English books for beginners

55 public domain books in English with mostly everyday words and shorter sentences, CEFR A2-B1 by our estimate. Choose one and open it in Lingo7: the app shows a translation under every sentence, so you can read a real book sooner than you would on your own.

These books at a glance

Books
55 A2-B1
Length
11,221 to 208,782 words
Reading time
56 min to 17 h 24 min
Common words
91% of the text on average

The level is our estimate from how common the words are and how long the sentences run, not a test result. Common words are those used at least 10 times per million words of English (Zipf frequency 4 or higher, wordfreq data). Reading time assumes a native pace of 200 words a minute.

These figures describe the original books. The adapted versions listed here are not counted or measured: Lingo7 writes them page by page as you read.

Pride and Prejudice Jane Austen B1 10 h 36 min Pride and Prejudice, adapted Jane Austen A2 Crime and Punishment Fyodor Dostoyevsky and Constance Garnett B1 17 h 24 min The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes Arthur Conan Doyle B1 8 h 49 min Romeo and Juliet, adapted William Shakespeare A2 Carmen Prosper Mérimée and Loyd, Mary, Lady B1 2 h 2 min Alice's Adventures in Wonderland Lewis Carroll B1 2 h 16 min Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, adapted Lewis Carroll A2 Dracula Bram Stoker B1 13 h 36 min Dracula, adapted Bram Stoker A2 Jane Eyre: An Autobiography Charlotte Brontë and F. H. (Frederick Henry) Townsend B1 15 h 46 min Little Women, adapted Louisa May Alcott and Frank T. Merrill A2 The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare G. K. (Gilbert Keith) Chesterton B1 4 h 54 min Frankenstein, adapted Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley A2 The Hound of the Baskervilles Arthur Conan Doyle B1 4 h 59 min The Hound of the Baskervilles, adapted Arthur Conan Doyle A2 Twenty-Five Ghost Stories W. Bob (West Bob) Holland B1 4 h 44 min The Turn of the Screw Henry James B1 3 h 37 min The Sign of the Four Arthur Conan Doyle B1 3 h 39 min The innocence of Father Brown G. K. (Gilbert Keith) Chesterton B1 6 h 42 min The Phantom of the Opera Gaston Leroux B1 7 h 11 min The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes Arthur Conan Doyle B1 8 h 4 min A Study in Scarlet Arthur Conan Doyle B1 3 h 40 min The secret of Father Brown G. K. (Gilbert Keith) Chesterton B1 5 h 22 min The case-book of Sherlock Holmes Arthur Conan Doyle B1 7 h 1 min The Air Pirate Guy Thorne B1 5 h 32 min The Valley of Fear Arthur Conan Doyle B1 4 h 54 min His last bow Arthur Conan Doyle B1 5 h Changeling, and Other Stories Donn Byrne B1 7 h 54 min The Mystery of the Yellow Room Gaston Leroux and Simont B1 6 h 13 min The Thirty-Nine Steps John Buchan B1 3 h 29 min The Phantom 'Rickshaw, and Other Ghost Stories Rudyard Kipling B1 3 h 56 min The Zeppelin's Passenger E. Phillips (Edward Phillips) Oppenheim B1 5 h 19 min The Great God Pan Arthur Machen B1 1 h 50 min The Yellow Crayon E. Phillips (Edward Phillips) Oppenheim B1 6 h 24 min Tales of Terror and Mystery Arthur Conan Doyle B1 6 h 20 min Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave Frederick Douglass B1 3 h 26 min The House on the Borderland William Hope Hodgson B1 4 h 18 min The Great Gatsby F. Scott (Francis Scott) Fitzgerald B1 4 h 10 min The Great Gatsby, adapted F. Scott (Francis Scott) Fitzgerald A2 The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Complete Mark Twain B1 6 h 7 min The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, adapted Mark Twain A2 The Wonderful Wizard of Oz L. Frank (Lyman Frank) Baum B1 3 h 18 min The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, adapted L. Frank (Lyman Frank) Baum A2 The Picture of Dorian Gray Oscar Wilde B1 6 h 42 min The Picture of Dorian Gray, adapted Oscar Wilde A2 Treasure Island Robert Louis Stevenson and Louis Rhead B1 5 h 52 min Treasure Island, adapted Robert Louis Stevenson and Louis Rhead A2 A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court Mark Twain B1 10 h A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, adapted Mark Twain A2 The Call of the Wild, adapted Jack London A2 White Fang, adapted Jack London A2 Through the Looking-Glass Lewis Carroll B1 2 h 35 min Persuasion, adapted Jane Austen A2 Three Men in a Boat, adapted Jerome K. (Jerome Klapka) Jerome A2 The Happy Prince, and Other Tales Oscar Wilde B1 1 h 22 min Just so stories Rudyard Kipling B1 2 h 32 min The Aesop for Children Aesop and Milo Winter B1 2 h 14 min The Canterville Ghost, adapted Oscar Wilde and Wallace Goldsmith A2 Fifty Famous Stories Retold James Baldwin B1 2 h 44 min At the Back of the North Wind George MacDonald B1 7 h 36 min The Magic World E. (Edith) Nesbit, H. R. (Harold Robert) Millar and Gerald Spencer Pryse B1 5 h 6 min Household Stories by the Brothers Grimm Jacob Grimm, Wilhelm Grimm, Walter Crane and Lucy Crane B1 2 h 50 min More English Fairy Tales Joseph Jacobs and John Dickson Batten B1 5 h 9 min McGuffey's Second Eclectic Reader William Holmes McGuffey A2 1 h 10 min Little Wizard Stories of Oz L. Frank (Lyman Frank) Baum and John R. (John Rea) Neill B1 56 min Tales of Folk and Fairies Katharine Pyle B1 4 h 32 min The Princess and the Goblin George MacDonald and Jessie Willcox Smith B1 4 h 23 min Mother's Nursery Tales Katharine Pyle B1 5 h 34 min The Black Arrow, adapted Robert Louis Stevenson A2 The Book of Fables and Folk Stories Horace Elisha Scudder A2 2 h 31 min The Old Willow Tree, and Other Stories Carl Ewald, Helen Jacobs, G. E. Lee and Alexander Teixeira de Mattos A2 2 h 57 min Big People and Little People of Other Lands Edward R. (Edward Richard) Shaw A2 1 h 22 min Nature readers Julia McNair Wright A2 1 h 25 min

More English books

Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain.