What is the oldest book you have ever read? (Page 2) flashie: art of war for me too, im hoping to get canterbury tales too soon as its old and had first use of the f word so im told. isnt beowulf the oldest book going?  bluebird22: beowulf is the oldest book from the western literary canon but by no means the oldest worldwide. the first 'books' are from the bronze age. as for the oldest books ive read, it would be the greeks... (aeschylus, sophocles, euripides, aristophanes etc...) Nathaniel Nirvana: The iliad, Homer's Oddyssey, Marius Aurelis (Roman emperor turned self-philosopher) 1 classed as fiction "Varney the vampire" by James Malcolm Rhymer dates from late 1700s/early 1800s (pre Dracula) - once you get into the writing style (its worth it) its a brilliant tale ruemorgueave: Oldest would be Gilgamesh. Oldest known complete piece of literature, dated from Sumerian/Babylonian times up to 5000 years ago. Those egyptian love poems, if they're the ones I am thinking about, attributed to Akhenaten for the sun god, have some very rich imagery. (All this predates and foreshadows the greek and religious texts mentioned above, fwiw. Notice the similarities between the Akhenaten love poetry and the Song of Solomon. Notice the flood wiping out civilization and Utnapashim's job to sail it and preserve life; the original Noah). Pleasure to see old poetry, like that and the famous Chinese poems from the T'ang Dynasty (pre-codex poetry) survive all these years. Lin Po and Wang Wei especially had huge influence on Ezra Pound. I don't know what it had to do with old books, but The Long Walk to Freedom is fantastic. A lot of memoirs can be trudging, but his story is so fascinating and his writing so elegant......  princess storm: The Bible I also read Beowulf but had no idea that it was an old book until I read this forum. Makes me wonder how many other really old books I've read...  Luzarches: Eldest is the bible, or some greeks texts, greeks we know we read them thank to romans, but I am not really sure from who comes the old testament we read. In my mother language, spanish, I went to the monastery where first spanish words were written as notes of Latin in X century, after that there are a lot of ancient spanish books you read at school. Lately the eldest I have read is El Quijote, about 1600 AD, and in english Shakespeare, Hamlet and Macbeth, about 1600 too.  garymarkbe: Most people have read the Bible or parts of it. It is my understanding Scholars believe JOB is perhaps the oldest part of the Bible, predating the founding of the Hebrew religion but adopted by them.. I read things like this but cannot vouch for the accuracy. What is the date of Gilgamesh and what is the date of Beowulf?  GypseyGirl: I collect antique books. Most are 100+ years and my fav is Oscar Wilde. The oldest one I own was printed in 1742 and is part of a series, so don't think it is worth all that much. Collecting them may sound boring, but I love the language, smell, feel and everything else about it. amanda_t1: Tess of the D'ubervilles. I always have a big bag to carry everything I need for the day and a good Classic. Good bags to get are on dipsticklondon.com as you can fit everything in including the kitchen sink.  Berquantina: Well, the oldest book I've read was from the year 1927. It's in the Russian language about criminal law and autopsies. The second book is called '' Andekas Parasiit'' it's an Estonian book. It came out in the 1920s. And one of my favorites is a Heinrich Heine poem book... but it's really really old so I don't have any clue how old the book is. It's all antic like.. some pages are coming out and the pages are very yellow now... but it's one of my favorites.  lummox: Earliest published for me was 'My first 2000 years', preporting to be a biography of the Wandering Jew, my copy was early 1900's. | Books Chat Room Similar Conversations |
