Some real absolutely timeless classic stories are available in the public domain right now. If I had more time, money and passion, I'd be the RMS of the public domain. In my mind it's the free-est a work can possibly be. Unencumbered by licensing or copyright (or copyleft) considerations. You like it? Use it for whatever you want in whatever way you want.

One of my friends was looking for something to read, had an old kindle but didn't really have any money to pay for anything. I pointed her towards these absolute classics which kept her occupied for months, and then she passed them down to her kids. She now has a kindle full of more books than she can possibly read, all for free. And her children are now benefiting from this as well. The last time we spoke, her son was enjoying romping across Mars in the "Barsoom" series, a series of books I grew up enjoying immensely. Even while looking for these I was stunned how many freaking awesome works are out there in the PD.

(most of these have ready-to-go kindle versions)

All of the Oz books (yes, there is more than 1 as I was delighted to find out) - http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/42

E.R. Burroughs, which gets you the Barsoom series, Tarzan and a handful of other fantastically great adventure reads http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/48

Even better, Verne, which gets you adventure, sci-fi and more - http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/60

A huge collection of Doyle works, Sherlock is a big piece, but he wrote tons of others. http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/69

A collection of old Science Fiction monthlies - http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/search/?query=astounding+sto...

The indomitable works by Dumas - http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/492

An entire classic bookshelf of Rudyard Kipling - http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/132

Jack London, who I grew up reading as a child and loving - http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/120

Stevenson - http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/35

And that's just the Gutenberg project. You can dive into several Library of Congress's worth of books, magazine and other literature at archive.org, a well so deep, it's easy to get lost and never find your way back to the same place again. And also happens to have the best on-line e-reader ever made. (Note: not all of these have fallen into the PD, but Archive.org treats them like it's from a world where they are in the PD, demonstrating the power of the idea).

https://archive.org/details/texts

but does have an almost 3,000 item Children's library https://archive.org/details/iacl, mostly of scans of original prints which are amazing on tablets.

The Harvard Classics https://archive.org/details/harvardclassics

And these astonishing collections

https://archive.org/details/comics

https://archive.org/details/imslp

https://archive.org/details/magazine_rack (which includes 196 issues of OMNI magazine https://archive.org/details/omni-magazine and 103 issues of Galaxy https://archive.org/details/galaxymagazine, 300 issues of Starlog https://archive.org/details/starlogmagazine)

And almost 1,500 scans of various Pulp Magazines https://archive.org/details/pulpmagazinearchive

Several libraries' worth of Computer Magazines (11,000 issues!) https://archive.org/details/computermagazines

And finally https://archive.org/details/sciencefiction