63 Places For Free History eBooks Online

Introduction

This is a listing of 63 sites that legally offer free ebooks on History.

There is a separate page for the free audiobooks in this genre

• Free History Audiobooks Online

All of these sites listed have content that is legal for them to distribute.  If you find that any site listed is offering content that can not be legally transferred, please let me know in the comments below. 

This list is not comprehensive and if you know of any other sites please post in the comments below or at our forums. 

A comprehensive alphabetical listing of free books for reading or listening can be found on these pages:

• 714 Places For Free Books Online
• 168 Places for Free Audio Books Online

For a complete listing of the free ebook and audiobook pages here at Gizmo's, see

• Millions of Free eBooks and Audio Books Online

There will be other books on History at the sites listed there, but they are not categorized at the sites.

Libraries are also an excellent source for reading and listening materials regarding history.  To find out more information on your local library, the links here may help:  Library Information

Free History eBooks Online

2020k (History)  Large collection of links.  Available in varying formats.  Note:  Most of the links here are working, but there are a number that lead to BookRags, which are not free anymore.  Unfortunately, there is no way of telling where the link goes until you click the link.  Since they did fix the issue with archive.org links, hopefully they will fix this. Thanks to Marie99 for pointing this out.

Amazon has a good amount of free ebooks listed in its best sellers, whcih also lists the most popular free offerings.  You can also click on the subcategories of history for further free ebooks.  The page on Free Books For The KIndle (Legally) has more info to find free ebooks at Amazon.

Arthur's Classic Novels (History)  Interesting collection available for online viewing.

AuthorStand has about 50 works in its Non-fiction History category available for free download in PDF.  These are unique works from unpublished authors.  Free registration is required.

Bibliotastic has 3 free ebooks in its History category, available for free reading online without registration.  Free registration also allows for free download in EPUB, MOBI (Kindle) and PDF.

BookYards (History)  Over a thousand books available for download in PDF.

Bored.com (History) has 2035 books available for online viewing.  Separated into countries and world history categories and then searchable by title. 

ChestofBooks (History)  3 unusual books for online reading.

ClassicHistoryBooks offers 6 unique works for online viewing.

Classicly I have not figured out how to show a complete listing of the books here.  If you scroll over book names in the introcutory paragraph, you will find links to a number of free classic novels.  The free book listing only contains 4 works.  In any event, there are about 10 classic historical novels available for download in PDF or KINDLE.  Thanks to Tyler G for this suggestion.

DailyLit offers 31 historical works for free.

DigiLibraries has over 1400 free books in its History category.  The vast majority are available for free download in PDF, MOBI and EPUB as well as free reading online.  I did find one book at the site that was only available in PDF.  Seems to be a mix of classic works and some unique newer entries.  A very nice collection.

eBooks @Adelaide offers a good sized collection of works, sorted by author/chronologically, for free download in MOBI (Kindle) and EPUB as well as free reading online.  These range from 500BC to 1900AD.

eBooksDirectory has 152 free historical novels in 8 categories.  These are links off site, so download and viewing options vary.

eBooksInternational has 15 free ebooks in its history classics category available for free download in PDF.

eBooks on Everything has a small (6 book) collection that has some interesting entries thaat I did not see elsewhere.  All are available for free download in PDF without registration.

ElegantSolutions has an interesting collection of close to 100 free historical books.  All are available for free download in LIT (Microsoft Reader).  Most are classic works, but there are a few modern works mixed in.

ePubBooks has a small collection of free classic historical (non-fiction) novels.  All are available for download in ePUB.  There are links to other download formats, but some of those are pay sites.  They also have a historical fiction section, which contains a larger selection of free novels.

Fobooko has 16 free novels in its History (nonfiction) category.  These are all available for free reading online without registration. Free registration is required to download in a variety of formats, including KINDLE and EPUB.

FeedBooks  offers 42 free ebooks in their Public Domain (History) category as well as 2 additional free ebooks in their Original Books (History) collections. 

FreeBook-co-UK has 7 free historical ebooks.

Free Books has two free ebooks in its History category.  These re available for download in TXT, MOBI, PDF and EPUB.  There is a 15 second delay to the download screen with an advertisement that may offer a download.  Do not download, the download of the book file you selected will start automatically after the 15 seconds.

Free Books Hub UK monitors Amazon (UK) for limited time free ebook offerings with a History tag.

Freebook Sifter   lists both recent limited time offers and always free ebooks from Amazon.  Ranks listings by average user rating.   This link is to the listings for History and there are around 3000 free ebooks listed..  Thanks to Rob Schifreen of our site TSA for this link.

Free eBooks Daily monitors Amazon (USA UK CA) for its limited time free offerings in its History genre.

FreeeBooks.net (History)  11 books available for download in PDF.

Free eTextbooks Online has a large collection of links to 53 free texttbooks online in History.  Links are offsite so download and viewing options vary.

GenealogySearch  offers historical and genealogy books from around the world.

