Project Gutenberg MCP MCP Server

Name: Project Gutenberg MCP MCP Server
Author: io.github.bobbyhouse

io.github.bobbyhouse/project-gutenberg-mcp

Repository Registry

What is the Project Gutenberg MCP MCP server?

Read Project Gutenberg books via MCP. Search, fetch metadata, and retrieve text in passages.

How to install Project Gutenberg MCP

Copy-paste configuration for popular MCP clients.

transport: stdio

Config generated by PluginBench — verify against the source before use.

Environment / auth

GUTENBERG_BASE_URL
required
Base URL of your Gutenberg mirror. Run the mirror from the mirror/ directory and point this at it. See the README for setup instructions.
GUTENBERG_TOOLS
required
Comma-separated list of tools to expose. Available: search_books, get_book_metadata, fetch_book_text, list_passages, get_passage
GUTENBERG_BOOK_ID
Project Gutenberg book ID to use as the default for all tools. Find IDs via search_books. Example: 2680 for Meditations by Marcus Aurelius.
GUTENBERG_CHUNK_SIZE
Size in bytes of each passage returned by get_passage.
GUTENBERG_LANGUAGE
Default ISO 639-1 language code filter for search_books. Used when the caller omits the language parameter.

Claude Desktop

~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "project-gutenberg-mcp": {
      "command": "docker",
      "args": [
        "run",
        "-i",
        "--rm",
        "roberthouse224/project-gutenberg-mcp:1.2.0",
        "run",
        "-i",
        "--rm"
      ],
      "env": {
        "GUTENBERG_BASE_URL": "<YOUR_GUTENBERG_BASE_URL>",
        "GUTENBERG_TOOLS": "<YOUR_GUTENBERG_TOOLS>",
        "GUTENBERG_BOOK_ID": "<YOUR_GUTENBERG_BOOK_ID>",
        "GUTENBERG_CHUNK_SIZE": "<YOUR_GUTENBERG_CHUNK_SIZE>",
        "GUTENBERG_LANGUAGE": "<YOUR_GUTENBERG_LANGUAGE>"
      }
    }
  }
}

Cursor

~/.cursor/mcp.json

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "project-gutenberg-mcp": {
      "command": "docker",
      "args": [
        "run",
        "-i",
        "--rm",
        "roberthouse224/project-gutenberg-mcp:1.2.0",
        "run",
        "-i",
        "--rm"
      ],
      "env": {
        "GUTENBERG_BASE_URL": "<YOUR_GUTENBERG_BASE_URL>",
        "GUTENBERG_TOOLS": "<YOUR_GUTENBERG_TOOLS>",
        "GUTENBERG_BOOK_ID": "<YOUR_GUTENBERG_BOOK_ID>",
        "GUTENBERG_CHUNK_SIZE": "<YOUR_GUTENBERG_CHUNK_SIZE>",
        "GUTENBERG_LANGUAGE": "<YOUR_GUTENBERG_LANGUAGE>"
      }
    }
  }
}

Windsurf

~/.codeium/windsurf/mcp_config.json

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "project-gutenberg-mcp": {
      "command": "docker",
      "args": [
        "run",
        "-i",
        "--rm",
        "roberthouse224/project-gutenberg-mcp:1.2.0",
        "run",
        "-i",
        "--rm"
      ],
      "env": {
        "GUTENBERG_BASE_URL": "<YOUR_GUTENBERG_BASE_URL>",
        "GUTENBERG_TOOLS": "<YOUR_GUTENBERG_TOOLS>",
        "GUTENBERG_BOOK_ID": "<YOUR_GUTENBERG_BOOK_ID>",
        "GUTENBERG_CHUNK_SIZE": "<YOUR_GUTENBERG_CHUNK_SIZE>",
        "GUTENBERG_LANGUAGE": "<YOUR_GUTENBERG_LANGUAGE>"
      }
    }
  }
}

VS Code

.vscode/mcp.json

{
  "servers": {
    "project-gutenberg-mcp": {
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "docker",
      "args": [
        "run",
        "-i",
        "--rm",
        "roberthouse224/project-gutenberg-mcp:1.2.0",
        "run",
        "-i",
        "--rm"
      ],
      "env": {
        "GUTENBERG_BASE_URL": "<YOUR_GUTENBERG_BASE_URL>",
        "GUTENBERG_TOOLS": "<YOUR_GUTENBERG_TOOLS>",
        "GUTENBERG_BOOK_ID": "<YOUR_GUTENBERG_BOOK_ID>",
        "GUTENBERG_CHUNK_SIZE": "<YOUR_GUTENBERG_CHUNK_SIZE>",
        "GUTENBERG_LANGUAGE": "<YOUR_GUTENBERG_LANGUAGE>"
      }
    }
  }
}

Claude Code

claude mcp add project-gutenberg-mcp --env GUTENBERG_BASE_URL=<YOUR_GUTENBERG_BASE_URL> --env GUTENBERG_TOOLS=<YOUR_GUTENBERG_TOOLS> --env GUTENBERG_BOOK_ID=<YOUR_GUTENBERG_BOOK_ID> --env GUTENBERG_CHUNK_SIZE=<YOUR_GUTENBERG_CHUNK_SIZE> --env GUTENBERG_LANGUAGE=<YOUR_GUTENBERG_LANGUAGE> -- docker run -i --rm roberthouse224/project-gutenberg-mcp:1.2.0 run -i --rm

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