Why these books are free
When a book's copyright runs out it enters the public domain: anyone may copy it, read it aloud and share it. That covers most books written before the 1930s, which is where the classics live: Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, the Brontës, Mary Shelley, Arthur Conan Doyle, Leo Tolstoy, Herman Melville.
The rules differ by country. In the UK and most of Europe a book becomes public domain 70 years after its author died. Project Gutenberg and LibriVox follow United States law, so now and then a book that is free there is still protected where you live.
Where the audio and the text come from
- LibriVox: volunteers around the world read public-domain books aloud and give their recordings to the public domain. The Internet Archive hosts them. Popular books often have several readings, by one reader or many.
- Project Gutenberg: the oldest free ebook library, with tens of thousands of public-domain books proofread by volunteers.
- Wolne Lektury and other free national catalogues: openly licensed books in other languages, Polish first among them.
Each of these is a website you can use directly. What they don't do on their own is keep the audiobook and the text together.
Listening and reading at once
Narrate is a free iPhone app that puts the two together. It matches each LibriVox reading with the Gutenberg ebook of the same book, then listens to the audio on your iPhone and lines the words up with it. As the book plays, the words already read stay dark, the word being said is bold, and the rest waits lighter. Tap a sentence and the audio jumps there.
Nothing is uploaded to do this, and there is no account. The text is made a few chapters ahead of you, so the first chapter of a new book takes a little while and you can listen meanwhile.
How to start
- Install Narrate on an iPhone with iOS 26 or later. It opens on Discover, a shelf of free classics, with books in your iPhone's language near the top.
- Tap a book and choose one of its readings. Each reader is named, so you can try another voice if one doesn't suit you.
- Press Play. The book starts while it downloads.
- Open the player and swipe to Text to read along.
Good books to start with
- Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen: short chapters and dialogue that reads aloud beautifully.
- The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Arthur Conan Doyle: twelve stories, each one a sitting.
- A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens: a few hours from start to finish.
- Frankenstein, Mary Shelley: often set for study, and easier to follow when you can hear it.
Questions
Are free audiobooks from LibriVox legal?
Yes. LibriVox volunteers record books that are in the public domain in the United States and give their recordings to the public domain too. The Internet Archive hosts them and lets anyone download them.
Can I get free audiobooks with the text on screen?
Yes. Narrate, a free iPhone app, plays LibriVox audiobooks with the matching Project Gutenberg ebook on screen, the words following the voice. It makes the read-along on the iPhone.
Why isn't a recent book free?
Only books whose copyright has run out are public domain. For recent books, a shop that sells audiobooks without copy protection, such as Libro.fm, works with Narrate: add the files with the ebook and it makes the read-along too.
Are the readings any good?
They vary, because they are made by volunteers. Narrate lists the readings of each book with the best first, and can reduce background noise and lift the voice on older recordings.
Meantime Studio · 17 October 2026 · Narrate is not made by or affiliated with LibriVox, Project Gutenberg, the Internet Archive or Wolne Lektury.