📚 His life's preservation work — continuing
The Felz Library
The Encyclopédie of the Faithful
Rare and antique books that Joe Felz sought out, collected and released so anyone could read them — and, added since by the people carrying his work on, the oldest religious and scientific texts that survive anywhere in scanned form. He wrote none of these. They belong to their authors, most of whom died a century ago, and some of whom died four thousand years ago. What he did was find them, digitise them and give them away, because old books quietly disappear when nobody is looking. That work did not stop when he did.
The shelf
68 volumes · 12 from Joe, 56 donated since · 17 collections · oldest work c. 2500 BCE
The 12 volumes Joe Felz sought out and released himself, before he died. This shelf is closed — it is exactly what he left.
History of the United States, from the Discovery of the American Continent (Vol. V)
George Bancroft
1878 ed. · Little, Brown and Company, Boston
History
Scan: Internet Archive
Joe’s own collection
The Physics and Physiology of Spiritualism
William A. Hammond, M.D.
1871 ed. · D. Appleton & Company, New York
Psychical Research
Scan: Internet Archive
Joe’s own collection
Egyptian Masonic History of the Original and Unabridged Ancient and Ninety-Six Degree Rite
Calvin C. Burt
1879 ed. · White & Floyd, Printers, Utica, New York
Freemasonry
Scan: Cornell University Library (via Internet Archive)
Joe’s own collection
Conversations on the Bible: Its Statements Harmonized and Mysteries Explained
Enoch Pond, D.D.
1888 ed. · C. A. Nichols & Company, Springfield, Massachusetts
Biblical Studies
Scan: Google Books (via Internet Archive)
Joe’s own collection
Anderson's Great Expose of the Mystic Sciences
Lew. H. Anderson
1884 ed. · Published by the author, Chicago
Mental Science
Joe’s own collection
Ancient Magic, Magnetism, and Psychic Forces: The Key to Power
Prof. L. H. Anderson
1895 ed. · The National Institute, Masonic Temple, Chicago
Mental Science
Scan: Internet Archive
Joe’s own collection
The Key to Mental and Physical Power
Prof. L. H. Anderson
1897 ed. · The National Institute of Science, Masonic Temple, Chicago
Mental Science
Joe’s own collection
The History of Freemasonry
Albert Gallatin Mackey, with William R. Singleton
1898 ed. · The Masonic History Company, New York
Freemasonry
Scan: Google Books (via Internet Archive)
Joe’s own collection
Life and Teachings of "Zoroaster," the Great Persian
Loren Harper Whitney
1905 ed. · de Laurence, Scott & Co., Chicago
Comparative Religion
Scan: Internet Archive
Joe’s own collection
Mysterious Psychic Forces
Camille Flammarion
1907 ed. · Small, Maynard & Co., Boston
Psychical Research
Scan: Universal Library (via Internet Archive)
Joe’s own collection
The Teachings of Zoroaster and the Philosophy of the Parsi Religion
S. A. Kapadia, M.D.
1913 ed. · John Murray, Albemarle Street, London
Comparative Religion
Scan: University of Toronto (via Internet Archive)
Joe’s own collection
The Son of God: The Mystical Teachings of the Masters
R. Swinburne Clymer
1916 ed. · Philosophical Publishing Co., Allentown, Pennsylvania
Mysticism
Scan: Internet Archive
Joe’s own collection
56 volumes donated since, each credited to whoever gave it. This shelf stays open — it is how the work continues.
