Download one or more works using a Project Gutenberg ID

Download one or more works by their Project Gutenberg IDs into a data frame with one row per line per work. This can be used to download a single work of interest or multiple at a time. You can look up the Gutenberg IDs of a work using the gutenberg_works() function or the gutenberg_metadata dataset.

Usage

gutenberg_download(
  gutenberg_id,
  mirror = NULL,
  strip = TRUE,
  meta_fields = NULL,
  verbose = TRUE,
  files = NULL,
  ...
)

Arguments

gutenberg_id

A vector of Project Gutenberg ID, or a data frame containing a gutenberg_id column, such as from the results of a gutenberg_works() call

mirror

Optionally a mirror URL to retrieve the books from. By default uses the mirror from gutenberg_get_mirror

strip

Whether to strip suspected headers and footers using the gutenberg_strip function

meta_fields

Additional fields, such as title and author, to add from gutenberg_metadata describing each book. This is useful when returning multiple

verbose

Whether to show messages about the Project Gutenberg mirror that was chosen

files

A vector of .zip file paths. If given, this reads from the files rather than from the site. This is mostly used for testing when the Project Gutenberg website may not be available.

...

Extra arguments passed to gutenberg_strip, currently unused

Value

A two column tbl_df (a type of data frame; see tibble or dplyr packages) with one row for each line of the text or texts, with columns

gutenberg_id

Integer column with the Project Gutenberg ID of each text

text

A character vector

Details

Note that if strip = TRUE, this tries to remove the Gutenberg header and footer using the gutenberg_strip function. This is not an exact process since headers and footers differ between books. Before doing an in-depth analysis you may want to check the start and end of each downloaded book.

Examples

# \donttest{
library(dplyr)
#> 
#> Attaching package: ‘dplyr’
#> The following objects are masked from ‘package:stats’:
#> 
#>     filter, lag
#> The following objects are masked from ‘package:base’:
#> 
#>     intersect, setdiff, setequal, union

# download The Count of Monte Cristo
gutenberg_download(1184)
#> Determining mirror for Project Gutenberg from https://www.gutenberg.org/robot/harvest
#> Using mirror http://aleph.gutenberg.org
#> # A tibble: 61,308 × 2
#>    gutenberg_id text                       
#>           <int> <chr>                      
#>  1         1184 "THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO"
#>  2         1184 ""                         
#>  3         1184 ""                         
#>  4         1184 ""                         
#>  5         1184 "by Alexandre Dumas [père]"
#>  6         1184 ""                         
#>  7         1184 ""                         
#>  8         1184 ""                         
#>  9         1184 ""                         
#> 10         1184 ""                         
#> # … with 61,298 more rows

# download two books: Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre
books <- gutenberg_download(c(768, 1260), meta_fields = "title")
books
#> # A tibble: 33,343 × 3
#>    gutenberg_id text                title            
#>           <int> <chr>               <chr>            
#>  1          768 "Wuthering Heights" Wuthering Heights
#>  2          768 ""                  Wuthering Heights
#>  3          768 "by Emily Brontë"   Wuthering Heights
#>  4          768 ""                  Wuthering Heights
#>  5          768 ""                  Wuthering Heights
#>  6          768 ""                  Wuthering Heights
#>  7          768 ""                  Wuthering Heights
#>  8          768 "CHAPTER I"         Wuthering Heights
#>  9          768 ""                  Wuthering Heights
#> 10          768 ""                  Wuthering Heights
#> # … with 33,333 more rows
books %>% count(title)
#> # A tibble: 2 × 2
#>   title                           n
#>   <chr>                       <int>
#> 1 Jane Eyre: An Autobiography 21001
#> 2 Wuthering Heights           12342

# download all books from Jane Austen
austen <- gutenberg_works(author == "Austen, Jane") %>%
  gutenberg_download(meta_fields = "title")

austen
#> # A tibble: 170,600 × 3
#>    gutenberg_id text             title     
#>           <int> <chr>            <chr>     
#>  1          105 "Persuasion"     Persuasion
#>  2          105 ""               Persuasion
#>  3          105 "by Jane Austen" Persuasion
#>  4          105 ""               Persuasion
#>  5          105 "(1818)"         Persuasion
#>  6          105 ""               Persuasion
#>  7          105 ""               Persuasion
#>  8          105 "Contents"       Persuasion
#>  9          105 ""               Persuasion
#> 10          105 " CHAPTER I."    Persuasion
#> # … with 170,590 more rows
austen %>%
  count(title)
#> # A tibble: 10 × 2
#>    title                                                                       n
#>    <chr>                                                                   <int>
#>  1 "Emma"                                                                  16488
#>  2 "Lady Susan"                                                             2540
#>  3 "Love and Freindship [sic]"                                              3714
#>  4 "Mansfield Park"                                                        15670
#>  5 "Northanger Abbey"                                                       7991
#>  6 "Persuasion"                                                             8353
#>  7 "Pride and Prejudice"                                                   14529
#>  8 "Sense and Sensibility"                                                 12673
#>  9 "The Complete Project Gutenberg Works of Jane Austen\nA Linked Index o… 80073
#> 10 "The Letters of Jane Austen\r\nSelected from the compilation of her gr…  8569
# }