ARLingClassics

Classics for e-ink

Old novels, set for a screen you can write on.

Public domain novels typeset page by page for an e-ink tablet: a fixed page of 157 x 210 mm, 13 pt serif, a band at the foot of every page for notes with the pen, and a linked table of contents. Two titles today, 4.90 € each.

  • The text is complete and unchanged, checked chapter by chapter against the source word for word.
  • Every title comes in three page sizes: e-ink 157 x 210 mm, A4 and US Letter, all in the one price.
  • A free sample of the first three chapters, so the typesetting can be tried on your device before you pay.
Cover of the ARLing e-ink edition of Ben-Hur: a painted chariot race in a Roman circus Cover of the ARLing e-ink edition of The Count of Monte Cristo: a cloaked figure on a cliff above an evening sea
The two covers of the series.

The books

Two titles, 4.90 € each.

Each title has its own page with the price, the free sample and a real page out of the file.

  • Cover of Ben-Hur

    Lew Wallace, 1880

    Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ

    The complete novel in one file of 953 pages: the cover on page 1, then all eight books and 81 chapters, with the author's dedication and his three footnotes. 1043 links and 935 notes fields counted in the finished file, none of the links broken.

    953 pages · e-ink, A4 and US Letter PDF · 4.90 €

    See Ben-Hur Free sample

  • Cover of The Count of Monte Cristo

    Alexandre Dumas, 1846 translation

    The Count of Monte Cristo

    The full novel in the five volumes of the source text, 2287 pages and 117 chapters, each volume with its cover on page 1 and its own linked contents. 2415 links and 2257 notes fields counted in the finished files, none of the links broken.

    2287 pages in five volumes · e-ink, A4 and US Letter PDF · 4.90 €

    See Monte Cristo Free sample

How the page is set

The same setup in every title.

The page is 157 x 210 mm, the 3:4 proportion of a large e-ink screen, with a text block of 139 x 194 mm. The text is 13 pt serif, 22 lines to a page, with no hyphenation, so a line break never falls inside a word. Nothing on the page is smaller than 10 pt.

Page 1 of every file is the cover. The cover is an AI-generated picture commissioned by the publisher; every other page is typeset by our own program. Under the text there is a 33 mm band left empty on every page for a note with the pen, which is also a PDF form field: write in it with the pen on an e-ink tablet, or type into it on a computer in Adobe Acrobat Reader, Preview or Firefox. Under the band sit the Contents link and the page number. From any page you are two taps from any chapter. The A4 and US Letter files hold the same text block centred on the sheet, so the pages, the page order and the links are identical in all three.

The text comes from a public domain transcription and is reproduced unchanged. Only the line breaks were reflowed for the page, placeholders left by old illustrations removed, and italics restored where the transcription marks them. Every chapter is compared with the source word for word by the check script before a title is published.

What is not verified

No physical device has been tested.

Pages, chapters, links, link targets and type sizes are all measured in the finished PDF by our check script. What we have not done is open these files on a reMarkable, a Kindle Scribe, a Boox or a Supernote. Nobody here owns one. That is why every title has a free sample with the same page size and the same kind of links: try it on your device before you pay.

Questions

Before you buy.

What makes these different from a free EPUB?

The same texts are free as EPUB from Project Gutenberg and Standard Ebooks. These are PDFs set for a fixed e-ink page: 13 pt serif, 22 lines to a page, no hyphenation, a 33 mm band at the foot of every page for notes with the pen that is also a fillable form field, so you write in it with the pen on an e-ink tablet or type into it on a computer in Adobe Acrobat Reader, Preview or Firefox, page numbers, a linked table of contents and a Contents link on every page. If a reflowing EPUB suits you better, take the free one.

Which devices are they made for?

The e-ink files are 157 x 210 mm, the 3:4 proportion of the reMarkable 2, reMarkable Paper Pro, Kindle Scribe, Boox Note Air and Supernote A5 X2. We have not opened them on a physical device, which is why every title has a free sample of the first three chapters.

Is the text complete?

Yes. The text is reproduced unchanged from a public domain transcription and the check script compares every chapter with the source word for word. Only the line breaks were reflowed for the page and italics restored where the transcription marks them.

What does a title cost?

4.90 € with VAT included, one payment, whichever title. The same price on Etsy. Buying here leaves more of it with us, because Stripe keeps 1.5 percent plus 0.25 € and Etsy about 10 percent.