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We may all be old fucks here, but I doubt any of y'all are as old as this thing. I got it from a great-aunt who got it from her aunt. It smells as good as it looks. Originally printed in 1877 in Edinburgh  , and I'm betting this copy was too. With up-to-date science like this, who needs the internet? Post pics of your ancient books, or stories about how you no longer have your ancient books. ShredsYouSay fucked around with this message at 22:19 on Apr 1, 2023 |
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Apr 1, 2023 22:01
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You've got me beat, op. I have a complete works of Shakespeare in two volumes, printed in 1900. The spine of vol. 2 is in pretty bad shape but it's usable. I got it for 50 cents at the Salvation Army store about 25 years ago.  I also have several from the mid 20th century: a Harvard Classics edition of folklore and fables, including Aesop, Grimm, and Anderson, from 1937   C. S. Lewis's "The Screwtape Letters" from 1944   Thomas Mann's "Doctor Faustus" from 1948   H. G. Wells' "The Outline of History" from 1949   
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Apr 2, 2023 02:57
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Mine would be a copy of Ernest Hello's Les Plateaux de Balance from 1880. The binding isn't original, unfortunately, but the pages are in remarkably good shape - the book was produced on notably higher quality paper that most of the other books from the end of the 19th century that are in my library. 
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Apr 3, 2023 01:39
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I have a biography of Kaiser Wilhelm from 1923 that I bought at a university book sale.
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Apr 3, 2023 02:26
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more of a YA vibe over here. this seems to be a 1903 (?) printing of the Wizard of Oz  inherited a bunch of these from my grandparents. mostly in terrible shape but they're cool to look at.    
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Apr 3, 2023 03:04
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Apr 3, 2023 03:14
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 The first volumes of Strand Magazine (1891) featuring the first Sherlock Holmes stories   A collection of various volumes of Punch magazine including the first one from 1841  The Odyssey from 1811  
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Apr 15, 2023 07:18
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I'll be editing some photos in here from my phone but the oldest book I own is from 1875 and is the most insane poo poo I've ever read. It's a treatise on human sexuality with a title longer than I care to type out that explains in exquisite detail every thing you ever wished to know about the relations of the sexes with a heaping dose of phrenologic studies and insane conjecture and generalizations. It also has some amazing illustrations. I have always wanted to do a thread on this book and take requests to post parts from it because there is just so much stuff and it's all insane that it's hard to pick any particular thing. The bit of the contents pages that I've posted are like 1/5th of the topics covered in the book. I try not to handle it too much because those early pages are really fragile on account of its age.     
Heath fucked around with this message at 22:45 on Apr 15, 2023 |
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Apr 15, 2023 22:38
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Fig. 550. --- BACCHUS (pictured mid Fleshlight session).
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Apr 15, 2023 23:16
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First edition of Ulysses that was gifted to me by a friend in Ireland as a congratulatory gift for finishing my Lit degree. It was an absolutely insane gift and I took it out of the case he gave it in like once to look at it in awe and haven't taken it out since because I'm terrified of touching it lmfao.
Lil Swamp Booger Baby fucked around with this message at 17:12 on Apr 16, 2023 |
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Apr 16, 2023 17:08
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Actually hold up, the oldest is a copy of Ethics of the Dust from like, 1880 or something, but that thing is a tedious bore so idgaf really.
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Apr 16, 2023 17:09
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My oldest book is the Cyclopedia of Commercial Anecdotes, Vol. 2, published in 1864, containing a lot of brief newspaper article-length business stories such as the time Baron Rothschild mistook two potential customers for assassins and attacked them with a big ledger. I'm sure they were helpful to pass the time in the counting-house. Unfortunately, the leather is dissolving into powder, a consequence of having been exposed to sulfur dioxide at some point in its life. I also have the tail end of the John Payne translation of the Arabian Nights from 1894, and I'm kicking myself for not snapping up the rest of the set which was almost complete except for volume 1. I also have Life on the Bosphorus, a history and travelogue of Turkey from 1895, volume 3 of the Conquest of Mexico from 1881, Volume 1 of Horae Subsecivae, a series of essays on the history of medicine and other topics by Dr. John Brown, 1890, and Over the World, a collection of travel writing from 1884 by Henry Howe. For some reason, no one ever keeps complete sets of anything that old I guess.
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Apr 17, 2023 03:08
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Going by when it was written, Epic of Gilgamesh. Going by when I actually bought it (Or was bought for me)? Probably my Calvin & Hobbes books. Going by when it was printed and bound? Uuhhh, I dunno, maybe like the giant book of poo poo in the Air & Space Museum my grandpa gave me when he let me go through his books once.
