Public-Domain Selection

There are heaps of forgotten books in the world. Admittedly, most of them deserve being lost in time, but some are quite good and it's one of my greatest pleasures to bring them back to attention. Therefore I review every once and again books which are in the public domain in countries like Austria where copyright automatically expires 70 years after the author’s death. But don't rejoice too soon! If you want or need to read a translation, it may still be protected by the translator's copyright (!) and you won't find it on any of the legal sites offering free ebooks.

Here's a list of public domain books on this blog (all links to my reviews of English editions):

• Marguerite Audoux: Marie-Claire (1910), translated as Marie Claire
  
• Vicente Blanco Ibáñez: The Naked Lady (1906), original Spanish title: La maja desnuda, also translated as Woman Triumphant
• Anne Brontë: Agnes Grey (1847)
• John Buchan: Midwinter (1923)
• Elizabeth Cooper: My Lady of the Chinese Courtyard (1914) 
• Grazia Deledda: La chiesa della solitudine (1936), translated as The Church of Solitude 
• José Maria de Eça de Queirós: A Ilustre Casa de Ramires (1900), translated as The Illustrious House of Ramires
• Dorothy Edwards: Winter Sonata (1928)
• Anatole France: L'île de pingouins (1908), translated as Penguin Island
• John Galsworthy: The Dark Flower (1913)
• André Gide: Les Caves du Vatican (1914), translated as Lafcadio's Adventures  
• Maxim Gorky:  Дело Артамоновых (1925), translated as The Artamonov Business, as Decadence, and as The Artamonovs 
• Elisabeth von Heyking: Die Briefe, die ihn nicht erreichten (1903), translated as The Letters Which Never Reached Him 
• Winifred Holtby: South Riding (1936) 
• Else Jerusalem: Der heilige Skarabäus (1908), translated as The Red House
• James Joyce: Dubliners (1914)
• Selma Lagerlöf: Kejsarn av Portugallien (1914), translated as The Emperor of Portugallia
• Katherine Mansfield: The Garden Party and Other Stories (1922)
• Mori Ōgai: 雁 (1911-13), translated as: The Wild Geese
• Irène Némirovsky: L’affaire Courilof (1933), translated as The Courilof Affair 
• Luigi Pirandello: Uno, nessuno e centomila (1926), translated as One, No One, and One Hundred Thousand 
• Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin: Пиковая дама (1834), translated as The Queen of Spades
• Joseph Roth: Radetzkymarsch (1932), translated as The Radetzky March
• Arthur Schnitzler: Fräulein Else (1924), translated as Fräulein Else
• Annemarie Schwarzenbach: Lyrische Novelle (1933), translated as Lyric Novella
• Matilde Serao: Ella non rispose (1914), translated as Souls Divided
• Italo Svevo: La coscenza di Zeno (1923), translated as Zeno's Conscience and previously The Confessions of Zeno
  
• Miguel de Unamuno: Abel Sánchez (1917); La Locura del Doctor Montarco (1904); San Manuel Bueno, mártir (1931), translated as and combined in Abel Sanchez and Other Stories
• Sigrid Undset: Jenny (1911), translated as Jenny    
• Annie Vivanti: The Devourers (1910), rewritten in Italian as I divoratori (1911)
• Edith Wharton: The House of Mirth (1905) 
• Viginia Woolf: Jacob's Room (1922)
• Countess Zanardi Landi: The Secret of an Empress (1914)
• Stefan Zweig: Vierundzwanzig Stunden aus dem Leben einer Frau (1926) , translated as Twenty-Four Hours in the Life of a Woman