Free Fiction Ebooks You Can Read Online Right Now
Every book in this guide is a free fiction ebook you can open in your browser and start reading right now — no purchase, no sample limit. The catalogue's free shelf runs from Homer's two foundational epics to E. W. Hornung's three Raffles collections, and each of the five titles below is listed simply as free to read. Which free fiction ebooks are the classic epics to start with? Two of the five are the oldest things on the shelf, and they are opposites in mood. The Iliad stays in one place, one quarrel, one terrible stretch of a war. The Odyssey travels — shipwreck, captivity, a household under siege — and ends where its hero has been trying to get all along. The Iliad Composed in archaic Greek some three thousand years ago and attributed to the poet Homer, The Iliad is one of the two foundational epics of Western literature and, by the catalogue's own reckoning, the first and greatest of all war poems. Its method is unusually strict: it takes a single theme — the wrath of Achilles, announced in the poem's very first word — and holds to it through a few terrible weeks in the tenth and final year of the siege of Troy. The engine of the story is a quarrel. Agamemnon, the supreme Greek commander, seizes Briseis, the war-prize of Achilles, and the army's greatest fighter withdraws from battle in fury, praying for his own side to be beaten. They are. The Trojans, led by the noble Hector, drive the Greeks back to their ships and the sea. Only when Achilles' beloved companion Patroclus is killed by Hector does he return — pride turned to grief, and grief to terrible rage — to kill Hector before the walls of Troy and drag his body in the dust. Who it suits: readers who want to see where war stories come from, and who don't mind a book that stays with one subject until it has exhausted it. If you'd rather have a faster, more varied journey, The Odyssey is the friendlier door. The Odyssey Attributed to Homer and composed in archaic Greek around three thousand years ago, The Odyssey is the other foundational epic of Western literature and the greatest of all stories of homecoming. Ten years after the fall of Troy, the cunning Greek hero Odysseus still has not reached his island kingdom of Ithaca. He has lost his ships and every comrade; the sea-god Poseidon keeps him from home; and a goddess holds him captive, offering him immortality if he will only stay. Far away in Ithaca, a crowd of arrogant suitors devours his household and presses his faithful wife, Penelope, to remarry — she holds them off by her wits, while their son, Telemachus, comes of age and sets out to seek news of his father. The poem braids these threads toward a single end: the long, hard-won return home. Along the way come the adventures that have shaped Western storytelling ever since. Who it suits: readers who like a story with many rooms in it — shipwreck, captivity, a household under threat, a son growing up — and anyone who has ever wanted a hero defined by cleverness rather than strength. It is the more approachable of the two epics, and it stands entirely on its own. Which free fiction ebooks are best for crime and mystery fans? The other three are by E. W. Hornung and belong together: The Amateur Cracksman, The Black Mask and A Thief in the Night. Read in that order and they form one continuous story about A. J. Raffles, the celebrated cricketer who is also a burglar, told by his accomplice and chronicler, Bunny Manders. The Amateur Cracksman The Amateur Cracksman introduces A. J. Raffles, one of the finest amateur cricketers in England — welcome in the best houses and the smartest clubs, and, by night, a burglar. He lifts jewels and plate from the very society that fêtes him by day, cool and unrepentant, a thief for the love of the risk as much as the reward. "Why should I work when I could steal?" he asks, and means it. His accomplice and chronicler is Harry "Bunny" Manders, Raffles's old schoolfellow, who comes to him ruined and desperate and is rescued only by being drawn into the first robbery. From that night Bunny is bound to him: partner, lookout, and the worshipping narrator through whose eyes we watch. Across eight linked stories the pair move from that first crime through costume and disguise, a daylight theft staged during a country-house cricket match, a Continental jewel robbery, a brush with murder, and a final reckoning at sea. Who it suits: this is the place to start with Raffles. If you like short, self-contained capers with a narrator who knows he is in over his head, begin here — the later collections assume you have met these two already. The Black Mask Two years after The Amateur Cracksman made him a sensation, Raffles came back in The Black Mask. At the close of the first book the gentleman thief had vanished into the sea, presumed drowned, leaving Bunny Manders to face the law — and this collection opens in the wreckage of that ending. Raffles is missing; Bunny has been released from prison and is living ruined in a shabby attic, until a telegram and an advertisement draw him into the service of a sickly old invalid who proves to be Raffles himself, not dead at all but hiding in plain sight behind a mask. From that reunion the eight linked stories build a single, deepening arc: a theft staged against the pageantry of the Diamond Jubilee, an Italian vendetta that turns deadly, and a string of darker capers in which the pair are hunted men with no respectable cover left. The book closes with the South African war. Who it suits: readers who have finished The Amateur Cracksman and want the story to go somewhere. The tone darkens and the stakes rise; the disguise-and-cricket-match charm of the first book gives way to something more hunted and more serious. A Thief in the Night A Thief in the Night is the third and final collection of Raffles stories, and it begins after the end. Raffles is dead — lost on the South African veldt at the close of The Black Mask — and his old accomplice and chronicler, Harry "Bunny" Manders, is left alone with his memory. Bunny goes back over the years before the end to recover the exploits he had never told: the heinous episodes he had omitted, the thefts and near-disasters discretion had kept dark, "the first frank portrait of my friend." Across ten linked stories the pair move through a chest of silver smuggled out of a country house, a "rest cure" that is anything but, a daring evening among the very men who study crime, a robbery on a cricket field, and a trap laid expressly to catch a cracksman. At last comes the strange afterlife of the dead thief, when his tools and trophies have become museum relics. Who it suits: readers who already know Raffles and want the loose ends tied. It is a memorial volume as much as a caper collection — read it last, after The Amateur Cracksman and The Black Mask. How do I start reading these free fiction books online? Pick a title, open its page, and start reading. Every book above is listed as free to read in the catalogue, so there is no purchase step between you and the first page, and you can read fiction books free in your browser at whatever pace suits you. If you would rather browse than commit, the Free ebooks shelf gathers everything free in one place, and All Fiction books shows the wider fiction catalogue these titles sit in. For a curated shortlist instead of a full list, Best Fiction books is the place to look. And if you would like to listen rather than read, FastChapters also has an Audiobooks collection. Start with whichever door appeals: the wrath of Achilles, the long road home to Ithaca, or a gentleman thief climbing through a window. All five are waiting on the Free ebooks shelf, and none of them will cost you anything but time.
Books in this guide
Frequently asked questions
Are these free fiction ebooks really free to read?
Yes. Every title in this guide is listed in the FastChapters catalogue as free to read, so you can open it and start reading online without buying anything.
Which Raffles book should I read first?
Start with The Amateur Cracksman, the first collection. The Black Mask followed two years later and opens after Raffles vanishes into the sea, and A Thief in the Night is the third and final collection.
Do I need to read The Iliad before The Odyssey?
No. They are separate epics, both attributed to Homer. The Iliad covers a few weeks in the tenth year of the siege of Troy; The Odyssey follows Odysseus ten years after Troy fell. Either can be read first.
What is The Iliad about?
It takes a single theme — the wrath of Achilles — through a few weeks in the final year of the siege of Troy, from his quarrel with Agamemnon to his return after Patroclus is killed by Hector.
How long are the Raffles books?
Each is a collection of linked short stories: eight in The Amateur Cracksman, eight in The Black Mask, and ten in A Thief in the Night. That makes them easy to read in short sittings.
Where can I find more free fiction books online?
Browse the Free ebooks shelf for everything free in the catalogue, or All Fiction books for the wider fiction list. Best Fiction books offers a curated shortlist instead.