Cuneiform Texts from Babylonian Tablets, &c., in the British Museum, Part IX
British Museum, Department of Egyptian and Assyrian Antiquities
1896 ed. · London: Trustees of the British Museum
Mesopotamia
Scan: Internet Archive
Donated by The FelzLegacy Community
Cuneiform Texts from Babylonian Tablets, &c., in the British Museum, Part XXXV
British Museum, Department of Egyptian and Assyrian Antiquities
1920 ed. · London: Trustees of the British Museum
Mesopotamia
Scan: Internet Archive
Donated by The FelzLegacy Community
Die altaegyptischen Pyramidentexte nach den Papierabdrucken und Photographien des Berliner Museums
Kurt Sethe
1908 ed. · Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs
Ancient Egypt
Scan: Internet Archive
Donated by The FelzLegacy Community
Les inscriptions des pyramides de Saqqarah
Gaston Maspero
1894 ed. · Paris: Bouillon
Ancient Egypt
Scan: Internet Archive
Donated by The FelzLegacy Community
The Instruction of Ptah-hotep and the Instruction of Ke'gemni
Ptahhotep; translated by Battiscombe Gunn
1912 ed. · London: John Murray (Wisdom of the East series)
Ancient Egypt
Scan: Internet Archive
Donated by The FelzLegacy Community
The Epic of Gilgamish: Text, Transliteration and Notes
R. Campbell Thompson
1930 ed. · Oxford: Clarendon Press
Mesopotamia
Scan: Internet Archive
Donated by The FelzLegacy Community
The Chaldean Account of Genesis
George Smith
1876 ed. · London: Sampson Low, Marston, Searle & Rivington
Mesopotamia
Scan: Internet Archive
Donated by The FelzLegacy Community
Sumerian Liturgies and Psalms
Stephen Langdon
1919 ed. · Philadelphia: University Museum, University of Pennsylvania
Mesopotamia
Scan: Internet Archive
Donated by The FelzLegacy Community
An Old Babylonian Version of the Gilgamesh Epic
Morris Jastrow Jr. and Albert T. Clay
1920 ed. · New Haven: Yale University Press
Mesopotamia
Scan: Internet Archive
Donated by The FelzLegacy Community
The Seven Tablets of Creation, Volume I: English Translations, Transliterations, Glossary, Introduction
Leonard William King
1902 ed. · London: Luzac
Mesopotamia
Scan: Internet Archive
Donated by The FelzLegacy Community
The Seven Tablets of Creation, Volume II: Supplementary Texts (Cuneiform Texts and Plates)
Leonard William King
1902 ed. · London: Luzac
Mesopotamia
Scan: Internet Archive
Donated by The FelzLegacy Community
The Code of Hammurabi, King of Babylon
Robert Francis Harper
1904 ed. · Chicago: University of Chicago Press
Mesopotamia
Scan: Internet Archive
Donated by The FelzLegacy Community
The Edwin Smith Surgical Papyrus, Volume 1: Hieroglyphic Transliteration, Translation and Commentary (OIP 3)
James Henry Breasted
1930 ed. · Chicago: University of Chicago Press (Oriental Institute Publications 3)
Medicine & Surgery
Scan: Internet Archive
Donated by The FelzLegacy Community
The Edwin Smith Surgical Papyrus, Volume 2: Facsimile Plates and Line for Line Hieroglyphic Transliteration (OIP 4)
James Henry Breasted
1930 ed. · Chicago: University of Chicago Press (Oriental Institute Publications 4)
Medicine & Surgery
Scan: Internet Archive
Donated by The FelzLegacy Community
The Papyrus of Ani: A Reproduction in Facsimile, Volume 1
E. A. Wallis Budge
1913 ed. · London: Medici Society; New York: G. P. Putnam
Ancient Egypt
Scan: Internet Archive
Donated by The FelzLegacy Community
Das aegyptische Todtenbuch der XVIII. bis XX. Dynastie
Edouard Naville
1886 ed. · Berlin: Asher
Ancient Egypt
Scan: Internet Archive
Donated by The FelzLegacy Community
Papyros Ebers: Das aelteste Buch ueber Heilkunde
Georg Ebers (papyrus); translated by Heinrich Joachim
1890 ed. · Berlin: G. Reimer
Medicine & Surgery
Scan: Internet Archive
Donated by The FelzLegacy Community
The Medical Features of the Papyrus Ebers
Carl H. von Klein
1905 ed. · Chicago: American Medical Association
Medicine & Surgery
Scan: Internet Archive
Donated by The FelzLegacy Community
The Hymns of the Rigveda
Ralph T. H. Griffith, translator
1920 ed. · Benares: E. J. Lazarus and Co.
Vedic & Sanskrit
Scan: Internet Archive
Donated by The FelzLegacy Community
Rig-Veda-Sanhita: The Sacred Hymns of the Brahmans, with the Commentary of Sayanacharya
Friedrich Max Mueller, editor
1849 ed. · London: W. H. Allen
Vedic & Sanskrit
Scan: Internet Archive
Donated by The FelzLegacy Community
Uranographie Chinoise: Atlas Celeste
Gustave Schlegel
1875 ed. · Leiden: E. J. Brill
Astronomy
Scan: Internet Archive
Donated by The FelzLegacy Community
The Book of the Dead: Facsimiles of the Papyri of Hunefer, Anhai, Kerasher and Netchemet
E. A. Wallis Budge
1899 ed. · London: Longmans and Co.
