Gulbenkian makes hundreds of editions available online for free

The Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation has made online more than five dozen titles from its editorial collection that can be downloaded free of charge.

The initiative results from a new policy of the foundation that has as its guideline to make classics of the world culture accessible to all the public and also important works of Portuguese culture. For now, 52 books from the collection of classic texts are available here, which include, for example, works by Plato, Thomas More, David Hume or Edgar Allan Poe.

The remaining collections, of Portuguese culture and university manuals, are currently in the process of digital selection and processing and will be posted online in stages until the end of next year.

At the same time, Gulbenkian will start to favor the digital format, allowing free and universal access to other content produced, such as essays, minutes of colloquiums, reports and other texts related to its programs and projects.

Within the scope of this new policy, the foundation’s editorial plan will favor fundamental texts of Portuguese culture that, due to their cost, the market is not willing to edit, and also the translation and edition in Portuguese of foreign classics, which are fundamental milestones of universal culture.

The initiative results from a commitment to society and pursues the same purpose as always: to make reading accessible to everyone. It was like that with the Itinerantes Libraries, the emblematic vans that took the reading all over the country, free of charge, and it will be now also with its editions of classics, published by the Foundation at affordable prices.