Project Gutenberg Metadata API

This API provides a simple way to retrieve metadata about books from Project Gutenberg in JSON format.

API Endpoint

The API has a single endpoint that accepts a book ID and returns metadata about that book.

Request

GET /?id={book_id}

Where {book_id} is the Project Gutenberg book ID.

Example

GET /?id=1342

This will return metadata for "Pride and Prejudice" by Jane Austen (book ID 1342).

Response

The API returns a JSON object with the following fields (when available):

id: The Project Gutenberg book ID
title: The title of the book
author: The author of the book
publicationDate: The publication date
language: The language of the book
subjects: An array of subject categories
downloadLinks: Links to download the book in various formats
source: Link to the original Project Gutenberg page

Error Responses

400 Bad Request: Missing or invalid book ID
404 Not Found: Book with the specified ID not found
500 Internal Server Error: Server-side error

Examples

Example Request

GET /?id=1342

Example Response

{
  "id": "1342",
  "source": "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1342",
  "title": "Pride and Prejudice",
  "author": "Austen, Jane",
  "publicationDate": "1998-06-01",
  "language": "English",
  "subjects": [
    "England -- Fiction",
    "Courtship -- Fiction",
    "Young women -- Fiction",
    "Love stories",
    "Domestic fiction",
    "Sisters -- Fiction",
    "Social classes -- Fiction"
  ],
  "downloadLinks": {
    "html": "https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1342/1342-h/1342-h.htm",
    "text": "https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1342/1342.txt",
    "epub": "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1342.epub.images",
    "kindle": "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1342.kindle.images"
  }
}

Notes

This API scrapes data from Project Gutenberg's website and may break if their site structure changes
Results are cached for 24 hours to reduce load on Project Gutenberg's servers
Please be respectful of Project Gutenberg's resources and don't make excessive requests

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