You still won’t be able to read them in the loo, but..

..you will be glad to hear that Project Gutenberg and the World eBook Library will be making 300,000 e-books available free from from July 4, the 35th anniversary of Project Gutenberg‘s founding, through Aug. 4. for a month at the first World eBook Fair. There’s more to look forward to in future editions: half a million eBooks in 2007, three-fourths in 2008, and a full million in 2009.

The site takes a swipe at a certain web giant (“Ten times as many eBooks are available from private eBook sources, without the media circus that comes with 100 billion dollar media mavens such as Google”), before going on to say that the fair will feature

..eBooks from nearly every classic author on the varieties of subjects previously only available through the largest library collections in the world. Now these books are yours for the taking, free of charge, to keep for the rest of your lives.

There’s more. Aside from the free downloads, you can also upload your own eBooks, though the site doesn’t say how yet.