Free to read

W.E.B. Du Bois

4 free books by W.E.B. Du Bois. 3 you can read right here.

Born 1868 in Great Barrington · Died 1963 in Accra

writer, novelist, poet, journalist · United States, Ghana

Notable works: The Souls of Black Folk, John Brown, Black Reconstruction, Dusk of Dawn, The Philadelphia Negro

More on Wikipedia →

Facts from Wikidata (Q158060), retrieved 2026-09-26.

Also by W.E.B. Du Bois: read here

Quotes from W.E.B. Du Bois’s books

Verified word for word in the text: each quote is copied exactly from the book’s text in this site’s reader (the Project Gutenberg e-text named under each book) and links to its passage; when this page was built, every quote was checked word for word against that text. How RedLectern is built.

The Souls of Black Folk

From Project Gutenberg e-text #408 (public domain in the USA).

This meaning is not without interest to you, Gentle Reader; for the problem of the Twentieth Century is the problem of the color line.

Read in context →

It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity.

I. Of Our Spiritual StrivingsRead in context →

All 18 quotes from The Souls of Black Folk →

All quotes from W.E.B. Du Bois’s books →

All authors →