Below find a collection of more than 40 websites where you download thousands of books, poems, and texts for free. We divided the sites into both the legal ones and the ones not so legal (have some grey area).

Legal Sites: These ones are completely legal.

1. Project Gutenberg: This famous site has over 27,000 free books online (in fact, a lot of the books listed in subsequent sites here can be found at Project Gutenberg – yet we list the others as users may prefer different site’s interfaces, while the others below also help tailor searches for specific types of books or plays).
2. Classic Book Library: Genres here include historical fiction, history, science fiction, mystery, romance and children’s literature, but they’re all classics.
3. Classic Bookshelf: This site has put classic novels online, from Charles Dickens to Charlotte Bronte.
4. The Online Books Page: The University of Pennsylvania hosts this book search and database.
5. Page by Page Books: Find books by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and H.G. Wells, as well as speeches from George W. Bush on this site.
6. Planet eBook: Download free classic literature titles here, from Dostoevsky to D.H. Lawrence to Joseph Conrad.
7. Classic Reader: Here you can read Shakespeare, young adult fiction and more.
8. Read Print: From George Orwell to Alexandre Dumas to George Eliot to Charles Darwin, this online library is stocked with the best classics.
9. Online Library of Literature: Find full and unabridged texts of classic literature, including the Bronte sisters, Mark Twain and more.
10. The Spectator Project: Montclair State University’s project features full-text, online versions of The Spectator and The Tatler.
11. Bartleby: Bartleby has much more than just the classics, but its collection of anthologies and other important novels made it famous.
12. Bibliomania: This site has more than 2,000 classic texts, plus study guides and reference books.
13. Fiction.us has a huge selection of novels, including works by Lewis Carroll, Willa Cather, Sherwood Anderson, Flaubert, George Eliot, F. Scott Fitzgerald and others.
14. Free Classic Literature: Find British authors like Shakespeare and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, plus other authors like Jules Verne, Mark Twain, and more.
15. The Complete Works of William Shakespeare: MIT has made available all of Shakespeare’s comedies, tragedies, and histories
16. Plays: Read Pygmalion, Uncle Vanya or The Playboy of the Western World
17. Read Book Online: Here you can read plays by Chekhov, Thomas Hardy, Ben Jonson, Shakespeare, Edgar Allan Poe and others.
18. Plays Online: This site catalogues “all the plays [they] know about that are available in full-text versions online for free.”
19. Baen Free Library: Find books by Scott Gier, Keith Laumer and others.
20. ProPlay: This site has children’s plays, comedies, dramas and musicals.
21. Free Online Novels: Here you can find Christian novels, fantasy and graphic novels, adventure books, horror books and more.
22. Google Poetry: Google Books has a large selection of poetry, from The Canterbury Tales to Beowulf to Walt Whitman.
23. The Internet Book Database of Fiction: This forum features fantasy and graphic novels, anime, J.K. Rowling and more.
24. Poem Hunter: Find free poems, lyrics and quotations on this site.
25. Foxglove: This British site has free novels, satire and short stories.
26. Poetry: This list includes “The Raven,” “O Captain! My Captain!” and “The Ballad of Bonnie and Clyde.”
27. The Literature Network: This site features forums, a copy of The King James Bible, and over 3,000 short stories and poems.
28. Complete Classics: Rudyard Kipling, Allen Ginsberg and Alfred Lord Tennyson are all featured here.
29. Public Bookshelf: Find romance novels, mysteries and more.
30. Prize-winning books online: Use this directory to connect to full-text copies of Newbery winners, Nobel Prize winners and Pulitzer winners.
31. Free Novels Online and Free Online Cyber-Books: This list contains mostly fantasy books.
32. The Road to Romance: This website has books by Patricia Cornwell and other romance novelists.
33. John T. Cullen: Read short stories from John T. Cullen here.
34. Free Online Novels: These novels are fully online and range from romance to religious fiction to historical fiction.
35. Authorama: Books here are pulled from Google Books and more. You’ll find history books, novels and more.
36. Banned Books: Here you can follow links of banned books to their full text online.
37. SF and Fantasy Books Online: Books here include Arabian Nights, Aesop’s Fables and more.
38. Get Free Ebooks: This site’s largest collection includes fiction books.
39. Pink Poems: On this site, you can download free poetry ebooks.
40. Famous Poetry Online: Read limericks, love poetry, and poems by Robert Browning, Emily Dickinson, John Donne, Lord Byron and others.
41. Many Books: Download mysteries and other books for your iPhone or eBook reader here.
42. A Celebration of Women Writers: The University of Pennsylvania’s page for women writers includes Newbery winners.
43. Poems and Quotes: Read poems by Maya Angelou, William Blake, Sylvia Plath and more.
44. World eBook Library: This monstrous collection includes classics, encyclopedias, children’s books and a lot more.
45. DailyLit: DailyLit has everything from Moby Dickto the more recent phenomenon, Skinny Bitch.
46. Open Library: This one contains thousands of free classical texts. Open Library provides online access to many public domain and out-of-print books.

The not so legal sites:

Here you can search and download all manner of books, research papers and standards:

Library Genesis

Library Genesis is a database of over 2 million (yes, million) papers, articles, entire journals, and non-fiction books. They also have comics, fiction books, and books in many non–english languages. To download research papers at Library Genesis, copy-paste the paper title to the search box and ensure you select “Scientific Articles” before you click search.

Alternative links:

http://gen.lib.rus.ec
http://libgen.pw
http://libgen.is

How to download ebooks from Library Genesis (libgen) for free

Electronic Library

The electronic library is a store for free electronic books and papers. Download link: https://b-ok.cc/