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Apr 17, 2023 04:33
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The Silent Reader from 1920, a grammar school language arts book. It was a hand-me-down from grandmother, who called it the "ugly book" because it has a nondescript blackish cover. I don't know that it's worth anything monetarily but it means a lot to me.
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Apr 18, 2023 01:20
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A copy of Report of the Geological Survey of Ohio Volume 2 Number 2, dated 1875.
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Apr 18, 2023 18:31
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A Dollhouse by Henrik Ibsen. Part of the Danish canon. 1896  But the ones I prize most and actually read are Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass from 1929 as well as Song of Myself and a collection just titled Poems from 1949 and 1950. E: for comedy value, Drinks and How to Make Them from 1927. It's got most of the standard drinks you would expect and some period ones except there's absinthe or a recommendation to add absinthe in drat near every recipe 
Fruits of the sea fucked around with this message at 19:40 on Apr 18, 2023 |
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Apr 18, 2023 19:28
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Sorry for the doublepost:Heath posted:I'll be editing some photos in here from my phone but the oldest book I own is from 1875 and is the most insane poo poo I've ever read. It's a treatise on human sexuality with a title longer than I care to type out that explains in exquisite detail every thing you ever wished to know about the relations of the sexes with a heaping dose of phrenologic studies and insane conjecture and generalizations. It also has some amazing illustrations. This is amazing, please post some more. For some content here's an excerpt from the chapter Useful Prescriptions from Drinks and How to Make Them in which every possible malady has a completely insane alcoholic solution. quote:HEADACHE. To cure a headache take a little absinthe in the palm of the hand, dry it between the two hands, and sniff through the nose. After this have a plain cocktail with a dash of absinthe, or a good London Cocktail (see recipe) is generally effective. A London Cocktail is orange bitters, gum syrup, gin and you guessed it, absinthe. Garnish with olive and lemon peel.
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Apr 18, 2023 20:01
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Dr. Fowler's opus is on the Internet Archive if you want to look through it without destroying your copy (I would love to see the thread regardless)
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Apr 20, 2023 23:55
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Cthulu Carl posted:Going by when it was written, Epic of Gilgamesh. Yeah same, if we're going by when it was originally written. Can't get much older than that! (Man I'd love to own the first edition stone tablets it was original carved into  )But as for when it was originally made.... hmm, not sure. I have an old scifi compilation from the '70s I think? Featuring a bunch of Asimov's earlier stuff IIRC, as well as the works of a bunch of other authors. I also have a beat-up old edition of Dune, which judging from the cover was published around 1980. (Not at home right now, so I can't confirm)
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Apr 24, 2023 01:44
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The oldest book I own whose date I know is a 1949 edition of Drifter's Gold, a poetry collection by Don Blanding. I don't care at all for his poetry, but I bought it for his illustrations. (The attached image is just an example. I have a copy of Vagabond's House, but it's a 1954 edition. I don't normally collect books like that, but I loved his illustrations enough to seek them out and I could not find any separately published collection of his illustrations.)
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Apr 24, 2023 05:19
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Oldest I could find was, of course, a bibble. E: printing funded by England's and foreign country's bible association.  Ee: apparently the Finnish bible society was founded in Scotland. Who knew  Eee: ah, it's this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_and_Foreign_Bible_Society?wprov=sfla1 3D Megadoodoo fucked around with this message at 05:43 on Apr 24, 2023 |
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Apr 24, 2023 05:34
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1850 Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada By Washington Irving But its somewhere at my friend's house in PA gently caress!!
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Apr 29, 2023 19:35
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that would be The Bible op
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Apr 30, 2023 04:28
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Oldest book I got is a French infantry manual from 1791. It was gifted to the Royal West-Gothia-Dahl Regiment's Library in 1833 and found by me moldering away in a cheap IKEA bookshelf in a semi-abandoned home guard barracks a few years back. Sadly, I don't know any French so I can't read it. Some other interesting books I have include this one - Observations from the Russo-Japanese War from 1912.  Two Swedish officers have collected observations from various sources concerning the 1904-1904 Russo-Japanese War. Their conclusions: Modern artillery and machineguns will gently caress you up, fast transportation and communication are super important and if you're gonna assault an entrenched position you better be prepared to take a poo poo-ton of casualties. Not to worry, though! A war in western Europe will look nothing like this, due to how much more developed the region is and how much more advanced the armies are! Also, the Japanese naturally fared better in the mountainous far east since they are a mountain people, as opposed to the Russians who are a plains people. Next is this little gem - Can Germany Win?, published in 1939 mere months before the outbreak of WWII.  The author, a former loyal Austro-Hungarian subject and now a disgruntled Hungarian, takes a critical look at Germany's chances in the coming inevitable war, looking at army sizes, industrial output and natural resources. His conclusions: Germany might take Czechoslovakia, Poland and the Low Countries. But if they go after the USSR or - God forbid - the USA, they will be proper hosed. His only real flaw, in hindsight, is overestimating the French army.
