Free History Books to Download in April 2026

When her mother dies, six-year-old slave girl Linda Brent is sent to the big house, where she grows up serving a gentle mistress who teaches her to read and write. But the mistress’s death brings about a sudden and terrible change in Linda’s fortunes.

Her lecherous new master torments Linda mercilessly, making her life a living hell. Unable to join her two young children in their escape to the North, Linda hides in the attic above her grandmother’s house. For seven years, she waits for the opportunity to flee North Carolina and reunite with her son and daughter in the land of freedom. But when the chance finally comes, Linda discovers she has yet more pain to endure.

Based on the true story of Harriet Jacobs’s escape from the South, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl is one of American literature’s most powerful indictments of the evils of slavery.

The classic reference on the breaking up of the Roman Empire by the Germanic peoples—from “a great historian . . . as readable and provocative as ever” (Robert Conquest).

Written by the classical scholar and historian in 1928, The Invasion of Europe by the Barbarians gives readers a broad overview of the migratory movements of the northern barbarians that brought about the end of the Roman Empire. While West Germans turned to agriculture to survive, their geographical expansion was arrested by the power of Rome, the East Germans beyond the Elbe were free to continue their wanderings. Driven by the needs of a growing population, they continued to encroach upon their neighbors, beginning a process that would shape Europe into its present form.

A brief essay on the life and genius of the prolific eighteenth-century English author, followed by a selection of his poetry, letters, and a novella.

Under the pen name “Dr. Johnson,” English writer Samuel Johnson was a biographer, essayist, lexicographer, literary critic, moralist, playwright, poet, and travel writer. The son of a bookseller, he made so many contributions to the English language that he is regarded as one of the greatest figures of eighteenth-century literature.

A look at African Americans’ contributions to the United States by the iconic leader whose life spanned from the Civil War to the civil rights movement.

The first African American to earn a doctorate from Harvard and a cofounder of the NAACP, W. E. B. Du Bois remains a towering figure in US history. In The Gift of Black Folk, he celebrates Black Americans’ struggle for equality—a battle that would continue long after slavery was abolished—and in the ongoing pursuit of a more perfect union. As explorers, laborers, soldiers, artists, slaves, freedmen, and citizens, these individuals played an essential part in the unique conglomerate that is the United States, and their remarkable, often unsung history is conveyed in this classic work.