Ancient Egypt
Scan: Internet Archive
Donated by The FelzLegacy Community
Atharva-Veda Samhita, translated with a critical and exegetical commentary
William Dwight Whitney, translator; Charles Rockwell Lanman, editor
1905 ed. · Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University
Vedic & Sanskrit
Scan: Internet Archive
Donated by The FelzLegacy Community
The Sacred Books of China: The Texts of Confucianism, Part II — The Yi King (Sacred Books of the East, Volume XVI)
James Legge, translator
1882 ed. · Oxford: Clarendon Press
Chinese Classics
Scan: Internet Archive
Donated by The FelzLegacy Community
The Upanishads, Part I (Sacred Books of the East, Volume I)
Friedrich Max Mueller, translator
1879 ed. · Oxford: Clarendon Press
Vedic & Sanskrit
Scan: Internet Archive
Donated by The FelzLegacy Community
The Reports of the Magicians and Astrologers of Nineveh and Babylon, Volume I: Cuneiform Texts
R. Campbell Thompson
1900 ed. · London: Luzac
Astronomy
Scan: Internet Archive
Donated by The FelzLegacy Community
Sternkunde und Sterndienst in Babel
Franz Xaver Kugler
1907 ed. · Muenster in Westfalen: Aschendorff
Astronomy
Scan: Internet Archive
Donated by The FelzLegacy Community
An English Translation of the Sushruta Samhita
Susruta (attributed); Kunja Lal Bhishagratna, translator
1907-1916 ed. · Calcutta: Kaviraj Kunja Lal Bhishagratna
Medicine & Surgery
Scan: Internet Archive
Donated by The FelzLegacy Community
The Genuine Works of Hippocrates, Volume I
Hippocrates; translated by Francis Adams
1849 ed. · London: Printed for the Sydenham Society
Medicine & Surgery
Scan: Internet Archive
Donated by The FelzLegacy Community
The Genuine Works of Hippocrates, Volume II
Hippocrates; translated by Francis Adams
1849 ed. · London: Printed for the Sydenham Society
Medicine & Surgery
Scan: Internet Archive
Donated by The FelzLegacy Community
Charaka-Samhita, translated into English
Caraka (attributed); Avinash Chandra Kaviratna, translator
1890-1908 ed. · Calcutta: Dass
Medicine & Surgery
Scan: Internet Archive
Donated by The FelzLegacy Community
The Sacred Books of China: The Texts of Taoism, Part I (Sacred Books of the East, Volume XXXIX)
James Legge, translator
1891 ed. · Oxford: Clarendon Press
Chinese Classics
Scan: Internet Archive
Donated by The FelzLegacy Community
Aristotle: Historia Animalium (The History of Animals)
Aristotle; translated by D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson
1910 ed. · Oxford: Clarendon Press
Greek Science & Mathematics
Scan: Internet Archive
Donated by The FelzLegacy Community
Theophrastus: Enquiry into Plants, and Minor Works on Odours and Weather Signs, Volume I
Theophrastus; translated by Sir Arthur Hort
1916 ed. · London: W. Heinemann
Greek Science & Mathematics
Scan: Internet Archive
Donated by The FelzLegacy Community
The Thirteen Books of Euclid's Elements, Volume I: Introduction and Books I-II
Euclid; translated with commentary by Sir Thomas L. Heath
1908 ed. · Cambridge: at the University Press
Greek Science & Mathematics
Scan: Internet Archive
Donated by The FelzLegacy Community
The Thirteen Books of Euclid's Elements, Volume II: Books III-IX
Euclid; translated with commentary by Sir Thomas L. Heath
1908 ed. · Cambridge: at the University Press
Greek Science & Mathematics
Scan: Internet Archive
Donated by The FelzLegacy Community
The Thirteen Books of Euclid's Elements, Volume III: Books X-XIII and Appendix
Euclid; translated with commentary by Sir Thomas L. Heath
1908 ed. · Cambridge: at the University Press
Greek Science & Mathematics
Scan: Internet Archive
Donated by The FelzLegacy Community
The Old Testament in Greek according to the text of Codex Vaticanus (Cambridge Larger Septuagint), Volume I Part I
Alan England Brooke, Norman McLean and H. St J. Thackeray, editors
1906 ed. · Cambridge University Press
Biblical Manuscripts
Scan: Internet Archive
Donated by The FelzLegacy Community
Aristarchus of Samos, the Ancient Copernicus
Aristarchus of Samos; edited by Sir Thomas L. Heath
1913 ed. · Oxford: Clarendon Press
Astronomy
Scan: Internet Archive
Donated by The FelzLegacy Community
The Dhammapada (Sacred Books of the East, Volume X)
Friedrich Max Mueller, translator
1881 ed. · Oxford: Clarendon Press
Buddhist & Jain
Scan: Internet Archive
Donated by The FelzLegacy Community
The Works of Archimedes
Archimedes; edited by Sir Thomas L. Heath
1897 ed. · Cambridge: at the University Press
Greek Science & Mathematics
Scan: Internet Archive
Donated by The FelzLegacy Community
The Method of Archimedes, recently discovered by Heiberg
Archimedes; J. L. Heiberg; edited by Sir Thomas L. Heath
1912 ed. · Cambridge: at the University Press
Greek Science & Mathematics
Scan: Internet Archive
Donated by The FelzLegacy Community
The Development of Mathematics in China and Japan
Yoshio Mikami
1913 ed. · Leipzig: B. G. Teubner; New York: G. E. Stechert & Co.
