URLs of online electronic texts for classic detective fiction.
I would like a comprehensive list of all the out-of-copyright classic
detective fiction currently (December 2002) available for free as
electronic texts or ebooks through the World Wide Web. The list should
show the URL, the name of the author, their birth and death dates and
the date of first publication if possible.
By 'out-of-copyright' I mean legally accessible from at least one
country, bearing in mind that copyright laws differ throughout the
world.
By 'classic' I mean 'written before 1960 by authors who have appeared
in reference books and histories of the detective story'
By 'detective fiction' I mean books and stories where the plot rests
primarily on the solution by deductive rational means of a mystery
associated with the commission of a crime - usually murder. This is
meant to exclude thrillers, romances with a mystery sub-plot, true
crime stories, fiction about crimes rather than their solution, and
fiction with occult or supernatural solutions to mysteries.
You can assume that I know about the major sources Project Gutenberg,
Gutenberg Australia and Gaslight, so one reference to each of those is
all that is necessary. |