Owners of the Amazon Kindle e-book device will be able to view the books, including their original typeface and illustrations, of famous works by Charles Dickens, Jane Austen and Thomas Hardy, as well as thousands of more obscure authors.
Printed paperback copies of the first editions, including Dickens’s Bleak House and Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, will also be available for the public to order from Amazon for around £15.
Original copies of works by Austen and Dickens typically cost at least £250.
Most of the books that are currently available to download on the Kindle are by contemporary authors because they are the most profitable for publishers.
While some other services, such as Google Books, offer out-of-copyright works for free download, the library’s e-book publishing project, which is funded by Microsoft, will make first-editions available for free download for the first time.
“Freeing historic books from the shelves has the potential to revolutionise access to the world’s greatest library resources,” said Lynne Brindley, chief executive of the British Library.
The library’s ebook publishing project, funded by Microsoft, the computer giant, is the latest move in the mounting online battle over the future of books.
While some other services, such as Google Books, offer out-of-copyright works to be downloaded for free, users of the British Library service will be able to read from pages in the original books in the library’s collection.
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