Gutenberg MCP Server is answering right now. Last checked 15 min ago. 707 installs a week from npm. It exposes 4 tools. Last commit 1 Nov 2026.
MCP server for Project Gutenberg: 78,000+ public-domain ebooks with full plain-text retrieval.
Installs per day
peak 264 · avg 70 · +54% w/w
a month agotoday
Uptime history
91 days of history · worst day 93%
91 days agonow
100.0%
Uptime 24h
91 of 91 checks
4
Tools
read from the server
579 ms
Response time
average over 24h
707
Installs / week
npm and PyPI
What changed 33
Every tool that appeared, vanished or quietly changed what it asks for. Recorded since 23 August 2026. No other catalogue keeps this.
1 Nov
3 tools changed the parameters they ask for
gutenberg_browse_popular, gutenberg_get_text, gutenberg_search_books
1 Nov
a tool changed version
31 Oct
3 tools changed the parameters they ask for
gutenberg_browse_popular, gutenberg_get_text, gutenberg_search_books
31 Oct
2 tool descriptions were rewritten
gutenberg_get_text, gutenberg_search_books
31 Oct
a tool changed version
29 Oct
a tool description was rewritten
gutenberg_get_text
29 Oct
a tool changed version
18 Oct
2 tool descriptions were rewritten
gutenberg_browse_popular, gutenberg_search_books
18 Oct
2 tools changed the parameters they ask for
gutenberg_browse_popular, gutenberg_search_books
18 Oct
a tool changed version
and 16 more, back to 23 August 2026
Nothing serious here today
Today is the operative word: we check Gutenberg MCP Server every 15 minutes and re-read its code on every release. Watch it and you find out the day that stops being true.
Connect this server
Endpoint below is the one we actually reach during checks — not the one copied from a README. Last verified 15 min ago.
run in your terminal
claude mcp add gutenberg-mcp-server --transport http https://gutenberg.caseyjhand.com/mcpSettings → Connectors → Add custom connector, then paste this address
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
{
"servers": {
"gutenberg-mcp-server": {
"type": "http",
"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 Project Gutenberg books ordered by downloads in the last 30 days at the source snapshot. Returns up to 32 titles with IDs, authors, languages, download counts, and is_readable. Filter by language, topic, MIME prefix or copyright status. Empty matches succeed with criteria and a notice; truncated results include executable search continuation. Use this for discovery — "what are the most popular classics in French?".
gutenberg_get_book
Fetch complete metadata for a Project Gutenberg book by ID — title, authors (with birth/death years), translators, editors, source bibliographic notes, subjects, bookshelves, languages, copyright status, and the full formats map with download URLs (plain text, HTML, EPUB, cover image, etc.). Use is_readable before gutenberg_get_text; source_notes may identify specific editions.
gutenberg_get_text
Retrieve the plain-text content of a Project Gutenberg book, stripped of the standard license header and footer. Front matter such as producer credits, the title page, contents, and prefaces stays in the text. For long works — novels routinely run 500KB–2MB — use offset and limit to read in chunks rather than fetching the whole book at once, or pass find to jump to a known passage without paging. The response reports totalChars and remainingChars for reliable pagination. 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+ books. Every query word matches a title or author substring; filter by topic, language, translator, author lifespan, IDs, MIME prefix or copyright status. More than four query words, and the translator filter, require the local mirror. Empty matches succeed with criteria and a notice. Default popularity uses downloads in the last 30 days at the source snapshot. Returns IDs, titles, authors, languages, subjects, counts, and is_readable — use gutenberg_get_book for full metadata.
Endpoints
| URL | Transport | State | Latency | Checked |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| https://gutenberg.caseyjhand.com/mcp | streamable-http | answering | 557 ms | 15 min ago |
Alternatives to Gutenberg MCP Server
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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 91 of 91 checks got a reply (100.0%), average response time 579 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 in the form 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 579 ms on average, which is faster than 19% of all working MCP servers we measure. That is on the slow side — worth knowing if the tool sits inside an interactive loop. 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 707 times in the last week. Week over week that is +54%. 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?
The code is open source: it is published under the Apache-2.0 licence, written in TypeScript, 6 stars on GitHub and 8 open issues. The licence covers the code in the repository, not the hosted service at gutenberg.caseyjhand.com, which runs on its operator's own terms.