Wanted Ebooks

If you’re interested in producing an ebook for Standard Ebooks, why not work on one of these books?

If something in this list interests you, please contact us at our mailing list for help before you start work.

If you want to suggest a different book to produce, please carefully review the kinds of work we do and don’t accept.

Add a book to this list

Patrons Circle members may submit ebooks for inclusion on this list.

Patrons Circle members periodically vote on a selection from this list to pick one ebook for immediate production. You can join the Patrons Circle to have a voice in the future of the Standard Ebooks catalog.

For your first production

If nothing on the list below interests you, you can pitch us something else you’d like to work on.

First productions should be on the shorter side (less than 100,000 words maximum) and without too many complex formatting issues like illustrations, significant endnotes, letters, poems, etc. Most short plain fiction novels fall in this category.

• Looking Backward by Edward Bellamy (link to long description of News from Nowhere

• Tom Brown’s School Days by Thomas Hughes

• Wieland by Charles Brockden Brown

• Bel Ami by Guy de Maupassant (this uncredited translation is by “The Pearson Publishing Co.”)

• Uller Uprising by H. Beam Piper

• Ralestone Luck by Andre Norton

• The Adventures of Sally by P. G. Wodehouse

• The White Feather by P. G. Wodehouse

• The Coming of Bill by P. G. Wodehouse

• The Little Nugget by P. G. Wodehouse

• Beyond Thirty aka. The Lost Continent (Beyond 1) by Edgar Rice Burroughs

• The Oakdale Affair (Mucker 3) by Edgar Rice Burroughs

• Jungle Tales of Tarzan (Tarzan 6) by Edgar Rice Burroughs

• Tarzan and the Golden Lion (Tarzan 9) by Edgar Rice Burroughs

• Tarzan and the Ant Men (Tarzan 10) by Edgar Rice Burroughs

• The Outlaw of Torn by Edgar Rice Burroughs

• Anne of the Island by L. M. Montgomery

• The Rivet in Grandfather’s Neck by James Branch Cabell

• The Line of Love by James Branch Cabell

• Robur the Conqueror Robur-le-Conquérant by Jules Verne

• A Special Correspondent Claudius Bombarnac by Jules Verne

• Privy Seal by Ford Madox Ford (Book 2 in the Fifth Queen Trilogy)

• The Fifth Queen Crowned by Ford Madox Ford (Book 3 in the Fifth Queen Trilogy)

• Bellarion the Fortunate by Rafael Sabatini

• Hunting the Grisly and Other Sketches by Theodore Roosevelt

• Outdoor Pastimes of an American Hunter by Theodore Roosevelt

• A Book-Lover’s Holidays in the Open by Theodore Roosevelt

• The Purple Land by W. H. Huson

• The Chink in the Armour by Marie Belloc Lowndes

• The Coming Race by Edward Bulwer-Lytton

• With Edged Tools by Henry Seton Merriman

• The Marrow of Tradition by Charles W. Chesnutt

• Bertram Cope’s Year by Henry Blake Fuller

• At the Mountains of Madness by H. P. Lovecraft

• The Black Moth by Georgette Heyer

• Twilight Sleep by Edith Wharton

• The Castle of Wolfenbach by Eliza Parsons

• Murder in the Maze by J. J. Connington

• The D’Arblay Mystery by R. Austin Freeman

• The Starvel Hollow Tragedy by Freeman Wills Crofts (Inspector French #3)

• An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding by David Hume

• Maria by Mary Wollstonecraft

• The Blue Lagoon by Henry De Vere Stacpoole

Moderate-difficulty productions

• The Mummy! A Tale of the Twenty-Second Century by Jane C. Loudon

• Poetry by Thomas Macaulay including Lays of Ancient Rome

• Culture and Anarchy by Matthew Arnold

• The Theory of Moral Sentiments by Adam Smith

• Hamilton by Mary P. Hamlin and George Arliss

• Early Autumn by Louis Bromfield (Pulitzer #9)

• The Argonautica by Apollonius of Rhodes, translated by Arthur S. Way

• Don Juan by Lord Byron

• Hadrian the Seventh by Frederick Rolfe (Part of the Guardian 2015 collection.)

