what's the oldest book you own

When I used to work in a second hand bookshop, I hated 'old books', just because people tend to assume that anything antiquarian, in whatever condition, is automatically worth vast sums. And of course there are plenty of very old books, especially in wretched condition, that are practically worthless - bibles, ancient textbooks, mass editions of Shakespeare, Dickens etc.

I heard taht was true of vinyl too, probably seen the same. An MFP Beatles compi must be worth millions surely?
Or pre-loved you can tell by the scratches.

On the other hand picking up some nice 20 or 30 year old books through Amazon for 1p plus p+p.

I'm gradually putting my -- many too many* -- books up on ABE: there's about 40 up there now, so far I've sold two. It's time-consuming detailing them correctly. The first one I sold I made no money on because at the last minute I sent it recorded delivery (it was going to Germany). The second I sent normal first class: it seems to have vanished on the wa oly. There's a learning curve I guess (I'm out abt £25 if the second one doesn't turn up).

*My dad's parents especially had a lot of v nice old books, especially children's books -- though my sister (who actually has a child) has most of those.

s/b on the way lol (lol)

That I bought, Scott's edition of Dryden's works in 18 volumes.
We inherited a pile of old books a few years ago, but mostly the kind of thing you mention - c17th bible in bad shape, mid-C18th Milton, Book of common p., Byron by the yard etc. Some odd bestsellers of the day (Dodd's Thoughts in Prison, probably a Young's Night Thoughts) which are nice to pick up but not of antiquarian interest.

a few years back -- early 00s i guess -- the new yorker ran a piece rereading the (i think) top 20 ranked books of 50 years before (= early 50s: i forget how ranked, whether it was critical or sales). anyway, it was interesting, for a glimpse into a lost world of values and the exploration of utterly forgotten titles once greatly applauded and discussed -- sadly it was written by james wolcott, who can go put his head in a bag and keep it there forever as far i'm concerned

This was the top ten fiction list that Gore Vidal trampled all over in his essay "The Top Ten Best Sellers According to the Sunday New York Times as of January 7, 1973." Again, lots of things already largely forgotten, especially on the accompanying non-fiction list:

https://www.nytimes.com/1973/03/04/archives/best-seller-list-general.html

> We have some nice old Dickens editions, mid-C19th

do you mean this? because that's when he was writing them...

what boggles my mind, is the wikipedia lists of british novels published in, say 1848

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:1848_British_novels

there are 9. for the entire year.

Yeast!

I think there were more than that though.

Yeast: A Problem (1848) was the first novel by the Victorian social and religious controversialist Charles Kingsley.

I've got Samuel Butler's Hudibras from 1861, which is a reprint of the 1711 editon. It's in lovely condition,and the typeface is so small you need a magnifying glass to read it comfortably.

> I think there were more than that though.

must be. those are only the british ones and there are usually more US, french and russian published, but not that many more. i'm working slowly through 1847 / 1848...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Publishers_Weekly_list_of_bestselling_novels_in_the_United_States_in_the_1900s

lists, well, Publisher's Weekly bestsellers for each year and a lot of those are red links - no wikipedia entry. 1907 is 8/10ths red

I have a few old books that are presumably worthless - a tattered Browning from 18something is likely oldest. I have a first edition Old Man and the Sea but it's warped and jacketless so I doubt it is valuable.

I think the general rule of thumb is that a 20th century first edition without its cover is worth about 10% of a jacketed copy.

about 100 novels published in 1848 -
https://www.victorianresearch.org/atcl/graphs_publ.php

Oh it's totally a wikipedia failing not a reflection of reality

great link, thanks. made my life 10x more difficult but hey...

a lot of those books on that site don't appear to be anywhere else on the internet. no gutenberg, no archive.org, not a lot in the way of google results...

i wonder what happened in 1862...

year of the great london exposition = general uptick in cultural interests everywhere

Lady Audley's Secret! xp

her secret was yeast iirc

sorry

Haha

hmmmmm but no corresponding 1851 uptick for the great exhibition.
Seems like a sudden, big and unsustained leap just off the back of sensation fiction, but maybe you're right LBI - Braddon makes the industry/reading public explode.
Could be an artefact of their methodology - they call 1862 a 'benchmark year (i.e., all titles added)' - maybe they've just dug and dug into that year in particular?
I am intrigued.

exhibition = showing
exposition = telling

i wasn't proposing it very seriously, just reading off the likeliest thing in wikipedia "what happened in 1862 in the uk" page (as we've established, such litsts may not be complete)

we must examine all hypotheses carefully. I'm currently working through the idea that it's to do with the founding of Notts County.

first edition Old Man and the Sea

This edition was a HUGE first printing, bcz it was Hemingway and he was at the height of his reputation and popularity; it was kind of comparable to that CD release by Adele a couple of years ago that was hyped to the hilt.

Checked my bookshelves for old books but didn't get any further back than mid 60s (second hand Algis Budrys)

Collected "Illustrated London News" for 1874. Lots of fighting in Afghanistan and S Africa that year, apparently.

think the only pre-twentieth century copy of a book i have is a scuffed-up 2 volume of the anatomy of melancholy from 1813... one of the myriad of editions that seem to have come out around that time. other than that would be an early reprint of algernon blackwood's john silence stories sporting a theosophical swastika on the title page.

"The Top Ten Best Sellers According to the Sunday New York Times as of January 7, 1973." Again, lots of things already largely forgotten, especially on the accompanying non-fiction list

All second-rate books (or worse), but as for "largely forgotten" I remember almost all of them, not from having read them all, but as things that existed at the time and books I have often seen over the decades as used books. I could probably provide a thumbnail description for 17 of those 20.

thread and poll pls

Aimless, I'm sceptical that today's young ppl share yr deep James Herriot knowledge, but am willing to be convinced o/wise.

"I'm OK, You're OK" is...OK

I know I am becoming more of an outlier every day.

> We have some nice old Dickens editions, mid-C19th

do you mean this? because that's when he was writing them...

Yeah, but these are far from 1st eds, and not bound periodicals, and from pretty huge print runs even from the time