GetFreeEBooks has 34 unique entries in its history category.  These are unique entries not found elsewhere.  The download and viewing options vary.

GetFreePdfBooks has 1o free works in its history category.  These link offsite, so download and viewing options vary.

Globusz (History)  12 books available for online viewing or download

GoogleBookSearch (History)  811 books available for online viewing.

Historical Text Archive has 74 free eboolks of history covering various continents.  These are all available for free reading online.  Click on the "TOC" (Table of Contents) link on the book page to read .

Hundred Zeros UK monitors Amazon (UK) for free ebooks in the History genre.

InternationalWorldHistoryProject has a very good size collection of free historical novels for download.  Some of the downloads are in EXE.  I usually shy away from such offerings, but I checked these and they are clean.  They also offer some works that require the TK3 reader, which I have previously checked as clean.  Further down the page are a good number of PDF downloads.

Kellscraft  has about 30 free works in its History collection available for free reading online.

Kobo has over 1 million free ebooks in EPUB, but they can be hard to find.   Easiest way is to conduct a search and then choose "free only" in the filter.  This link is to a search for "history" and has almost 95,000 free ebooks.  You can try some other variations that may show more in this genre.  Free registration is required.  I have received no spam in the several months since I registered.

Lit2Go   The University of South Florida maintains a collection of free audio works.  This link is to their History collection of 6 free audiobooks.  All are also available for free download in PDF without registration.

LoudLit  has The Gettysburg Address and The Declaration of Independence available for free reading online without registration. (as well as audio versions).

ManyBooks (History)  3403 books available for download in a variety of formats.

meBooks is a pay site that does offer a decent collection of free history books regarding New Zealand.  The link here will not show any free novels, but if you click on one of the 4 sub categories and sort "price low to high", you will see a number of free novels in each subcategory.  These all are available for free download after free registration.

MemoWare (History)  1122 works available for download in a variety of formats

Munsey's (History) 1437 books available for download in a large variety of formats.

Munsey'sMobi (History) A huge collection of free classic historical novels.  These appear to be different entries thatn the main Munsey's site above.  They offer HTM and XML as well as download in PDF, PRC.  The vast majority also offer ePUB download.

Nauticus has an interesting collection of historical works that deal with maritime history.  Some are fictional and there is also the 18 volume set of A General History & Collection of Voyages and Travels.  All are available for free download in PDF without registration.

oBooko offers 18 free ebooks in its History Books category.  All are available for free download in PDF and some also in MOBI (Kindle) and EPUB.  Free registration is required.  I have received no spam from them having been registered here for over a year.

OnlineBooksPage has a large collection of links to online resources for free history books.  Scroll down to choose from categories.

OnlineBooks4Free (History)  106 books available for online viewing or download

Online Library of Liberty (History) over a hundred works available for online viewing or download in pdf or ebooks pdf.

PennsylvaniaOnlineHistoryBooks provides links to online books regarding the history of Pennsylvania.

PublicBookShelf (History)  6 books available for online viewing.

Saylor.org has a wide variety of courses and textbooks in History available for free.  All the ones I checked were offered for free download in PDF, but download and viewing options may vary as these are links offsite.  Also a section on Art History.

Smashwords has a large collection of free writings in its History (nonfiction) category.  These vary from short stories to novels.  All are available in a wide variety of download formats for free, including PDF, EPUB, MOBI (Kindle) and LIT.  Registratiopn is not required to download.

Talebooks has about 100 free works in its History genre available for free download in PDF without registration.

The Book Depository has 1082 free ebooks in its History & Archaeology category available for free download in PDF without registration.  You will see prices listed for each of the books, but that is for hard copy.  Look for the green Get Free eBook to click on and then the green Download Free eBook PDF on the book listing page.

The Global Text Projecthas one free ebook in the History category available for free reading online without registration.

TheHistoricalArchive has the two volume work, Stories of the Civil War, available for download or viewing in PDF.  This is mostly a pay site and this is the only free entry for now.  The free offering does change from time to time and there is no registration required to obtain this free offer.

The Knowledge Den has a large collection of free ebooks in PDF format.  There are two sections that are further divided, Ancient History, Archaeology & Mythology and Esoteric, Mystical & the Arts.  Interesting collection with some unique items.  No registration needed.

Universal Digital Library has a large collection of free historical works from around the world.  These are available in TIFF, PDF HTML, TXT and RTF.

Web-Books has 63 classic historical novels available in its history category.  These are all available to read free online or for download in WEB and WEB database.  Viewing the downloads requires their Web Viewer (free) which is clean as far as I can tell

WHSmith has 581 free books in its history category.  These all seem to link to Kobo, where free registration is required for download in EPUB or PDF.

WikiSource has a very large collection of free classic works in its World History collection as well as its American History collection available for free online reading.  Only the works listed in blue are available, the ones in red are not.

WorldWideSchool  has 210 novels in its History category, which is nicely divided into many sub-categories, available for online viewing.