• Memoirs of a Revolutionist by Peter Kropotkin

• Trilby by George du Maurier (#15 in Greatest Villains)

• The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Ward Radcliffe (#32 in Greatest Villains)

• Short fiction by H. Beam Piper

• Short fiction by Andre Norton

• William Meister’s Apprenticeship by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (Page scans)

• The House of the Wolflings by William Morris

• Essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson (Part 2), to be compiled into a single “Essays”

• A Voyage to Abyssinia by Jerónimo Lobo

• Short fiction by Vernon Lee (To be compiled in an omnibus “Short Fiction”)

• Poetry of Thomas Gray to be compiled in an omnibus

• Melmoth the Wanderer by Charles Maturin

• Short stories and novellas by Sheridan Le Fanu (To be compiled in an omnibus “Short Fiction”)

• David Harum by Edward Noyes Westcott

• Poetry of William McGonagall (To be compiled in an omnibus)

• The Recollections of Alexis de Tocqueville

• Women in Love by D. H. Lawrence (part of the Modern Library and BBC 2015 collections, #2 in the Brangwen Family Saga after The Rainbow)

• The Indiscreet Toys by Denis Diderot

• Maxims by François duc de La Rochefoucauld

• Works and poetry by Walter de la Mare

• Poetry by Edward Thomas

• Novels by W. S. Maugham

• The Poems of Giacomo Leopardi

• Essays and Dialogues by Giacomo Leopardi

• Mauprat by George Sand

• Chivalry by James Branch Cabell (Note: the 1921 version)

• The Cords of Vanity by James Branch Cabell

• The Fur Country: Seventy Degrees North Latitude Le Pays des fourrures by Jules Verne

• The Adventures of Captain Hatteras Voyages et aventures du capitaine Hatteras by Jules Verne

• Lady Rose’s Daughter by Mary Augusta Ward

• Short fiction and short novels of Saki (H. H. Munro); some research may be required to determine whether to produce an omnibus Short Fiction or how to divide up his stories

• Poems by Andrew Marvell to be compiled into an omnibus

• Noli Me Tángere by José Rizal, translated by Charles Derbyshire

• El filibusterismo by José Rizal, translated by Charles Derbyshire

• Demons by Fyodor Dostoevsky (Garnett translated the title as “The Possessed”)

• The Life of Jesus Critically Examined by David Strauss

• Epictetus’s “Enchiridion” and fragments as a Short Works compilation, in Thomas Wentworth Higginson’s translation, to supersede our current edition of his short works in George Long’s inferior translation

• A Joy Forever (a.k.a. The Political Economy of Art) by John Ruskin

• The Crown of Wild Olive by John Ruskin

• Munera Pulveris by John Ruskin

• Sesame and Lilies by John Ruskin

• Time and Tide by John Ruskin

• Zuñi Folk Tales by Frank Hamilton Cushing

• Short stories by Manly Wade Wellman to be compiled into a “Short Fiction” omnibus

• Norwegian Folktales, by Peter Christen Asbjørnsen and Jørgen Moe, translated by George Dasent (part 1, part 2)

• A Vindication of the Rights of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft

Advanced productions

• The Life of William Morris by J. W. Mackail (transcription required)

• An Essay Concerning Human Understanding by John Locke (Volume 2, to be produced as one ebook)

• Edward II by Christopher Marlowe (possible scans, confirm the edition first)

• Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman (See this 1913 edition for cover art)

• Utopia by Thomas Moore

• The Ramayana by Valmiki, translated by Ralph T. H. Griffith

• The Mahabharata by Vyasa, translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Vol. 2, Vol. 3, Vol. 4; as a single production; several sections are missing)

• Abie’s Irish Rose by Anne Nichols (transcription required)

• Two Treatises of Government by John Locke (Note: PG only has the 2nd treatise; transcription is required for the 1st treatise)

• The Life of Reason by George Santayana

• Skepticism and Animal Faith by George Santayana. (transcription required)

• When We Were Very Young by A. A. Milne (transcription required; research needed to see if we need a poetry omnibus)

• Pastors and Masters by Ivy Compton-Burnett (transcription required)

• Poetry by Langston Hughes. Research is required to see if we need an omnibus.

