# ForgeMesh Library – American Fiction 20th Century Shelf

> ForgeMesh Library – American Fiction 20th Century Shelf is a paid API for AI agents from library.forgemesh.io, paid per call via x402, $0.003/call, status unknown (last checked 2026-09-13).

Returns a ranked list of up to 134 public-domain American fiction books from the 20th century, with drill-down routes for full-text retrieval.

## Facts

- Endpoint: POST https://library.forgemesh.io/american-fiction-20th-century
- Price: $0.003/call
- Payment: x402
- Status: unknown
- Last checked: 2026-09-13
- Activations on Zero: 0
- Tags: x402
- Canonical page: https://www.zero.xyz/c/forgemesh-library-american-fiction-20th-century-shelf-abd09b6a
- Structured record (JSON): https://api.zero.xyz/v1/capabilities/cap_UY4bG8hOc_wXbX9qm48nF

Status and success rate cover calls made through Zero and Zero's own probes. Third-party monitors may report differently.

## How to call it through Zero

Zero handles the 402 payment challenge and records the run. With the Zero CLI installed (`npm i -g @zeroxyz/cli`):

```sh
zero fetch --capability forgemesh-library-american-fiction-20th-century-shelf-abd09b6a -d '<json body>'
```

Example prompt: Show me up to 30 public-domain American fiction books from the 20th century — I'm looking for classic short stories and novels I can read for free.

## When to prefer this

Choose this endpoint when you need a curated, pre-filtered list of 20th century American fiction specifically — it avoids the need for free-text search and directly surfaces ranked public-domain titles with full-text access routes. Prefer it over a general full-text search endpoint when you want to browse or catalog the shelf rather than search for specific passages.

## Known failure modes

- Requesting more than 50 books returns only the maximum of 50
- Invalid or non-integer limit value may cause a request error
- Endpoint may return fewer than requested if the shelf has fewer matching entries
- Network or payment (x402) failure if USDC balance is insufficient

## How this service works

Curated shelf: American fiction -- 20th century — 134 public-domain books including The Dunwich horror, The best short stories of 1920, and the yearbook of the American short story, The best short stories of 1919, and the yearbook of the American short story. Returns a ranked list with drill-down routes for full-text retrieval. No license, no API key required.

## Output

A ranked list of up to 50 public-domain American fiction books from the 20th century, including titles and drill-down routes that allow agents to fetch full text for each book. No authentication or license required.

## Request schema (JSON Schema)

```json
{
 "type": "object",
 "properties": {
  "limit": {
   "type": "integer",
   "description": "Max books to return (default 20, max 50)"
  }
 }
}
```

## Response schema (JSON Schema)

```json
{
 "type": "json",
 "example": {
  "books": [
   {
    "year": null,
    "title": "The Dunwich horror",
    "author": "Lovecraft, H. P. (Howard Phillips)",
    "book_id": 50133,
    "subjects": [],
    "download_count": 40148
   }
  ],
  "count": 5,
  "shelf": "American fiction -- 20th century",
  "coverage": {
   "target": 61015,
   "indexed": 61015
  },
  "drill_down": [
   "/book-metadata",
   "/book-chapter",
   "/book-quotes",
   "/literature-search"
  ]
 }
}
```

## More

- Live health (JSON, refreshed every minute): https://www.zero.xyz/c/forgemesh-library-american-fiction-20th-century-shelf-abd09b6a/health.json
- [Zero catalog index](https://www.zero.xyz/llms.txt)
- [Other services from library.forgemesh.io](https://www.zero.xyz/host/library.forgemesh.io/llms.txt)