Publishing Public Domain Material

Here's a Noob question:

Prepressman by day, desparately want to branch out in to other endeavors by night. Thought about publishing a series of lavishly illustrated volumes of E.A.Poe. ( Illustrations by me, you get the idea)

This is public domain work. How do I access this stuff? Is there a Goverment office that holds this stuff? (Library of Congress?)

Can I simply transcribe it from an exsisting published tome?

What's the protocol?

If anybody knows, I'd appriciate a word on this.

Thanks again
Todd (Noob)

I'd use the Project Gutenberg text; you can read their license terms in the file itself, which essentially ask for a statement about where you got the text. I'd also encourage you to donate some cash, when you've published your book.

wow. Thank you so much. You made my day.

Todd

If I ever get this off the ground, I will send you a copy.
Thanks again.