The py-gutenberg package is a Python library that provides methods to access the Project Gutenberg library. Users can search for books based on a variety of metadata, get full texts in various formats, and retrieve metadata for books by their ID number.

⚠️ This package has only been tested on Python 3.7 and above. There are no plans for a Python 2 version.

The package can be installed using the pip package manager:

pip install py-gutenberg

You should import the module like so:

from gutenberg import GutenbergAPI

The GutenbergAPI constructor defaults to using a public instance of the Gutendex API, hosted by me at https://gutendex.devbranch.co. If you are self-hosting the API, you can specify the IP address or URL of your instance with the instance_url parameter.

# Uses the public instance
gb = GutenbergAPI()
# Uses a self-hosted instance
gb_private = GutenbergAPI(instance_url="https://gutendex.yourdomain.com")

Here's a simple example to get a list of the most recently uploaded books:

gb.get_all_books()

Or, to get only public domain books:

gb.get_public_domain_books()

To get an individual book's metadata:

gb.get_book_metadata()

Or, to get the full text of a book:

gb.get_book_text()

Full usage information is available in the documentation

This module is built on the wonderful but unofficial API built by @garethbjohnson known as Gutendex. By default, this library uses a public instance I'm hosting myself, but does not have the bandwidth to maintain more than a few concurrent users. Please be kind and limit your requests where possible. Additionally, if you intend to use this library in a production environment, I highly encourage you to self-host.