Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly feature/meme now hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. The meme was originally the brainchild of The Broke and the Bookish. This week’s topic is Oldest (earliest published) Books on My TBR.
The Oldest Books on My TBR List
The full prompt for this week says “oldest (earliest published) books on my TBR”, so I have done my best to figure that out. I decided to only put two of Austen’s novels on the list, or she would have accounted for half the titles. Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice are the two I am most eager to read, anyway. I left out some books that I’m no longer quite as interested in reading, like Oliver Twist. (I moved those books to my “someday” list.) And I left out books I had read in abridged editions as a child, or read so long ago that I want to read them again, like Jules Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea and Mysterious Island. The youngest book on my list is over 100 years old; the oldest was first published almost 435 years ago.
I should add that I have a physical or Kindle copy of nearly all of these. I need to locate a copy of Hoffman’s The Nutcracker and the Mouse King, but that shouldn’t be hard. (I have Alexandre Dumas’s version from 1842, but I want to read the original.) I also need to find a physical copy of Spenser’s Faerie Queen that has print big enough to read! It’s important to me to see how the lines were actually written, and Kindle doesn’t always handle poetry well. But alas, my Penguin paperback copy, while an excellent edition in other ways, has teeny tiny print. I may have to resort to a magnifying glass. Or an audiobook; Naxos has a recording of the entire thing, unabridged.
The Oldest Books on My TBR List, by original publication date
The Faerie Queen, by Edmund Spenser (1590-1596)
Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen (1813) and Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen (1813)
The Nutcracker and the Mouse King, by E. A. Hoffman, (1816)
Phantastes, by George MacDonald (1858)
What Katy Did, by Susan Coolidge (1872)
The Canterville Ghost, by Oscar Wilde (1887)
The Complete Fairy Tales of Oscar Wilde (1888–1891) (Contains all the tales from The Happy Prince and Other Stories and The House of Pomegranates)
The Wind in the Willows, by Kenneth Graham (1908)
The Haunted Bookshop, by Christopher Morley (1919)
The Enchanted April, by Elizabeth von Arnem (1922)
Anne - Books of My Heart
You have the oldest books of the posts I have read.
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Lark_Bookwyrm
I have just realized that I could technically have listed two books that are even older: Le Morte d’Arthur by Sir Thomas Malory (published 1485), and The Mabinogion (earliest manuscripts c. 1340-1410, based on older oral tales.) In the case of The Mabinogion, I read the Penguin Classics edition of Lady Charlotte Guest’s 19th-century translation decades ago, but I have a recent translation on my TBR list. And in the case of Le Morte d’Arthur, I have read a number of modern-language abridged translations and retellings, but I’ve never tried reading it in the original Middle English. But I’ll probably try to get through The Faerie Queene before tackling the Malory.
Nicole @ BookWyrmKnits
I love your list! (Honestly, I also love that someone other than me has super old books on today’s list. Most of the prompts I’ve seen have had books a couple of decades old, but not a couple of centuries.)
I listened to a version of Hoffman’s The Nutcracker and the Mouse King a little while ago, and enjoyed it. I hope you do too, when you find a copy you want to read!
I know what you mean about Kindle editions of poetry. For the most part, I like reading poetry in print form for that specific reason. (Though listening to poetry read aloud can be fascinating, too.)
The oldest book I included today was a Shakespeare play, but I could have used Spenser’s The Faerie Queen too, if I’d remembered about it. I never picked an edition I wanted to read, so it’s not on my StoryGraph TBR list (which is what I used to make my list today).
Nicole @ BookWyrmKnits recently posted…Top Ten Tuesday ~ Oldest TBR Books
Lark_Bookwyrm
Oh, where did you find the audio version of Hoffman’s Nutcracker? I might try listening to it. I may have to listen to The Faerie Queene, too; Audible has an unabridged version, and I haven’t yet discovered an affordable edition with decent-size print.
Lydia
I liked What Katy Did when I was a kid.
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Susan (Bloggin' 'bout Books)
I’ve read the two Austen novels, but that’s it from your list. I hope you enjoy all these when you get to them!
Happy TTT (on a Wednesday)!
Susan
http://www.blogginboutbooks.com
Katherine
The Canterville Ghost would take you about 30 minutes. It’s a fun one! I want to read Enchanted April at some point and now I’m curious about The Haunted Bookshop!
Marwah @ The Booklore Fairy
I’ve read The Canterville Ghost for school and though I don’t remember much about it, I remember it was fun and very short. The Wind in the Willows is a book I’d love to read in the future. I hope you’ll love these books when you get to them 🙂
If you’d like to visit, here’s my TTT: https://thebooklorefairy.blogspot.com/2024/11/top-ten-tuesday-oldest-books-on-my-tbr.html
Lark@LarkWrites
I love both of those Austen novels, though I’ve only read Sense and Sensibility once. Wind in the Willows, The Haunted Bookshop and Enchanted April are also really fun reads. 😀
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Emma @ Words And Peace
Great list, I have read and loved 7 here, with The Wind in the Willows being my favorite
Emma @ Words And Peace
oops, didn’t want to click on follow-up. commenting again, in the hope of taking this away. very annoying to receive tons of follow-up emails
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Lark_Bookwyrm
I’m sorry; I have no idea how to remove the follow-ups!