The Oldest Book(s) You Own

1906 edition of Beautiful Stories From Shakespeare. Belonged to my dad's mother's sister. Big help to me in high school. Pretty much the great tales from Shakespeare synopsized.

In the Land of Pagodas by Robert Thurber, 1921. Nice little tome of some guy's travels in Burma when it was still a British possession. Loaned it to some friends once because they had been Bible teachers in Burma.

World's Best Quotations circa 1925 (no publication date; this is based on an inscription). I found this book while rummaging in my dad's mother's house between the time she died and her estate sale. The estate sale ladies allowed all family members to go through stuff in the house and pick out what they wanted before the sale.

A 1714 French translation of the Iliad is my oldest. Next oldest is a copy of The Old English Baron from 1794.

The second part of Suetonius: Historiæ augustæ scriptorum minorum latinorum - pars secunda. Printed in Leiden in 1632.

A book containing two volumes (out of five) of a Dutch translation of La Fontaine's fables, published in 1786.
From 1787: a treatise by the Dutch historian Jan Wagenaar on the function of the "stadhouder" in the Dutch Republic.
One other book from the 18th century: Ossian, fils de Fingal, barde du troisième siècle : Poésies galliques : traduites sur l'anglais de M. Macpherson : Tome second, published in the revolutionary year VII (1798/1799).

Moriae Encomium: or, The Praise of Folly by Erasmus

"Adorn'd with A great Number of COPPER PLATES, neatly engraven: To which is added, the EFFIGIES of ERASMUS, and Sir THOMAS MORE, from the Sefigns of the celebrated HANS HOLBEINE.
The Fourth Edition.
LONDON:
Printed for STEPHEN AUSTEN, at the Angel in St. Paul's Church-yard. 1726" on the title page.

History of the Works of the Learned; or, An Impartial Account of Books Lately Printed in All Parts of Europe, With a Particular Relation of the State of Learning in Each Country "Done by several hands," London, 1700

A monthly review of books published from January to December 1700

Old plays mostly...

The Atheist, or The Second Part of the Souldiers Fortune, London, 1684. Thomas Otway's last play; Thomas Betterton and Cave Underhill in the cast. http://www.librarything.com/work/6271988/book/36236013

The Works of William Congreve (vol 1 only), Jacob Tonson, London, 1710 http://www.librarything.com/work/6302484/book/36459899

The Non-Juror by Colley Cibber (play adapted from Moliere), London, 1718
http://www.librarything.com/work/5957471/book/36463482

Poems & Translations, with The Sophy, a Tragedy by Sir John Denham. Jacob Tonson, London, 1719. (bought in Hay-on-Wye, Cymru for 1 pound!) http://www.librarything.com/work/6830427/book/36459443

Double Falshood by Lewis Theobald, London, 1728 (adaptation of the lost play Cardenio by Shakespeare & Fletcher?) http://www.librarything.com/work/9708308/book/36462739

The Fatal Secret by Lewis Theobald, London, 1735 (his adaptation of Webster's Duchess of Malfi) http://www.librarything.com/work/6302305/book/36458851

The Siege of Aquileia by John Home, Edinburgh, 1760 http://www.librarything.com/work/6302338/book/36459179

Love in a Village, A Comic Opera, by Isaac Bickerstaff, London, 1763 http://www.librarything.com/work/6322547/book/36463542

Miscellaneous pieces of antient English poesie. Viz. The metamorphosis of Pigmalion's image, and certain satyres, By John Marston. The scourge of villanie, By the same. The troublesome raigne of King John, written by Shakespeare, extant in no edition of his writings. All printed before the year 1600 (on the spine just "Marston's Miscellanies"), London, 1764. (The play, by George Peele, is actually the one upon which Shakespeare based his own King John play) http://www.librarything.com/work/8454414/book/36454673

The Country Girl, A Comedy, David Garrick adapted from William Wycherley, London, 1767 http://www.librarything.com/work/9006798/book/36463418

Cymon, a Dramatic Romance, by David Garrick, London, 1767 http://www.librarything.com/work/6303008/book/36463206

Alonzo: A Tragedy by John Home, London 1773. http://www.librarything.com/work/6302329/book/36459107

Family copy of the Saur Bible (1743), the first European language bible printed in the British North American colonies.

Just sitting here being a bit jealous and thinking back to my time as a Special Collections library assistant. I *have* handled the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust's First Folio ...