• The Memoirs of the Conquistadors by Bernal Díaz del Castillo (Volume 2)

• Saïd the Fisherman by Marmaduke Pickthall (transcription required)

• Poetry by Harry Cust (transcription required)

• The Baburnama by Ẓahīr-ud-Dīn Muhammad Bābur

• The Perennial Bachelor, by Anne Parrish. (Harper Novel Prize winner 1925; transcription required)

• The Revenger’s Tragedy, by Thomas Middleton. Mistakenly attributed to Cyril Tourneur. (#10 in Greatest Villains)

• The Trickster of Seville and the Stone Guest, by Tirso de Molina. English translations in PD are difficult to find; scans of a 1923 translation are available. (#24 in Greatest Villains)

• The Peasants by Władysław Reymont (transcription required; see Winter, Summer, Spring)

• Short stories by Algernon Blackwood (To be compiled in an omnibus “Short Fiction”)

• The Odes of Horace

• Poems by Trumbull Stickney (transcription required)

• Cyrano de Bergerac, by Edmond Rostand, translated by Brian Hooker. This is a 1923 publication, transcription is required

• The Life of Johnson by James Boswell. George Birkbeck Hill’s unabridged edition was published in six volumes, all of which are on PG; the link leads to the first volume

• The Betrothed by Alessandro Manzoni; there is a 1924 translation that must be considered, and will require transcription

• Short fiction by Jack London, to be compiled in a “Short Fiction” omnibus. We already have three short story compilations that must be rolled in to this one. See this bibliography spreadsheet.

• Short stories by W. W. Jacobs (We already have Lady of the Barge; do we need an omnibus?)

• Poetry by Mark Akenside (make sure this collection is a complete corpus of his works.)

• The Life of Lazarillo de Tormes by Anonymous

• The Journal of a Disappointed Man by W. N. P. Barbellion

• The Nun Ensign by Catalina de Erauso (transcription required)

• The Complete Essays of Michel de Montaigne

• The Complete Letters to his Son by Philip Dormer Stanhope

• A Treatise of Human Nature by David Hume

• Essays of Elia by Charles Lamb

• Creative Evolution by Henri Bergson

• Aesthetical Essays by Friedrich Schiller

• The Analects by Confucius

• The Varieties of Religious Experience by William James

• The World as Will and Idea by Arthur Schopenhauer (Vol. 2, Vol. 3)

• Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville (Volume 2, together as a single ebook)

• The Complete Angler by Izaak Walton (Note: the Wikisource transcription will be easier to work with than the PG transcription.)

• The Thirteen by Honoré de Balzac

• How the Other Half Lives by Jacob Riis

• The Anatomy of Melancholy by Robert Burton

• Short story collections by P. G. Wodehouse (Note that we already have all Jeeves, School, Mulliner, and Ukridge Stories completed. A spreadsheet is available that lists the rest.)

• Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes

• The Memoirs of Casanova

• Poetry by St. John of the Cross (Transcription required.)

• Poetry by John Clare (Careful research required to deduplicate this large corpus.)

• Ulysses by James Joyce (Part of the Modern Library and Guardian 2015 100 best novels collections)

• The Autobiography of Thomas Jefferson, by Thomas Jefferson

• Gargantua and Pantagruel by François Rabelais (Confirm this is the Ozell 1737 revision. Should we prefer the Wallis 1897 revision?)

• Poetry by Robert Burns, probably in an omnibus

• Poetry by E. A. Robinson

• Fors Clavigera by John Ruskin (some transcription may be required: as of September 2022, 5 out of 8 volumes are available on PG)

• Sinbad: A Romance by Cyril Kay Scott (Transcription required.)

• Blind Mice by Cyril Kay Scott (Transcription required.)

• The Travels of Marco Polo by Rustichello da Pisa, translated by Henry Yule (volume 1, volume 2)

Jules Verne

Verne has a complex publication and translation history. Please review these notes before starting any Verne books.

• As of 2023, 20,000 Leagues under the Seas does not have an acceptable public domain translation.

• Master of the World has two PD translations, one from 1911 and one from 1914. The 1911 version is bad, and the 1914 by Cranstoun Metcalfe version is preferred; but, as of 2023, there are no transcriptions or page scans for the 1914 version.

Uncategorized lists

• Entries in the James Tait Black Memorial Prize list

• English translations from the Prix Goncourt list

• Entries in the Hawthornden Prize list

• Public domain entries in the Newcastle Forgotten Fantasy Library

• Public domain entries in the Guardian’s top 100 novels of all time list

• Public domain entries in Le Mondes’s 100 Books of the Century

• Public domain entries in Pulitzer Prize for Drama

• Public domain entries in Pulitzer Prize for Fiction

• Public domain entries in the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series (Note that not all of these are in the U.S. public domain)

• Public domain entries in this Spreadsheet of plays that have appeared on lists of the “Best Plays of All Time.”