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The Reader, by Alexander Ver Huell, c. 1880

About Us

The Ex-Classics project was founded in 2000 to fill an unmet need.  When reading the blurb etc. to a book by Charles Dickens or Charlotte Bronte, say, we would often come across sentences like "Favourite reading included . . ."  If  it's good enough for them, it's good enough for us. So off we go to the library or bookshop, to be met first with blank stares and then with the information that the book has been out of print for decades. Our first two books were Gil Blas and Hudibras, which are prime examples of this This web site is dedicated to rescuing these works from obscurity and making them available online, both for reading directly, and for downloading.

Book of the Month -- March 2024

  That Rascal Gustave, by Paul de Kock

Paul de Kock

. . . Get another of Paul de Kock's. Nice name he has.
. . . I wonder what kind is that book he brought me Sweets of Sin by a gentleman of fashion some other Mr de Kock I suppose the people gave him that nickname going about with his tube from one woman to another . . .
-- James Joyce, Ulysses
Molly Bloom was wrong, it was his real name. Paul de Kock (1793-1871) was a prolific writer of spicy novels, popular both in his native France and in English translation.  That Rascal Gustave (
Gustave le mauvais sujet)  is one of his earlier works and an excellent example of his titillating manner.

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Max Adeler contemplating the Patent Office Report, by Arthur B. Frost

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