mcpbeat

Gutenberg MCP Server

io.github.cyanheads/gutenberg-mcp-server
answering

Gutenberg MCP Server is answering right now. Last checked 3 min ago. 95 installs a week from npm. It exposes 4 tools. Last commit 11 Jul 2026.

MCP server for Project Gutenberg — 75,000+ public-domain ebooks with full plain-text retrieval.

Installs per day peak 392 · avg 27 · +16% w/w
a month agotoday
Uptime history 39 hours of history · worst hour 75%
39 hours agonow
100.0%
Uptime 24h
92 of 92 checks
4
Tools
read from the server
347 ms
Response time
average over 24h
95
Installs / week
npm and PyPI

Connect this server

Endpoint below is the one we actually reach during checks — not the one copied from a README. Last verified 3 min ago.

run in your terminal
claude mcp add gutenberg-mcp-server --transport http https://gutenberg.caseyjhand.com/mcp
~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "gutenberg-mcp-server": {
      "url": "https://gutenberg.caseyjhand.com/mcp"
    }
  }
}
~/.codex/config.toml
[mcp_servers.gutenberg-mcp-server]
url = "https://gutenberg.caseyjhand.com/mcp"
.cursor/mcp.json
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "gutenberg-mcp-server": {
      "url": "https://gutenberg.caseyjhand.com/mcp"
    }
  }
}
.vscode/mcp.json
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "gutenberg-mcp-server": {
      "url": "https://gutenberg.caseyjhand.com/mcp"
    }
  }
}

Available tools 4

Read directly from the server with tools/list, grouped by what they act on. If a tool disappears, we record the date.

gutenberg
gutenberg_browse_popular
Browse the most-downloaded Project Gutenberg books, ordered by popularity. Returns up to 32 titles with their Gutenberg IDs, authors, languages, and download counts. Optionally filter by language or topic. Use this as a discovery entry point — "what are the most popular classics in French?" — or as a heartbeat check that the catalog is reachable.
gutenberg_get_book
Fetch complete metadata for a Project Gutenberg book by ID — title, authors (with birth/death years), translators, editors, subjects, bookshelves, languages, copyright status, and the full formats map with download URLs for each available format (plain text, HTML, EPUB, cover image, etc.). Use this before gutenberg_get_text to confirm a plain-text format is available and to get the direct download URL.
gutenberg_get_text
Retrieve the plain-text content of a Project Gutenberg book, stripped of the standard license header and footer so the response contains only the literary work. For long works — novels routinely run 500KB–2MB — use offset and limit to read in chunks rather than fetching the whole book at once. The response reports totalChars and remainingChars so the caller can page through without guessing. Prefers UTF-8 plain text; falls back to an HTML edition converted to text; refuses audio books (media_type "Sound") with a clear error.
gutenberg_search_books
Search the Project Gutenberg catalog of 78,000+ public-domain books. Matches title and author name with query words; filters by topic (subject or bookshelf keyword), language, author lifespan, or a specific list of Gutenberg IDs. Results are ordered by popularity (download count) by default. Returns book ID, title, authors, languages, subjects, and download count — use gutenberg_get_book for the full formats map before fetching text.

Endpoints

URLTransportStateLatencyChecked
https://gutenberg.caseyjhand.com/mcp streamable-http answering 203 ms 3 min ago

Gutenberg MCP Server — questions

Answers built from our own checks of this server.

What can Gutenberg MCP Server do?
It exposes 4 tools, read directly from the server on our last check. Among them: gutenberg_browse_popular, gutenberg_get_book, gutenberg_get_text, gutenberg_search_books. The full list with descriptions is on this page — we take it from the server itself via tools/list, not from a README. How MCP servers expose tools in the first place →
Is Gutenberg MCP Server working right now?
We send a real MCP handshake every 15 minutes. Over the last 24 hours 92 of 92 checks got a reply (100.0%), average response time 347 ms. The bar chart above shows every period we have measured.
How do I connect Gutenberg MCP Server?
Copy the ready config from this page — we generate it for Claude Code, Claude Desktop, Codex, Cursor and VS Code, each with the file path that client actually reads. It is a remote server, so there is nothing to install — the client connects to the address.
Does Gutenberg MCP Server need an API key?
No. Gutenberg MCP Server completed a full MCP handshake with us as an anonymous client and listed its tools without asking for anything. All 4 of them are readable on this page. This is what we observed, not what the docs claim.
How fast is Gutenberg MCP Server?
It answers our handshake in 347 ms on average, which is faster than 40% of all working MCP servers we measure. The comparison comes from our own checks across the whole registry, every 15 minutes.
How many people use Gutenberg MCP Server?
The npm package @cyanheads/gutenberg-mcp-server was installed 95 times in the last week. Week over week that is +16%. We show installs rather than GitHub stars on purpose: a star is a bookmark, an install is someone actually running it.
Is Gutenberg MCP Server open source?
Yes — it is published under the Apache-2.0 licence, written in TypeScript, 2 stars on GitHub and 5 open issues. The source link is on this page, so you can read exactly what it does with your data before you connect it.