Shakespeare, Dickens, Twain and more coming to DS

It's a nice list, but I couldn't think of anything more horrible than trying to read a whole novel on the DS Lite screens.

Might be nice a supplement for English Lit students if it has some decent search features though.

Mmm nothing could beat reading entire books on a tiny, glowing, split-screen...

What I wouldn't give for there to be some Lovecraft on that list.

I remember taking out David Copperfield when I was a kid only sorely to be disappointed it wasn't about magic tricks.

I would like to keep both my vision and my patience, thank you. Good idea though, I suppose.

....He said Dickens....eehhh eehhh eehhh eh.

I wonder how the 1400 pages of The Count of Monte Cristo is going to translate to the DS' tiny screens. You'll be scrolling until the end of time. D:

Also, only two Mark Twain books? What about No. 44 or the Mysterious Stranger?

Dickens on a DS screen? It's going to take a lot of recharging to get through Bleak House!

Any word on a release date? I remember seeing something about it on DS Fanboy not too long ago, but I haven't seen a release date at all yet.

... be.

Glad I could help.

Show's over, Shakespere

I don't know why but I was expecting The Divine Comedy:P

[Editor: Banned for violating the "this news is so old" rule]

Priced reasonably, this might not be a bad idea. Particularly if, with the HarperCollins connection, books that aren't public domain get released as well.

The hitch in that is in the royalties and rights, to say nothing of piracy (and as I've been trying to get a couple of novels published, this is gonna get technical quick-- apologies in advance). Literary contracts are complex enough already, with many rights at stake: first publication, hardcover/paperback, international publication, audiobook rights, movie rights, etc. In many cases, a literary agent will negotiate a contract for only a very specific subset of these rights, with the rest remaining in the hands of the author. Now, of late, electronic distribution rights such as for the Kindle or the Sony Reader are being included in that initial package, so that the original publisher can lump as many revenue sources into one outgoing payment to the author. (It's interesting to note that electronic rights suddenly became majorly important around this time last year, when they were the focus of... you guessed it, the TV writers' strike!) However, for older books (or books whose authors are dead but the book isn't yet in the public domain), negotiating to get the book on the Kindle or this type of collection/service is going to be murderously difficult.

Take as an example the difference between, say, Ender's Game and All The President's Men (hypothetically speaking here-- I don't know either Orson Scott Card or Bernstein and Woodward). Assuming that both books still have elect. rights in the hands of their authors, HarperCollins (who I KNOW don't publish either of their work, but let's just go with it for now) would have to go back to them for these rights. Let's say OSC says "OK, go for it"; Bernstein/Woodward could still say "no". A publisher being on board doesn't guarantee that all their books, or even all of any imprint of theirs, is eligible for release.

(In another interesting irony about this, Tor books-- who DO publish OSC's work-- were forced to pull their electronic publishing arm a couple years ago by their parent company due to concerns over a lack of DRM. They've since rescinded that order.)

tl;dr I like the idea, though I'm very, VERY skeptical that it'll take off for reasons completely unrelated to the difficulty of reading long books on a DS screen.

no H G Wells? No sale.

What will the pre-order bonus gift at GameStop be for this? A digital book mark? A quill pen shaped DS stylus? A DS cart full of CliffsNotes?

As a college English student, I'm intrigued by this. It could be really help, or almost useless.

Considering in my upcoming class I'm going to be studying 5 or 6 of those stories/plays, I might give it a look. Depends on the pricing though, I might just DL it (I know, I'm bad) if its more expensive than just getting a paperback copy.

There's no copyright left on those books. It's just a reader program with a bunch of public domain literature you can download for yourself for free.

Wuthering Heights?? Oh FUCK yes!!!

I kinda like the idea. It would be great for traveling, I've always wanted to read quite a few of those books.

Hope it's user-friendly, though.

Good list but they need more.
The Old man and the Sea
Lord of the Rings
Lord of the Flies
The Jungle
Connecticut Yankee in King Authors Court
The Inferno
The Odyssey
The Illiad
And thats basically all you need to fillout the books I read in High School