With the ever increasing popularity of ebooks, did you ever wonder who actually created the electronic book? A visit to Project Gutenberg revealed to me that ebooks were invented back in 1971 by Michael Hart. Hart also created the Project Gutenberg website, the first producer of free ebooks online.

Thanks to tens of thousands of volunteers, there are over 20,000 free ebooks featured at the Project Gutenberg website. These books are available to be downloaded for free because their copyrights have expired in the United States. As a result, visitors to Project Gutenberg have access to thousand of valuable books that can be immediately downloaded and read at no cost to the user.

To make fine literature accessible around the world, the ebooks featured at Project Gutenberg are available in multiple languages including English, Spanish, Italian, Chinese, Greek, Hungarian, German, Korean, Dutch and many more. You can search for the book you want or link to the top 10 books and authors to see what other people are reading most frequently. To stay abreast of new additions and information about Project Gutenberg, you can subscribe to their weekly and monthly newsletters and join their mailing list.

Although the service at Project Gutenberg is free, they encourage volunteers to proofread the ebooks as well as donations to support their ongoing literary efforts. This website is an incredible free resource for people who may not have access to a library or resources to purchase the books of their choice.

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