About 17 minutes
Peach Blossom Shangri-la: Tao Hua Yuan Ji — Story, Setting & Ideas
Historical Psychological Social Fiction
3,786 recorded words. Selected by the catalog's stored reading-time estimate.
View Gutenberg source #2090
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Three of the shortest recorded reading commitments in this catalog. Times are estimates, not quality ratings.
About 31 minutes
The Success Machine — Context and Discussion
Machines Inventions Early Science Fiction
6,932 recorded words. Selected by the catalog's stored reading-time estimate.
View Gutenberg source #26168About 57 minutes
Craphound — Reading Notes
Machines Inventions Early Science Fiction
13,013 recorded words. Selected by the catalog's stored reading-time estimate.
View Gutenberg source #17026Search stored excerpts and compare books → Choose by your preferences →
How these choices and excerpts are prepared
Choices use stored catalog measurements. Estimates vary with reading speed. A shared category is a catalog label, not a claim that two books have the same argument or literary quality.
Search reads excerpt text stored with this catalog and links to its associated Gutenberg record. The connection is stored in the site database; this tool does not recheck that every excerpt is word-for-word identical to that external record. Excerpt search does not cover every chapter and does not verify historical publication dates.
Catalog snapshot checked: 2026-09-25. Coverage: 99 public books, 99 available source excerpts.
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Independent digital catalogue
HOVUI Public Domain Literature: Exploration, Fantasy, Sci-Fi & Romance
This catalogue groups 99 public-domain books by 74 authors into four thematic sections: exploration and survival adventure tales, fantasy and juvenile worlds, machines and inventions in early science fiction, and historical, psychological, and social fiction. The sections overlap deliberately, so a single work may appear in more than one area. Readers can enter through a broad interest—say, adventure, folklore, speculative futures, or domestic life—then follow connections between related themes. The mix is useful for comparing how different genres handled similar questions across eras. Start with a category that matches your current reading mood, or search for a specific author or title to see where it sits within the larger structure.
99 public-domain works74 represented authorsSource-attributed catalogue records
Subject gateways
Explore by Theme
Browse the collection by theme, time period, and source type.
01
Exploration Survival Adventure Tales
Stories of childhood, exploration, resilience and imaginative adventure represented across the current public-domain collection.
02
Fantasy Juvenile Worlds
A focused group of public-domain works connected by subject, literary setting and recurring questions.
03
Machines Inventions Early Science Fiction
Works exploring technology, imagined futures, discovery and speculative changes in society and everyday life.
04
Historical Psychological Social Fiction
Texts connected with historical lives, social customs, institutions and the worlds in which people lived.
Literature — Editor’s Selection
Newly Catalogued by HOVUI
The trail of deception — Themes ...
In Explora...
Jock's inheritance — Background ...
In Histori...
Russian essays and stories — Edi...
In Histori...
The seventh shot — Inside the Cl...
In Explora...
Woodcliff — Reading Companion
In Histori...
The wooing of Rosamond Fayre — R...
In Histori...
The girls at his billet — Readin...
In Histori...
The tomb of Ts'in — Reading Notes
In Explora...
About these records
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How the collection is organized, presented and corrected.
It generally means that the represented source text is no longer protected by copyright in the applicable jurisdiction or has been released for public use. Status may vary by country and edition.
A record may include the title, author, category, cover, description, edition information, source references and available reading or download options.
A category reflects a work’s principal subjects, literary setting, source type and relationship to nearby records in the collection.
The catalogue adds navigation, metadata and editorial context. The represented source text retains its wording, edition information and rights status.
Use the contact page and include the work title, page address and the exact attribution, category, metadata or source detail requiring attention.
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HOVUI Catalogue
Catalogue information
This catalogue section describes the digital library's architecture, which includes books, authors, and categories, and is intended to support the accuracy of the collections.
