What's the oldest book Veeky Forums has? Not the oldest work, I mean literal writen book. Mine is pic related...

1931 Sportsman's Sketches by Turgenev

i envy you that. what do you think of Living Relics? i still haven't spoken to anyone who has read it. the one with the boys telling ghost stories was enchanting as well.

also, his rendering of chertopkanov made me feel he was crafting a russian don quixote.

I haven't read it yet. Last one I read was about the Russian death so I still have almost half remaining.

and my favourites so far are probably District Doctor and Lgov but there are many good ones.

you're in for a god damn treat. i literally cried at Living Relics, but i'm a sucker for that kind of shit. did you at least read the Byezhin Prairie story? that's the one with the boys talking about water hags and such.

A small book of 1653 if I remember correctly

district doctor, the dying girl right? kind of a weird one. also, Singers was rather immersive. amother gem. i'm excited for you.

Yes I've read it. I did like it but at that point I was a bit annoyed with T's style of ending the story with a startling phrase - "he died later that year" or something. I'm pretty the book inspired Hemingway btw. He does mention it in A Moveable Feast.

Yeah district doctor is the only one with another narrator. There was a touching part where the Doctor explains "it is a shame after all to die at 25 having never loved anybody". Also the ending where he says Akulina is a better name for a wife.

yeah, the magnificent boy on horseback. it was a little gay too. it was a shame that turg didn't have the ability to write a full fledged novel and tried to anyway. his short stories were so charged, nowadays he's overshadowed by chekhov, but if he had restrained himself and honed his short stories, he would have held us all in rapture for eternity. i still like him better than tolstoy. didja knownthat goncharov had believed turgenev not only stole his ideas, but had given them to flaubert as well, and firmly believed that he was a progenitor of the french literary tradition?

I've never read Tolstoy but Turgenev is dearer to me than Dostoyevsky although the latter was a greater author. Perhaps because he's a bit duller. Less intense. One doesn't need religious fervour when they have dusty roads, right? Apparently russians call his style feminine. I wouldn't know, this book is in finnish, the language is quite archaic. Got some penguin books too ofc. My favourite T novel is without doubt Home of the Gentry.

Tolstoy needs to be read for at least a little perspective, Living Relics has a religious overtone, but not why i love it, so hopefully you'll still enjoy it. Dostoevsky is a bit difficult, I have an affinity for him, but only his idiot and tbk. you might try Gogol if you haven't yet. and lermontov. neither are nearly the same as Turgenev, but they're interesting in their own rights. I haven't read Home of The Gentry, so i'll have to do so. Fathers and Sons somewhat diappointed me, though only in the sense that I didn't love it as much as his Sketches.

Currently, on my shelf? A Latin dictionary from 1941.
However, I practically own my grandmother's books since her death a few months ago. Among those, the oldest ones are Don Quijote from 1915 (first edition in my language) and some German books from 1880ies in that unreadable gothic font. I also found a comically tiny Voltaire (Drei satirische Erzählungen), 3x5 centimeters in size, from 1921.

1850s copy of Wellington's Dispatches from a Nottingham Lord's library. 1920s edition of Tarzan and the Beasts, a movie edition of The count of Monte Cristo from when Errol Flynn (i think) played the lead, a 1930s copy of a SA bird book from a guy who was in 2 ships both torpedoed on the way to SA in ww2, he bought it when he was convalescing there. err a few others as well but i would have to go look.

Probably this one.

...

...

this is a french revolutionary newspaper

About two feet from me I have a style guide from 1903. The first chapter is dedicated to why women can't write and shouldn't even try. It's actually a really good book.

Apart from that I probably have one or two books from the mid/late 1800's if I look around, but nothing older than that.

not really. got a bunch of them from a dealer in paris. small shop, the guy was a specialized antique book/manuscript dealer. sat down and talked with him for a while, he showed me some pretty cool and expensive things. one of the most expensive (forgot how much) was a thick book/notebook written by some guy who was doing original mathematical work (theorems, proofs, geometric diagrams, notes, etc, not just scrap work, from 18th or 19th century).
the vellum was priced as 20 euros, but i bought a whole bunch of manuscripts from him for 35.
thing is, just because something is old doesnt mean its worth much. most of the stuff i bought (since im just starting to collect and didnt want to shell out a whole lot of money as a novice) is pretty worthless, just interesting in their own right. newspapers, paper fragments, notary documents, arent that valuable. whats fun is tracking down their origins - i got a hand written poem from the 1800s, probably as a student practicing handwriting, and managed to find the book it was from. fun to do some digging.
also got some encyclopedic lithographs from a dealer in amsterdam, though those were more mass produced and less valuable.
by far the coolest thing ive ever handled was that traveling guide from the 1800s. cant find it, unfortunately.

my grandparents have a whole bunch of great things. family bibles, etc.

oh and i also have the second edition of eric partridge's dictionary of slang and unconventional english, reprinted in the 40s i think. funny as hell to read.

Complete works of Spenser from 1869.

The Old and New Testament in Connection to the History of the Jews and Surrounding Nations. 1723 I think.

I own a complete collection of Shakespeare's works published by Selfridge and Co from 1930 or so, no idea how valuable it is but there's some nice illustrations in there.

Ovid's Verwandlungen, gold leaf, colored ink and lithographs, 1763

I have a copy of The Sound and the Fury that was published in 1956. Not that old desu

Random House In Search of Lost Time from '34.

I used to work in a charity shop and have handled hundreds of books from the 1800s and even earlier, including some incredibly rare philosophy. Truly astounding what ends up in those places

No pics but the oldest I own are some illustrated natural history books from 1830 or so

The most interesting I read imo was the first issue of "The Yellow Book", a Victorian art/poetry periodical. It felt very special to flick through because it was what Oscar Wilde was reading when he was arrested (unlikely the same copy)

Signed copy of Infinite Jest from 1927

A copy of a translation of The Metamorphosis from 2005

XD

I have this as well.
I have a second edition of Absalom, Absalom which I think is from 1937. I also have a 1925 edition of Tale of Two Cities with really nice full color illustrations.

A family bible from 1760 something; amazing that is has stayed intact and within the family.

Copy of Æschylus from, apparently, 1805.