I built a small, free site for reading public-domain books (magicbookshelf.org). Today, it has three books:

1. The Brothers Karamazov 2. Crime and Punishment 3. Pride and Prejudice

You don't have to make an account and there are no ads. I just think the classics deserve a nicer home than a wall of plain text.

When I first tried reading Karamazov, it was really difficult for me to keep up with everything.

Karamazov is the book where everyone gets lost in the names. Alexey / Alyosha / Alyoshka, Dmitri / Mitya, Fyodor Pavlovitch, Smerdyakov, two different Ivanovnas. The usual fix is to keep a wiki or a character list open, but those spoil everything that happens later.

So the reader comes with a companion I call the Margin: a guide to the people, places, and ideas in each book that only ever shows what you'd know at your current point.

For example.. Alyosha's entry while you're in chapter 3 and you get who he is by chapter 3, with nothing about his later arc.

A few notes:

The translation is Constance Garnett

There's optional narration if you'd rather listen.

I make and run it on my own, so if you spot a wrong note in the Margin, a typo, or an entry that gives away too much too early, please tell me.