Public Domain Day 2026 in Literature
Read 20 of the best books entering the public domain in 2026
Happy Public Domain Day!
Around the world, people celebrate Public Domain Day on January 1, the day in which copyright expires on some older works and they enter the public domain in many different countries.
In the U.S. Constitution, copyright terms were meant to be very limited in order to “promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts.” The first copyright act, written in 1790 by the founding fathers themselves, set the term to be up to twenty-eight years.
But since then, powerful corporations have repeatedly extended the length of copyright to promote not the progress of society, but their profit. The result is that today in the U.S., work only enters the public domain ninety-five years after publication—locking our culture away for nearly a century.
2019 was the year in which new works were finally scheduled to enter the public domain, ending this long, corporate-dictated cultural winter. And as that year drew closer, it became clear that these corporations wouldn’t try to extend copyright yet again—making it the first year in almost a hundred years in which a significant amount of art and literature once again entered the U.S. public domain, free for anyone in the U.S. to read, use, share, remix, build upon, and enjoy.
Ever since then, January 1 has been celebrated as Public Domain Day, the day in which the next year’s crop of books, movies, music, and artwork graduates into the public domain. At Standard Ebooks, we’ve prepared some of the year’s biggest literary hits for you to read this January 1.
On January 1, 2026, books published in 1930 enter the U.S. public domain.
This includes legendary books by William Faulkner, Franz Kafka, Agatha Christie, and Langston Hughes. In addition, The Maltese Falcon, perhaps the best-known noir book—and film—of all time, and books by Evelyn Waugh, Dorothy L. Sayers, and more, enter the U.S. public domain, becoming free for anyone in the U.S. to read, use, and re-use.
Our friends at the Public Domain Review have written about some other things that enter the public domain this year, too.
These past few months at Standard Ebooks, our volunteers have been working hard to prepare a selection of the books published in 1930 in advance of Public Domain Day. We’re excited to finally be able to share these 20 new free ebooks with you!
[](https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/franz-kafka/the-castle/willa-muir_edwin-muir)[](https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/dashiell-hammett/the-maltese-falcon)[](https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/william-faulkner/as-i-lay-dying)[](https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/langston-hughes/not-without-laughter)[](https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/agatha-christie/the-murder-at-the-vicarage)[](https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/dorothy-l-sayers/strong-poison)[](https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/evelyn-waugh/vile-bodies)[](https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/margaret-ayer-barnes/years-of-grace)[](https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/e-h-young/miss-mole)[](https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/stella-benson/the-faraway-bride)[](https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/geoffrey-dennis/the-end-of-the-world)[](https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/arthur-ransome/swallows-and-amazons)[](https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/t-s-eliot/poetry)[](https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/daphne-du-maurier/short-fiction)[](https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/edna-ferber/cimarron)[](https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/agatha-christie/giants-bread)[](https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/carolyn-keene/the-secret-of-the-old-clock)[](https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/carolyn-keene/the-hidden-staircase)[](https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/carolyn-keene/the-bungalow-mystery)[](https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/carolyn-keene/the-mystery-at-lilac-inn)