showing early activities at two sites: the Parkinson Estate and the Westlake School for Girls. via @publicdomainrev
Public Domain Spotlight: Rhapsody in Blue
Rhapsody in Blue stands as an iconic piece of American music with riveting orchestration, and a cultural footprint that reflects the modernity of the early 20th century.
by Sean Dudley
https://blog.archive.org/2025/02/18/public-domain-spotlight-rhapsody-in-blue/
More information here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhapsody_in_Blue
Brewster Kahle, the internet’s librarian
Brewster Kahle, founder of the Internet Archive, housed in a former San Francisco church with Greek columns that echo the ancient Library of Alexandria, discusses his three-decade mission to preserve humanity’s digital knowledge and culture. via @internetarchive
https://www.californiasun.co/podcast/brewster-kahle-the-internets-librarian/
Well done @brewsterkahle !!
What Happens if the Internet Archive Goes Dark?
For decades, the Internet Archive has preserved our digital history. Lately, journalists and ordinary citizens have been turning to it more than ever, as the Trump administration undertakes an ideologically-driven purge of government websites.
By Morgan Sung, Maya Cueva, Chris Egusa
https://www.kqed.org/news/12031980/what-happens-if-the-internet-archive-goes-dark
February Project Gutenberg Newsletter
Contents
Mourning -> Celebrating
Tributes and Thanks from our community
A new feature: ARK linking
Our finances
New Releases at Gutenberg.org — January 2026
Links
https://www.gutenberg.org/newsletter/
i made some small portable windows apps and put them up for free. CC0 - public domain, do whatever you want with them. No accounts, no telemetry, no installers.
- Core Cooldown - break timer
- Whisper Voice - local speech-to-text
- TypoGenie - Markdown to Word docs
- TutorialVault - video tutorial organizer
- OpenPylon - local Kanban board
- Vesper - distraction-free Markdown reader
Source on my self-hosted Gitea.
The Public Domain and the Rise of the Hays Code
Films entering the public domain will soon face a significant shift. In 2030, films governed by the Hays Code will start to enter the public domain
By Sean Dudley via @internetarchive
https://blog.archive.org/2025/03/18/the-public-domain-and-the-rise-of-the-hays-code/
Didn't know Chesterton (Father Brown) had a novel set in the future (more alternative reality?), but @gutenberg_org has it here😍
https://gutenberg.org/ebooks/20058
#Books #GKChesterton #PublicDomain
@gutenberg_org https://mastodon.social/@gutenberg_org/114278804779051650
Building on the Legacy of Project Gutenberg with Empathy.ai
Ethical Alliance
Very excited to share this empathy.ai experience with the catalogue of
@gutenberg.org.
via @ethicalallies.bsky.social
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/building-legacy-project-gutenberg-empathyai-ewr9e/
More information:
https://projectgutenberg.generativeai.empathy.ai/
A Community-Curated Nancy Drew Collection
A team of volunteer Open Librarians have worked together to organize the many Nancy Drew book series into a beautiful collection on Open Library.
by elizabethmays via @OpenLibrary
https://blog.openlibrary.org/2026/01/30/a-community-curated-nancy-drew-collection/
Carolyn Keene at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/58985
Uncommon Sense: Edward B. Foote’s Plain Home Talk (1896 edition)
An encyclopedic tome of health advice that unpicks the biases of its time.
https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/plain-home-talk/?utm_source=newsletter
U.S. Supreme Court Records and Briefs: The Arguments That Shaped America, Now Freely Available
Thanks to a generous gift of materials from the Wolf Law Library at the William & Mary Law School, and the Internet Archive’s mission to digitize and provide universal access to knowledge, we are pleased to share more than 125,000 U.S. Supreme Court records and briefs.
by Merrilee Proffitt via @internetarchive
Entering the US public domain in 2026: Geoffrey Dennis' The End of the World.
More info behind window 11 of our advent-style countdown calendar for works entering the #publicdomain on Jan 1st: https://publicdomainreview.org/features/entering-the-public-domain/2026/ #PDin2026
