Literature Is Scary Good in Project Gutenberg’s ‘Classic Monsters’

With influential works like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes and Fritz Lang’s Metropolis free of copyright as of 2023, it’s truer than ever that the wild world of the public domain can offer a bizarre and even thrilling jaunt through historical oddities and masterpieces alike.

Hoping to inspire readers to tap into the classics regardless of how many times they’ve been adapted, Project Gutenberg has teamed with creative agency The Community for its “Classic Monsters” series. Running in digital and print publications throughout the beginning of the year, the campaign highlights the most infamous monsters of literary history to entice new readers to dive into old material.

Spotlighting three horror classics—Frankenstein, which has inspired 153 films, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, which has spawned 87, and Dracula, which has generated 189—this series creates a visual counterpart to the unique feeling of reading the source material. The spooky stars are positioned against a backdrop of text-covered pages, showing the excitement of reading those original scenes where these “classic monsters” were born. Each ad comes with a download code, encouraging anyone to dive in for themselves.

Old scares come to life

“We’re inviting people to read some of the original works that have inspired so many movies, tropes, memes, authors, filmmakers and much more,”  Dr. Gregory Newby, chief executive and director of the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, told Adweek. “Books become classics when they’ve touched generations of readers, and the campaign informs readers that these and other classics are freely available, without limitations.”

This is The Community’s second campaign with Project Gutenberg and a follow-up to 2020’s “Crossed-Out Classics.” This prior initiative highlighted the importance of reading the source material rather than taking the shortcut and simply watching the film adaptations. The ads showed dozens of pages partially blacked out to represent how much of each story is often dropped during adaptation.

“With ‘Classic Monsters,’ we were drawn to the idea that hundreds of movies have tried to recreate so many classic stories,” said Ricky Vior, senior vice president and executive creative director at The Community. “And sometimes, when you take a story from its written pages and turn it into a movie, you lose the magic of the story.”

Project Gutenberg became the world’s first provider of ebooks in 1971 when founder Michael Hart invented the format, and today sports a collection of 60,000 books in its online library. This campaign continues the mission of the nonprofit Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, which encourages the distribution of ebooks for all.

“Every Project Gutenberg book is a treasure ready to be opened and enjoyed,” Newby said, “and The Community’s campaign will help new readers to find their own treasure.”