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/lit/ - Literature

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11010640 No.11010640 [Reply] [Original]

What's the oldest book in your library /lit/

>> No.11010731

Do you all buy your books at B&N?

>> No.11010978

I guess you all buy YA so you don't have anything to post in this thread

>> No.11011095

I have some from the mid to late 1800's. Off the top of my head, I can think of Quo Vadis and some Dickens volumes.

>> No.11011116

>>11010640
small poetry books from late 1800s early 1900s

>> No.11011132

>>11010640
New Testament from 1904, quite regular mass printed edition.

>> No.11011138
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11011138

A girl gave me a very old book of Joseph Conrad's correspondences because she knew he was my favorite author. It was published a few years after his death and was only in print once. It's not in the best state, but it's far from falling apart.
She was clinically insane and I'm one more interaction away from getting a restraining order out against her
Still, nice addition to my collection

>> No.11011144

Complete works of Josephus, 1905

>> No.11011165

>>11011138
Like, bipolar disorder or just really possessive?

>> No.11011187
File: 141 KB, 719x720, Duch Svatý 3.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
11011187

>>11010640
A czech religious book from 1900

>> No.11011188

If epic poetry counts, Hesiod 8th century BC

>> No.11011193

>>11011165
Possessive, clinically depressed, highly neurotic, quite possibly bipolar but I never asked and she never told. Basically dedicated to making her own life miserable while blaiming it on other people and simultaneously claiming only other people can help her get better

>> No.11011199

A book from 1977.

>> No.11011209

1809 2 vol American edition of Johnson's Dictionary, from the 9th London ed.

>> No.11011211
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11011211

>>11011095
>>11011116
>>11011132
>>11011138
>>11011144
>>11011187
Fukin plens

>> No.11011218

>>11011211
sweet
>>11011188
pic or didn't happen

>> No.11011839

bump

>> No.11011861

Royal Navy history textbook from the 18th century.

>> No.11012023

>>11011095
>>11011116
>>11011132
>>11011138
>>11011144
>>11011188
>>11011199
>>11011209
Is it that hard to post a picture?

>> No.11012032

A first edition of Gravity's Rainbow.

>> No.11012049

The Book of Kells 800AD. Not a public library though :(

>> No.11012080
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11012080

This bilingual edition of Plato’s Sophist from 1908.

>> No.11012115
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11012115

>> No.11012405

>>11012023
Sorry, it's back home in another city

>> No.11012409

A small medic book wrote in Latin from 1624. I'm away from home so no photo

>> No.11012431

I have an original copy of the republic from 380 BC. I'm out of town so no pics though. :^)

>> No.11012445

>>11012431
Nice joke bro

>> No.11012475
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11012475

>>11010640
A 1900 French edition of Madame Bovary. I bought it really cheap in a used books fair.

>> No.11012544

>>11012023
i'm not going to go into the other room, find my book and then take a picture just for some 4chan thread

>> No.11012592

>>11010640
>Outline of History Part I (1942)
>Outline of History Part II (1942)
>War and Peace (1942)
>some old Smokey Stover comic books (194?)

>> No.11012598

>>11012544
>I'm out of town
>It's in the other room
Makes sense

>> No.11012626

I have some Falange books from Francoist Spain, a Vulgate NT, first edition of Cortázar, an 18th century map of Mexico, and a Latin dictionary. I can post pictures if anyone is interested

>> No.11012630

>>11012626
19th century my b

>> No.11012637

>>11010640
A random apologia for Christendom from the 1780s, but it's very badly damaged.

>> No.11012983

>>11012475
nice it looks in pretty good condition for a book that old

>> No.11013022

I have a book on Augustus from 1908 I think. My father bought it from some forgotten bookshop in the country when he was a schoolboy studying Latin.

>> No.11013104

>>11010640
Japanese language Shigeharu Nakano novel. The title is 歌のわかれ and I think it means "song of wonder" or something. It's from 1950. The back cover's price is 140 yen. My mother has a tattered bible from 1800 though.

>> No.11013118
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11013118

>>11013104
forgot pic

>> No.11013144

>>11013118
Beautiful, if it wasn't for anime culture and its fanboys Japan would be top-tier.

>> No.11013204
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11013204

>>11013144
The parasite does not ruin the fruit. That being said, fuck weebs

left to right: "Countryside Teacher" 1952, "Seven Yamatai Kingdoms(?)" 1984, "The Flame is Young" 1980

>> No.11013377

At my job I regularly handle books from the 18th century.

>> No.11013382

1870 something copy of Coleridge's work.
It's very pretty, but I'm too nervous to actually read it very often.

>> No.11013383
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11013383

1892

>> No.11013398
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11013398

>>11013204
>>11013144
>not not me, I am not a weeb, my appreciation for Japan is genuine

>> No.11013447
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11013447

1831 family bible that has old relatives’ locks of hair, property deeds, marriage notifications, and letters. In this lineage was the person that took over Benjamin franklin’s printing press. The prints in it are gorgeous

>> No.11013512

>>11013447
That's pretty cool, though I always think locks of hair are disgusting and creepy.

>> No.11015078
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11015078

>> No.11015218

>>11010640
The oldest book I have on my bookshelf is a Punch collection from Jan-June 1894 I got from my grandparents. The oldest book not a magazine collection is a book of Browning poetry from 1898. I have a book from the 1820s somewhere but it's in a box, and there is a book without a date (The Caxtons by Bulwer-Lytton) that may be from the 1880s.

>> No.11015355

>>11013377
what are you doing

>> No.11015523
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11015523

>>11010640
Orger's translation of Ovid, 1814.

>> No.11015571
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11015571

>>11010640
Also, let me tell a quick provenance story. This Browning has a custom vellum library binding popular after William Morris's Kelmscott Press started the private press revival in the 1890s.

>> No.11015580
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11015580

>>11015571
Inside, it's a nice Crowell edition, 1898, in imitation of Kelmscott's medievalist aesthetic. Common for the time, but the owners are interesting...

>> No.11015589
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11015589

>>11015580
We have two clues. First, the bookplate. It turns out that Lorna Valentine Mallinson Bowen was the daughter of silk magnate Hiram R. Mallinson. She married a Greenwich Village restauranteur, Eugene A. Bowen in 1926, a match of which her parents did not approve. In 1928, she fell or jumped from her parents' twelfth story apartment in New York City, in the midst of a bitter dispute between her husband and her father.
A sad tale, but we also know who gave her this book...

>> No.11015600
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11015600

>>11015589
Mrs. Theodore Roosevelt herself, before her husband became President in 1901. Edith Kermit Carow Roosevelt was the second wife of President Theodore Roosevelt and served as the First Lady of the United States during his presidency from 1901 to 1909. So, some interest history: the first woman who owned the book became First Lady, and the second women who owned it killed herself.

>> No.11015612
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11015612

>>11015600
And here's Lorna on the boardwalk back in the day.