Project Gutenberg MCP
Connects Claude to Project Gutenberg's public domain catalog through a self-hosted mirror. Exposes five tools: search books by title or author, fetch metadata, download full text, list fixed-size passages, and retrieve specific passages. You'll need to run the included mirror server locally since Project Gutenberg blocks automated access to their main site. Useful for literary analysis, quote extraction, or building applications that reference classic texts. Configure it with a book ID to default to a specific work, or enable search to let Claude discover titles on the fly. Ships with Docker Compose setup that runs both mirror and MCP server together.
- tools
- 5
- auth
- Required
- transport
- STDIO
- env vars
- 5
- last updated
- Mar 25, 2026
Tools
5 toolsPublic tool metadata for what this MCP can expose to an agent.
search_booksSearch for books by title or author
Search for books by title or author
No parameter schema in public metadata yet.
get_book_metadataFetch metadata (title, authors, formats) for a book
Fetch metadata (title, authors, formats) for a book
No parameter schema in public metadata yet.
fetch_book_textDownload the full plain text of a book
Download the full plain text of a book
No parameter schema in public metadata yet.
list_passagesList fixed-size passage keys for a book
List fixed-size passage keys for a book
No parameter schema in public metadata yet.
get_passageFetch a specific passage by its key
Fetch a specific passage by its key
No parameter schema in public metadata yet.
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GUTENBERG_BASE_URL*Base URL of your Gutenberg mirror. Run the mirror from the mirror/ directory and point this at it. See the README for setup instructions.
GUTENBERG_TOOLS*Comma-separated list of tools to expose. Available: search_books, get_book_metadata, fetch_book_text, list_passages, get_passage
GUTENBERG_BOOK_IDProject Gutenberg book ID to use as the default for all tools. Find IDs via search_books. Example: 2680 for Meditations by Marcus Aurelius.
GUTENBERG_CHUNK_SIZEdefault: 4096Size in bytes of each passage returned by get_passage.
GUTENBERG_LANGUAGEdefault: enDefault ISO 639-1 language code filter for search_books. Used when the caller omits the language parameter.
Readme
project-gutenberg-mcp
An MCP server for reading books from Project Gutenberg.
Project Gutenberg Terms of Service
Project Gutenberg's robot access policy states that the site is intended for human users only. Automated access may result in your IP being blocked.
To use this MCP server you must run your own mirror. Project Gutenberg explicitly supports and encourages mirroring — see their mirroring guide for details.
This repository includes a ready-to-run mirror server in the mirror/ directory.
Mirror Setup
Details
- Repository
- github.com/bobbyhouse/project-gutenberg-mcp
- Website
- github.com/bobbyhouse/project-gutenberg-mcp
- Category
- Search & Web Crawling
- Package
roberthouse224/project-gutenberg-mcp:1.2.0- Transport
- STDIO
- Auth
- Required
- Registry
- MCP registry, active
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