Main Page

Welcome to Wikisource, the free library that anyone can improve. 328,040 texts in English

Site index Community portal News Sandbox

OCTOBER’S FEATURED TEXT

Grab a download!

"Calcutta: Past and Present" by Kathleen Blechynden, published in 1905, lays before the reader a vivid picture in lucid style of the colonial Calcutta, then capital of British India, from its initial days at the time of Job Charnock till the time of Warren Hastings, the first governor-general of India. Adorned with rare engravings and photographs, this work was written by a British lady from a somewhat unusual perspective. In the author's own words, "My aim has not been to give any account of the great deeds by which the men of old Calcutta laid the foundations of the British Empire in the East, but rather to try and depict the lives they led, their daily cares and amusements, the wives and daughters who lightened their exile, the houses in which they dwelt, the servants who waited on them, the food they ate, the wines they drank, the scenes amid which they moved, the graves in which they laid their loved ones or sank themselves to rest."

A DAY in August in the height of the rainy season in Bengal. The muddy waters of the Hughly, beaten level by the ceaseless downpour of the rain descending in heavy unbroken rush, heaved sullenly in thick turbid swell, rising higher and ever higher as the strong downward current was met and checked by the force of the rising tide, rushing in from the distant sea. In the great circling whirlpools formed by the opposing forces, the bloated carcases of drowned animals, great branches of trees, or whole trees with a tangled mass of roots, swept round, lashed by the rain and whirling flood into semblance of some living monster, stretching octopus-like arms. Once and again would sweep by a human form, charred from the funeral pyre, borne on the rushing waters of the sacred stream to meet its final dissolution, devoured by the alligators, vultures, crows, and jackals who haunted the river waves and shores in watchful eagerness for their prey.

(Read on...)

or see all featured texts.

CURRENT COLLABORATIONS

The current Community collaboration is collecting texts related to WikiProject NARA Recent collaborations: Tenth Anniversary Contest, Disney, Domesday survey, Niccolò Machiavelli

The current Proofread of the Month is Moll Flanders  (1722) by Daniel Defoe. Recent collaborations: Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted, 2002, My Climbs in the Alps and Caucasus, How to Know the Ferns, Myth, Ritual, and Religion, The Aborigines of Victoria and Riverina, Chuang Tzŭ, The Descent of Man, Provincial Geographies of India: Burma, Journal of a Voyage to Greenland, in the Year 1821, Ancient Ballads and Legends of Hindustan, Queen Mab, Great Neapolitan Earthquake of 1857, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

The current Maintenance of the Month task is Work index revision Recent collaborations: Orphans, Proposed policies and guidelines, Author page connection with Wikidata items, Help page improvement, Undated works

NEW TEXTS

Grimm's Household Tales (1912)
 by Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm, translated by Marian Edwardes and Edgar Taylor
Lives of Fair and Gallant Ladies (1920)
 by Pierre de Bourdeille, translated by Alfred Richard Allinson
A Preliminary Dissertation on the Mechanisms of the Heavens (1831)
 by Mary Somerville
Remarks by the President at the 2015 White House Astronomy Night (2015)
 by Barack Obama
Ballads (1890)
 by Robert Louis Stevenson
The Bee-man of Orn, and other fanciful tales (1887)
 by Frank R. Stockton
Australian Legendary Tales (1896)
 by K. Langloh Parker

HIGHLIGHTS

Poetry from ancient and romantic to modern, in love and war

Texts, laws, constitutions of many countries

Documents from US history, including Revolution and Civil War

US law: Supreme Court decisions, government documents, presidential addresses

General literature: modern novels and short stories, horror stories, children’s literature, science fiction, drama

Original, encyclopedic, popular articles on relativity, physics, biology, and other sciences

EXPLORE WIKISOURCE

Authors – Index

• By era
• By genre
• By nationality
• By type

Works – Index

• By era
• By genre
• By subject
• By type

Subject index

WIKIMEDIA FOUNDATION

Wikisource is hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation, a non-profit organization which also hosts other free-content projects:

Commons	Wikibooks	Wikidata	Wikinews	Wikipedia	Wikiquote	Wikispecies	Wikiversity	Wikivoyage	Wiktionary	Meta-Wiki

Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. That's our commitment. And we need your help: Contribute to our projects, or make a donation. Donations are primarily used for site maintenance and software improvements.