Ancient books about Korea online

An expanded page with the text of and the photos from Isabella Bird's Korea and her Neighbors (1898), with additional photos of Korea taken by her.

An expanded page with the text of and the illustrations from Constance Tayler's Koreans at Home (1904).

James Gale's version of  The Cloud Dream of the Nine, a 17th-century novel by Kim Man-jung published in 1922.

I have received files of 3 "missionary novels" by Lois Hawks Swineheart : "Jane in the Orient", "Sarange: A Child of Chosen" and "Korea Calls!" These books are not yet in the public domain so these files may not be accessed legally for another 10 years or so. They are simply resting here in the meantime.

Project Gutenberg texts

Account of a Voyage of Discovery to the West Coast of Corea, and the Great Loo-Choo Island (1818) by Basil Hall 

Corea or Cho-sen by A. Henry Savage Landor (1895) - An HTML version with fully scanned pictures is available here.

Our Little Korean Cousin by Henry Lee Mitchell Pike (1905) - Online version complete with the original pictures here.

Korea’s Fight for Freedom by F. A. McKenzie (1920) - a book which expands his earlier arguments presented in The Tragedy of Korea (see below)

The Dutch text of Hendrik Hamel's Journal, Verhaal van het vergaan van het jacht de Sperwer En van het wedervaren der schipbreukelingen op het eiland Quelpaert en het vasteland van Korea (1653-1666) met eene beschrijving van dat rijk, published in 1920


Internet Archive texts

(To start a new search for other online texts, go to the Internet archive then click on "Texts" at the top of the page. Enter a search term (eg Korea). Some books are available as PDF images of the original, all can be read in a streaming form, raw OCR files of all can be downloaded). The list below is in alphabetical order of the author's family name. It is restricted to books of which a pdf image is available.

Horace Newton Allen, Things Korean (1908) PDF download

Henry Gerhard Appenzeller, The Korea Mission of the Methodist Episcopal Church (1905) PDF download

Annie Laurie Adams Baird, Daybreak in Korea : a tale of transformation in the Far East (1909)  PDF download

Frederick Henry Balfour, Leaves from my Chinese Scrapbook (1887) PDF download

Charles Allen Clark, First Fruits in Korea (1921) PDF download

Everard Cotes, Signs and Portents in the Far East (1907) PDF download

Constance J. D. Coulson, Korea (1910) PDF download.

Charles Dallet, Histoire de l'Eglise de Coree (1874) full text from scan

M. Eissler, My Voyage in Korea (1918) PDF download

James Scarth Gale, A Korean-English Dictionary (1898) PDF download

James Scarth Gale, Korean Sketches (1898) PDF download 

James Scarth Gale, The Vanguard, a Tale of Korea (1904) PDF download

James Scarth Gale, Korea in Transition (1909) PDF download

James Scarth Gale, Im Bang & Yi Ryuk,  Korean Folk Tales (1913) PDF download

Daniel L. Gifford, Everyday Life in Korea (1898) PDF download

George W. Gilmore, Corea of Today (1894) PDF download

William Elliot Griffis, Corea, the Hermit Nation (1894) PDF download

William Elliot Griffis, A modern Pioneer in Korea: The life-story of Henry G. Appenzeller (1912) PDF Download

Basil Hall, Voyage to Loo-Choo . . . (1826) PDF download

Angus Hamilton, Korea (1904) PDF download

Angus Hamilton, Korea: its history, its people, and its commerce (1910) PDF download

Homer B. Hulbert, The Passing of Korea (1906) PDF download

Homer B. Hulbert, The History of Korea, Volume 1 (1905) PDF download

Homer B. Hulbert, The History of Korea, Volume 2 (1905) PDF download

George Heber Jones, Korea, the land, people, and customs (1907) PDF download

George Heber Jones, The Bible in Korea (1916) PDF download

Emily Georgiana Kemp,  The Face of Manchuria, Korea and Russian Turkestan (1911) PDF download

George Trumbull Ladd, In Korea with Marquis Ito (1908) PDF download

Arnold Henry Savage Landor, Corea, or Cho-sen: the land of the morning calm (1895) PDF download

Elizabeth A. McCully, A Corn of Wheat: The Life of W. J. McKenzie of Korea (1904) PDF download

Fred Arthur McKenzie, The colonial policy of Japan in Korea (1906) PDF download

F. A. McKenzie, The Tragedy of Korea (1908) PDF download

Louise Jordan Miln, Quaint Korea (1895) PDF Download

John M'Leod, Narrative of a voyage in His Majesty's late ship Alceste . . . (1817)  PDF download

William Arthur Noble, Ewa, A Tale of Korea (1906) PDF download

Henry Davenport Northrop & John Russell Young, The Flowery Kingdom and the Land of the Mikado, or China Japan and Corea . . (1894) PDF download

William Woodville Rockhill, Korea's Intercourse with China (1905) PDF download

John Ross, Corean Primer (1877) PDF download

James Scott, A Korean Manual or Phrase Book (1893) PDF download

Frederick Starr, Korean Buddhism (1918) PDF download  

Anna M. Stoddart, The life of Isabella Bishop (1906) PDF download

Mark Napier Trollope, The Church in Corea (1915) PDF download

Horace Grant Underwood, The Call of Korea: political, social, religious (1908) PDF download

Lillias H. Underwood, With Tommy Tompkins in Korea (1905) PDF download

Lillias H. Underwood, Fifteen Years among the Topknots or Life in Korea (1904) PDF download

Lillias H. Underwood, Underwood of Korea (1918) PDF download 

Peter Vay, Empires and Emperors of Russia, China, Korea and Japan (1906) PDF download

Dictionnaire coreen-francais (1880) PDF download