Copyright-approved texts for English videos

Making an English video for Yipiyap On Demand? A lot of topics will require a sample text to work with, but it’s important not to use anything that’s copyrighted to someone else. To help you along, we’ve identified some common English Literature set texts that are out-of-copyright (in the UK, that means it’s 70+ years since the author’s death).

You’re free to use extracts from these texts in your videos without giving any credit:

19th Century Novels and prose

• A Christmas Carol (1843) by Charles Dickens

• Frankenstein (1818) by Mary Shelley

• Great Expectations (1860) by Charles Dickens

• Pride and Prejudice (1813) by Jane Austen

• The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886) by Robert Louis Stevenson

Shakespeare

• Macbeth (1623) by William Shakespeare

• Much Ado About Nothing (1600) by William Shakespeare

• Romeo and Juliet (1597) by William Shakespeare

• The Merchant of Venice (1600) by William Shakespeare

• The Tempest (1611) by William Shakespeare

Modern literature

• Animal Farm (1945) by George Orwell