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May 3, 2023 23:46
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My oldest book isn't nearly as old as everyone else's, but it's very special to me. The 1951 edition of Arlo It was a gift from my grandpa after the birth of my 2nd son, who of course is also named Arlo. I had never heard of the book before, but it was my grandpa's favorite book when he was a kid and he dug up his own copy out of deep storage for us. We put it in a little protective sleeve and into his keepsake box for later
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May 5, 2023 19:00
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I’ve built up a pretty big library over the years. I have manuscript fragments dating back to the 12th century, but my oldest complete books are a 1556 edition of Aristo’s Orlando Furioso and a 1598 edition of Pigafetta’s Regnum Congo. Orlando Furioso is, hands-down, my favorite epic poem of all time, and this was the earliest edition of it I could afford. (The complete poem was first published in 1532, so this is within 24 years of that.)  I can’t actually read it. I don’t know Italian and certainly not 16th century Italian, but I know all the stories and can follow along with the pictures. Every canto is illustrated.  Regnum Congo is the Latin translation of Pigafetta’s 1591 report Relatione del reame del Congo. I don’t know when the Latin translation was first published, but a 1598 copy must be a very early one. I can bumble my way through Latin with a lot of difficulty, but I bought this because of its Lovecraft connection. It’s the centerpiece of the short story The Picture in the House, about a wondrously old cannibal lusting after a picture in Regnum Congo showing “victuals I couldn’t raise nor buy”. I don’t think most people realize that Regnum Congo is a real book, this is the human meat market illustration being alluded to:  (I’d of course like a copy of the July, 1921 issue of The National Amateur that The Picture in the House was published in, but that regularly sells for fifteen times what I gave for Regnum Congo, and Regnum Congo wasn’t a cheap book.) Ortho fucked around with this message at 16:28 on May 7, 2023 |
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May 7, 2023 16:13
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the Spain Virus posted:I’ve built up a pretty big library over the years. I have manuscript fragments dating back to the 12th century, but my oldest complete books are a 1556 edition of Aristo’s Orlando Furioso and a 1598 edition of Pigafetta’s Regnum Congo. Where are you finding these? This is legit
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May 7, 2023 17:06
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Auctions, mostly. Rare book dealers, but they’ll charge you a premium. Sometime remarkable finds will crop up at just general antique stores. I got a great 1666 copy of Ovid’s Metamorphoses for all of $75 at an antique mall in Searsport, Maine. You’ve just got to keep your eyes open.
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May 7, 2023 17:37
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My great grandfather's ww2 Arbeitsbuch fur Auslander (foreigners workbook) that was among my grandmother's effects when she died. Also her personal photo album.
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May 7, 2023 21:14
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 Most likely this book of poems by Elizabeth Barrett Browning from 1887.
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May 8, 2023 02:33
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Not as old as those here but I have my aunty Emilys book "red cap tales" that she was given for being head girl in 1913. The inside cover scared the poo poo out of me as a kid (and LBR still does)
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May 17, 2023 19:50
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A few of the old books in my library:  My father's set of the Harvard Classics (1969 printing) and my grandparents' set of Dickens (ca. 1935). Yeah, the bookcase is crummy and needs trim. I'll get around to it one of these days.   The Johnstown Horror!!! or Valley of Death, 1899.  The Farmer's Encyclopedia, 1901. A brick of a book, chock full of useful information like what to do if your horse has wind galls or your oxen come down with hematuria.    The Great Operas, 1899. Big books (16" x 13") -- the full set is ten volumes but I only have five. Includes extremely detailed plot summaries and facts about popular operas, with plenty of illustrations, including some lovely plates, like the one above showing Siegfried killing Fafnir. Unfortunately, the bindings are shot so I try to avoid handling them. Selachian fucked around with this message at 02:14 on Jun 2, 2023 |
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Jun 2, 2023 02:11
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