Science eBooks
Free classics about science, and the science fiction that grew out of it. Tap a cover to read it here, page by page.
These books come from Standard Ebooks, volunteers who carefully edit and beautifully format classics whose copyright has run out, and give them away free. Their site has hundreds more, to download for a phone, e-reader, or computer.
Science and nature
Written by the scientists and naturalists themselves.
The Voyage of the Beagle Charles Darwin, 1839 Charles Darwin, aged 22, sails around the world for five years, collecting fossils, birds, and beetles, and noticing the things that later led to his theory of evolution.
The Origin of Species Charles Darwin, 1859 Darwin’s own explanation of how living things change over many generations by natural selection: the book that changed biology.
Wild Animals I Have Known Ernest Thompson Seton, 1898 True-to-life stories of a wolf, a crow, a rabbit, a fox, and other wild animals, by a naturalist who watched them closely, with his own drawings.
My First Summer in the Sierra John Muir, 1911 A young John Muir spends a summer in the mountains of California with a flock of sheep, and writes down everything he sees: plants, rocks, glaciers, and animals.
A Tangled Tale Lewis Carroll, 1885 Ten funny little stories, each hiding a math puzzle, by the author of Alice in Wonderland, who was also a mathematician. The answers are at the end.
Explorers
True stories from the coldest places on Earth.
The Worst Journey in the World Apsley Cherry-Garrard, 1922 Three men walk through the Antarctic winter night, at −60 °C, to collect emperor penguin eggs for science: a true story from Scott’s last expedition.
South! Ernest Shackleton, 1919 Shackleton’s ship is crushed by the ice of Antarctica, and his crew must find a way home across the frozen sea and the stormiest ocean on Earth.
A Negro Explorer at the North Pole Matthew Henson, 1912 Matthew Henson, the African American explorer who travelled with Robert Peary, tells how they reached the North Pole in 1909, and how the Inuit helped them survive. (The title uses the words of its time.)
Science fiction
The classics that imagined time machines, trips to the Moon, and robots, long before they were real (or possible).
Journey to the Center of the Earth Jules Verne, 1864 A professor, his nephew, and their guide climb down into a volcano in Iceland, and find a whole world underground.
From the Earth to the Moon Jules Verne, 1865 A club fires three people at the Moon from a giant cannon, a hundred years before Apollo.
Round the Moon Jules Verne, 1870 The sequel: the three travellers circle the Moon, and Verne works out what they would see and feel on the way.
The Time Machine H. G. Wells, 1895 An inventor travels hundreds of thousands of years into the future, and on to the end of the world. The book that gave us the words “time machine”.
The Invisible Man H. G. Wells, 1897 A scientist finds a way to make his body invisible, using the science of light, and finds he cannot turn himself back.
The War of the Worlds H. G. Wells, 1898 Martians land in England: the story that started a century of alien invasion stories.
The First Men in the Moon H. G. Wells, 1901 An inventor makes a material that blocks gravity, and flies to the Moon, where something lives below the surface.
The Lost World Arthur Conan Doyle, 1912 Explorers find dinosaurs still alive on a plateau in South America.
The Maracot Deep Arthur Conan Doyle, 1929 A scientist’s steel diving cage is cut loose in the deepest part of the Atlantic, and the crew find they are not alone down there.
Frankenstein Mary Shelley, 1818 A young scientist builds a creature and brings it to life, then runs from what he has made. Often called the first science fiction novel.
R.U.R. Karel Čapek, 1920 A play about a factory that makes artificial workers: the story that gave the world the word “robot”.
Little Fuzzy H. Beam Piper, 1962 A miner on a faraway planet makes friends with a small furry animal, and starts to wonder if the “Fuzzies” are people.
Short Science Fiction Isaac Asimov, 1950s Short stories by Isaac Asimov, a biochemistry professor who became one of the most famous science fiction writers of all.