Chinese Classics
Scan: Internet Archive
Donated by The FelzLegacy Community
Apollonius of Perga: Treatise on Conic Sections
Apollonius of Perga; edited by Sir Thomas L. Heath
1896 ed. · Cambridge: at the University Press
Greek Science & Mathematics
Scan: Internet Archive
Donated by The FelzLegacy Community
The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, Part I
Bernard P. Grenfell and Arthur S. Hunt
1898 ed. · London: Egypt Exploration Fund
Biblical Manuscripts
Scan: Internet Archive
Donated by The FelzLegacy Community
Pedanii Dioscoridis Anazarbei De Materia Medica Libri Quinque, Volume I
Pedanius Dioscorides; edited by Kurt Sprengel
1829 ed. · Leipzig: C. Cnobloch
Medicine & Surgery
Scan: Internet Archive
Donated by The FelzLegacy Community
Composition Mathematique de Claude Ptolemee (Almagest), Volume I
Claudius Ptolemy; translated by Nicolas Halma; notes by J. B. J. Delambre
1813 ed. · Paris: Chez Henri Grand
Astronomy
Scan: Internet Archive
Donated by The FelzLegacy Community
Composition Mathematique de Claude Ptolemee, ou Astronomie Ancienne, Volume II
Claudius Ptolemy; translated by Nicolas Halma
1816 ed. · Paris: Imprimerie de J.-M. Eberhart
Astronomy
Scan: Internet Archive
Donated by The FelzLegacy Community
Galen: On the Natural Faculties
Galen of Pergamon; translated by Arthur John Brock
1916 ed. · London: W. Heinemann; New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons
Medicine & Surgery
Scan: Internet Archive
Donated by The FelzLegacy Community
Thrice-Greatest Hermes, Vol. II: The Sermons
Attributed to Hermes Trismegistus · trans. G. R. S. Mead
1906 ed. · Theosophical Publishing Society, London
Hermetica
Scan: Robarts Library, University of Toronto (via Internet Archive)
Donated by The FelzLegacy Community
Thrice-Greatest Hermes, Vol. I: Prolegomena
G. R. S. Mead
1906 ed. · Theosophical Publishing Society, London
Hermetica
Scan: Robarts Library, University of Toronto (via Internet Archive)
Donated by The FelzLegacy Community
Thrice-Greatest Hermes, Vol. III: Excerpts and Fragments
Attributed to Hermes Trismegistus · trans. G. R. S. Mead
1906 ed. · Theosophical Publishing Society, London
Hermetica
Scan: Robarts Library, University of Toronto (via Internet Archive)
Donated by The FelzLegacy Community
Diophantus of Alexandria: A Study in the History of Greek Algebra
Diophantus; Sir Thomas L. Heath
1910 ed. · Cambridge: at the University Press
Greek Science & Mathematics
Scan: Internet Archive
Donated by The FelzLegacy Community
Codex Sinaiticus: New Testament — Lake photographic facsimile
Kirsopp Lake and Helen Lake, facsimile editors
1911 ed. · Oxford: Clarendon Press
Biblical Manuscripts
Scan: Internet Archive
Donated by The FelzLegacy Community
Codex Sinaiticus: The Old Testament — Lake photographic facsimile
Kirsopp Lake and Helen Lake, facsimile editors
1921 ed. · Oxford: Clarendon Press
Biblical Manuscripts
Scan: Internet Archive
Donated by The FelzLegacy Community
Bezae Codex Cantabrigiensis
Frederick Henry Ambrose Scrivener, editor
1864 ed. · Cambridge: Deighton, Bell
Biblical Manuscripts
Scan: Internet Archive
Donated by The FelzLegacy Community
Why he did it
Of everything Joe built, this was the one he called a passion project.
Old books do not fail dramatically. They just quietly stop existing — bindings collapse, paper acidifies, private collections get broken up, and one day the last copy of something is gone and nobody notices it went. Joe decided that was worth spending his life on.
