# What's this "electronic book" they were talking about being available at Future Shop?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-this-electronic-book-they-were-talking-about-being-available-at-future-shop/311935>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [July 11, 2005, 3:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-this-electronic-book-they-were-talking-about-being-available-at-future-shop/311935 "2005-07-11T03:50:49Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\
**Post date:** [July 12, 2005, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-this-electronic-book-they-were-talking-about-being-available-at-future-shop/311935/21 "2005-07-12T16:55:34Z")

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> [@Chronos](#):
>
> Plus, of course, anything in the public domain. It might be nice to have the complete works of Shakespeare, Dickens, H. G. Wells, Jules Verne, Cervantes, Homer, etc., all available in a single device the size of an ordinary book.

Ah yes-BUT. The various editions or translations of these classics are not in the public domain. Thus, you’d have to find an old edition or translation, or get somebody to do it- and that someone would have to be willing to do so without copyright rights.

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**Author:** ![Shalmanese](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shalmanese](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shalmanese)\
**Post date:** [July 12, 2005, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-this-electronic-book-they-were-talking-about-being-available-at-future-shop/311935/22 "2005-07-12T19:39:01Z")

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Project Gutenberg has online versions of all of the above authors made from public domain translations.

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**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\
**Post date:** [July 12, 2005, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-this-electronic-book-they-were-talking-about-being-available-at-future-shop/311935/23 "2005-07-12T20:03:28Z")

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Oh, I don’t know about that… There are some lovely translations of Dickens into English available in the public domain. From what I hear, the author even had some say into the precise translation used. 😉

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