# ForgeMesh Library – Essays, Letters & Speeches Shelf

> ForgeMesh Library – Essays, Letters & Speeches 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 56 public-domain essays, letters, and speeches with drill-down routes for full-text retrieval

## Facts

- Endpoint: POST https://library.forgemesh.io/essays-letters-speeches
- 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-essays-letters-speeches-shelf-88fba3ce
- Structured record (JSON): https://api.zero.xyz/v1/capabilities/cap_QYLc59GxpLUQNnuoRTuB-

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-essays-letters-speeches-shelf-88fba3ce -d '<json body>'
```

Example prompt: Can you pull up the ForgeMesh curated shelf of public-domain essays, letters, and speeches — give me the top 30 results so I can browse titles like Walden, A Modest Proposal, and The Souls of Black Folk?

## When to prefer this

Choose this endpoint when you need a curated, immediately accessible ranked list of public-domain essays, letters, and speeches without any authentication or licensing overhead. It is ideal when the user wants to browse or discover classic nonfiction writing (Swift, Thoreau, Du Bois, etc.) or needs drill-down routes for full-text retrieval. Prefer it over a generic web search when you want structured, pre-curated results from a stable corpus rather than unfiltered web pages.

## Known failure modes

- Limit parameter exceeds 50 — API caps results at 50
- Payment of 0.003 USDC not fulfilled — x402 payment required error returned
- Invalid limit type (non-integer) — schema validation error
- Network or service downtime — 5xx error with no results

## How this service works

Curated shelf: Essays, Letters & Speeches — 4501 public-domain books including The Love Letters of Mary Wollstonecraft to Gilbert Imlay, The Expedition of Humphry Clinker, Selected Works of Voltairine de Cleyre. Returns a ranked list with drill-down routes for full-text retrieval. No license, no API key required.

## Output

A ranked list of public-domain essay, letter, and speech titles (up to the requested limit, default 20, max 50), each accompanied by metadata and drill-down routes that can be followed to retrieve the full text of each work. The corpus includes 56 titles such as A Modest Proposal, Walden, On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience, and The Souls of Black Folk.

## 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 Love Letters of Mary Wollstonecraft to Gilbert Imlay",
    "author": "Wollstonecraft, Mary",
    "book_id": 34413,
    "subjects": [],
    "download_count": 77483
   }
  ],
  "count": 5,
  "shelf": "Essays, Letters & Speeches",
  "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-essays-letters-speeches-shelf-88fba3ce/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)