*swoon*

see #5 above
And I just discovered that Stephen Austen was a bookseller, not a collector. There are a number of copies extant with the same title page scription, just with a quick google of his name; and several other titles similarly scribed.

I wonder what special virtue/authority was presumed by being printed "at the Angel in St. Paul's Church-yard"

I love to follow the clewes.

British Book Trade Index returns two entries for your Stephen Austen in London 1719-1750 (death). The other dates 1730-1750, but same guy, http://www.bbti.bham.ac.uk/Details.htm?TraderID=2373

Thanks Benj - I hadn't stumbled upon the second one.

Seneca's Morals(1671)
The Works of Henry Fielding, Esq. (12 vols) - 1767
The Works of Josephus (1770)
slightly newer but one of my favorites - Pompeiana by William Gell (1819)

My oldest book is only about a century old:

The Boy Knight, or, in the Court of King Arthur by Samuel E. Lowe. It's from 1918.

The Life of Benjamin Franklin by O. L. Holley, 1848

> 10 anglemark

Genuflect and Nod, Please.

The English Hermit, by Peter Longueville, third edition, 1759.

Mine is Clavis Coelestis, by Thomas Wright, published in 1750. Love the illustrations. It's apparently a seminal work in the field of astronomy, mentioned at length in Red Limit. My daughter may be the only student of this century to use the original work as a source for a high school science term paper.

My oldest book according to LT is an algebra text from 1848, but I have a few that are probably around that age where I don't have an exact date. (LT says I have exactly 12 books that pre-date 1900, but again, I suspect if I checked up on all the dates it would be more!)

My oldest book is a set of 7 volumes of science content aimed at children called Spectacle de la Nature (on the title pages) or Nature Display'd from the 1730s and 1740s. They are bound similarly in full leather. It is rather unusual to find such a set in or out of an institution.

Nature Display'd

James

ooooh, now THAT is generating envy in this quarter.

1838: A Memoir of the Life of Peter the Great by John Barrow

My Russian History professor at University of North Texas made Peter the Great sound pretty exciting, but nothing matched her lectures for the Russian Revolution... those of us who got to class early during the Russian Revolution lectures actually discussed what Olga Valentinovna (the professor) would talk about that day. She made the Revolution sound like the most exciting thing that ever happened in Russian history.

My oldest intact book is a 1584 first edition by John Rainolds, the collection of debates between him and John Hart--the former (Rainolds) being anti-papal, and the latter (Hart) being pro-papal. Rainolds went on to be part of the committee that directed the organization, translation, and creation of the 1611 KJV Bible. The nice thing about this book is that it's written in English; thus, one can read it!

My oldest leaf is a 1484 page on the Affodillus (i.e., Daffodil) complete with illustration, from the first edition of the Herbarius Latinus, published by Peter Schoffer. It's written in latin. The interesting thing about Peter Schoffer is that he was the head typesetter in Gutenberg's shop in the 1450s when the Gutenberg Bible was produced, and was allegedly the creator of the typeset alloy of tin, lead, and antimony. He left Gutenberg's shop after his future father-in-law sued Gutenberg for unpaid loans that helped make the Gutenberg Bible possible. Schoffer apparently commissioned the Herbarius Latinus himself. It was an early encyclopedia of herbs and uses one might find in an apothecary.

Très cool, seaward!

My oldest is a 1789 volume from the Dictionnaire Theologie by Nicolas Bergier. The crazy thing is it's still in print!

I think my oldest book might be Le Lettere di Seneca, published in 1695. It’s in Italian and I can’t read a word, but what attracted me is the manner in which about half of the spine has been devoured. This is one I wouldn't want to repair.

From Drop Box

Opvs Homiliarvm D. Gregorii Papae Hvivs Nominis Primi, cognomento Magni, de Tempore & Sanctis... A dutch print from 1565 (Nothing i would read but i had to take it in order to get a nice Herodot)

Travels in New-England and New-York by Timothy Dwight, 1822. But I do have a nice woodblock-printed map of Amsterdam cut from a German atlas that has been dated ±1600.

The History of the Adventures of Joseph Andrews by Henry Fielding from 1793. Its the first American edition.

My oldest book is a Pliny Jr's Letters in Latin, printed in 1508 by Aldus Manutius. I'm still looking around for an incunabulum at a reasonable price.