The University of Michigan has recently made some of the first books ever printed online, including texts from the first printed editions of Shakespeare, Chaucer and Milton and more than 25,000 other manually transcribed texts from the period between 1473 and 1700. These are all available free here.
This is not just literature; the works include books of history, philosophy, mathematics and science and many other fields like gardening and cooking. This is the first phase in the Early English Books Online-Text Creation Partnership. Another 40,000 texts may be released as part of this project by the end of the decade.
There are no restrictions for anyone to read, reproduce, distribute and otherwise use these texts.