Preserving what others want forgotten. Digitizing sacred texts from Costa Rica, one page at a time.
A man living in a van, running eight companies, teaching strangers to wire solar panels — and going home to photograph four-hundred-year-old pages so somebody in a century could still read them.
How it is done
His method, still the method.
Photograph
Every page shot by hand on a rig he built himself. Fragile volumes no sheet-feed scanner would survive, done a page at a time.
Restore & read
Images cleaned, straightened and run through text recognition so the contents can be searched, not merely looked at.
Share
Onto the shelf, free to read. This was always the entire point of the exercise for him.
The work
His rig, his hands, his collection.
Build your own
A book scanner is any device that digitises the pages of a book. Every one of them has the same three jobs: cameras capture an image of each page, a controller trips the shutters and saves the photographs somewhere useful, and the rig holds all of it steady in good light.
They can be as simple as a cardboard box, a phone on a tripod and your own hand as the controller — that is roughly where Joe started. Or they can run to multiple moving parts, computer-triggered capture and high-resolution bodies. Here is how a typical rig comes together.
Lighting
Ambient room light will not do it. You want dedicated lamps, strong and even on both pages, positioned off-axis so they do not throw glare or a reflection back into the lens.
Cameras
Mounted rigidly and aimed at the dead centre of the page each one covers. Two cameras, one per page, means you capture a whole spread in a single trigger instead of flipping twice.
Platen
A sheet of glass or acrylic that presses the pages flat. Software can dewarp a curled page afterwards, but flattening it before the shutter fires is always more reliable than fixing it later.
Book
It sits at the centre of the rig, pressed up against the platen for each shot and drawn back so the page can turn. Everything else exists to serve this part without damaging it.
Cradle
It carries the weight of the covers and the spine. Any handling wears a book, but a V-shaped cradle means the spine never has to open flat — which is what actually cracks old bindings.
None of this needs to be expensive. The thing that separates a usable scan from a wasted afternoon is not the camera — it is even lighting, a rigid mount and a flat page.
The FelzLegacy Community
The shelf keeps growing
Joe found 12 of these himself. Everything added from here is donated by the FelzLegacy community — people who knew him, people who only know what he was doing, and anyone who thinks a book worth saving should not vanish because nobody got round to it.
Every donated volume is credited to the person who gave it, on the volume itself, permanently. Joe kept the ledger honest about who wrote what; the same rule applies to who saved what.
Donated by
Volumes are checked before they go up: title page read, edition confirmed, rights basis recorded. Only works free to share are published — the standard Joe held himself to, and the reason this collection can stay online for good.
Have something we do not
If you have a book that is not in this collection, send it to us
Scans, photographs, a link to something already online, or just the title and edition of a volume you think belongs here — all of it is welcome. If you scanned it yourself, it goes up credited to you by name. This is exactly how Joe built the shelf in the first place: one book at a time, from whoever happened to have it.
✉ felzlegacy@gmail.comOne condition, and it is the one Joe held himself to: we can only publish work that is free to share. Please do not send anything still in copyright.
Who made these books
Every volume here passed through several hands before it reached this shelf. All of them are named.
The authors
Theirs, not his
Bancroft, Flammarion, Mackey, Clymer and Whitney on Joe’s shelf. Euclid, Archimedes, Hippocrates, Galen, Aristotle, Ptolemy, Dioscorides and Sushruta on the other — alongside the scribes of Sumer and Egypt whose names did not survive. Every volume is listed under whoever actually wrote it, with the publisher and year from its own title page.
The digitisers
Libraries that did the scanning
Where a scan carries an institution’s mark, that institution is credited on the volume: UCLA, the Harold B. Lee Library at Brigham Young, the Academy of Medicine in Toronto, the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, the Bibliothèque interuniversitaire de santé in Paris, the Royal College of Physicians by way of the UK Medical Heritage Library, the Digital Library of India, and the Internet Archive.
The collectors
Joe Felz, and everyone after
Joe’s part was to hunt these down, gather them, and put them where people could read them for nothing. Every volume donated since carries its donor’s name in the same way — a real contribution, named as exactly what it is.
Why these and not others
Every volume here had its title page read and its edition checked before it went up. The printings run from 1813 to 1921 and are all in the public domain. The test is the edition, not the age of the work: a four-thousand-year-old text in a translation published last decade is still in copyright, and several otherwise obvious candidates were left off for exactly that reason.
One thing he asked for
Joe’s own site told search engines they were welcome and told AI training crawlers they were not — findable and citable, but not raw material. We have kept that setting.