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keendaanmaa · 1 year

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my old/beautiful book collection

the pretty books shelves

my Tolkien collection

vintage fiction

antique and vintage Bible study books

I have very few truly old books, but more than I remembered are from the early 20th century. List of titles and more details under the cut

pretty books shelves

Reader’s Digest editions: Little Women (Alcott), Tales from the Arabian Nights, Emma & Pride and Prejudice (Austen), Jane Eyre (Brontë), The Last of the Mohicans (Cooper), The Adventures of Robin Hood (Creswick), Two Years Before the Mast (Dana), David Copperfield, Oliver Twist & A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens), The Robe (Douglas), The Adventures, The Further Adventures, The Memoirs, & The Return of Sherlock Holmes (Doyle), A Passage to India (Forster), The House of the Seven Gables, The Scarlet Letter & Twice-Told Tales (Hawthorne), Kim (Kipling), The Sea Wolf (London), The Song of Hiawatha and other poems (Longfellow), Anne of Green Gables (Montgomery), A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Smith), Kidnapped (Stevenson), Uncle Tom’s Cabin (Stowe), A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court & Innocents Abroad (Twain), A Journey to the Centre of the Earth & Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (Verne)

The Confessions of Saint Augustine—E. B. Pusey translation, Franklin Library edition. This was a Christmas gift from my parents and @bluesidedown has the same one

The Pilgrim’s Progress (Bunyan)—CBN University Press Christian Classics. I don’t actually remember where I got this one but most likely from my dad.

Through the Looking Glass (Carroll)—Heritage Press edition with slipcover and illustrations by John Tenniel. Again, probably from my dad but not 100% sure (he gives me a LOT of books).

The Complete Canterbury Tales (Chaucer)—F. H. Hill translation, Arcturus books with slipcover and illustrations by Edward Burne-Jones and William Morris. Another Christmas gift where Blue and I got matching copies from our parents.

Heretics & Orthodoxy (Chesterton)—Hendrickson Christian Classics. Again, a Christmas gift from my parents.

Nemesis & The Mirror Crack’d From Side to Side (Christie)—Heron Books. Another one I can’t remember the origin of.

The Prairie (Cooper)—Easton Press collector’s edition. From my parents, Christmas this year. This is pretty much the handsomest book I own.

Great Expectations (Dickens)—Chatham River Press. Based on the inscription on the flyleaf this belonged to my dad first. Probably I got it as a gift or in his thinning of his collection.

The Scarlet Pimpernel (Orczy)—International Collector’s Library. Another of unknown origin.

Quo Vadis (Sienkiewicz)—International Collector’s Library. It amuses me that in organizing these books alphabetical by author’s last name, these two matching editions still ended up side by side.

Treasure Island (Stevenson)—Children’s Classics, illustrated by Milo Winter.

Treasure Island–Prince Otto–Strange Case of Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde–Kidnapped–The Black Arrow–The Master of Ballantrae–David Balfour (Stevenson)—Canterbury Classics omnibus. I actually have most of these in other editions, but I keep this for the ones I don’t have elsewhere.....and keep the other editions too because I am a book-dragon.

The Prince and the Pauper (Twain)—Portland House Illustrated Classics, illustrated by Franklin Booth. Not sure where I got this one.

The Greek Myths (Graves)—Folio Society, two volumes in slipcover. These were a Christmas gift from my parents a couple years ago, because I collect fairy tales and folk tales and suchlike.

Tolkien

These are mostly newer Houghton Mifflin or HarperCollins editions. The Silmarillion has Ted Naismith illustrations; Children of Húrin has Alan Lee illustrations, as do the covers of LotR; The Hobbit and LotR have Tolkien’s original illustrations and maps, and Roverandom has cover art by him as well; and Bilbo’s Last Song, Farmer Giles of Ham, The Adventures of Tom Bombadill, and Smith of Wooton Major are all illustrated by Pauline Baynes.

vintage fiction (top down, left column first)

Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur—Norwood Press, 1911

Stalky & Co. (Kipling)—Macmillan and Co, 1927. Completely leatherbound with gilt spine and seal on the front cover

The Master of Ballantrae & The Black Arrow (Stevenson)—Everyman’s Library, 1938

Popular Fairy Tales (Andersen)—Blackie and Son. No date, but google tells me it’s from sometime in the 30s/40s/50s based on the binding style

Jo’s Boys (Alcott)—The Children’s Press, 1965

Around the World in Eighty Days (Verne)—Dean and Son. No date, but I’m guessing mid-twentieth century

Three Cheers Secret Seven (Blyton)—Brockhampton Press, 1960

At the Back of the North Wind (MacDonald), The Little Lame Prince (Mulock), King Arthur and his Knights (Frith), All the Mowgli Stories (Kipling)—Junior Deluxe Edtions. Illustrations are copyright 1956, no print dates

Freckles (Porter)—Grosset & Dunlap, 1916. Very beat up and mostly held together by packing tape on the spine

The Call of the Wild (London)—Grosset & Dunlap, 1910. It has a very faded picture glued to the front cover as part of the original binding, as well as illustrations throughout. Quite worn, with many pages about to or falling out

Kilmeny of the Orchard (Montgomery)—Ryerson, 1947. This was actually printed before the Anne series was entirely published, as the list of Montgomery’s works in the front only includes the first three books in the series

Captains Courageous (Kipling)—Thrushwood Books. Date uncertain, but google tells me probably 1950s

Heidi (Spyri)—Collins, 1958. While this did originally belong to my dad, it’s the copy I read as a kid and has been on my shelf for a long time

The Mark of the Horse Lord (Sutcliff)—Oxford University Press, 1965. I learned in making this list that my copy is probably a first edition, albeit rather beat up from being a school library copy.

Warrior Scarlet (Sutcliff)—Oxford University Press, 1966. I also have a 1973 copy that still has its dust jacket.

Robinson Crusoe (Defoe)—Dent/Dutton, 1966. A beloved favourite copy that I read many times

Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (Verne)—Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1953. Another beloved copy that I read many times, I flatly refuse to part with this one despite having a less faded and beat-up edition because 1) I am dreadfully sentimental and 2) the illustrations in this edition are much better than in the RD edition.

antique and vintage Bible study books

Young’s Analytical Concordance—per a pencil note on the title page this was published circa. 1937, and it definitely looks the part

The Bible as History in Pictures (Keller)—Published in 1964, this is definitely outdated in terms of archaeological evidence of Bible events but it still fascinates me to see

The New English Bible: New Testament—as a Library Edition, I don’t think this strictly counts as a first edition, but it is definitely an early edition as it was printed in 1961 when the NT translation was completed (OT translation of this version wasn’t completed until 1970)

Exposition of Genesis (Leupold)—Wartburg Press, 1942

The Epistle to the Hebrews (Brown)—Banner of Truth, 1961

Luke the Physician (Ramsay)—Baker Book House, 1956

The Gospel in Ezekiel (Guthrie)—Adam and Charles Black, 1857 (or MDCCCLVII if you prefer). This is the oldest book I own, and while is is now quite beat up - the spine is 80% tape and the front cover has come off completely and been replaced with cardboard - I can tell it was a very handsome book when it was new. The spine is bound in dark blue and brown leather, with gilt lettering and decoration, and the edges of the pages have beautiful multicolour marbling on them.

#ooops this is veeeery long #in my defence i have rather a lot of books #so even the fraction that are old/beautiful is quite a few #to quote leah: hope this is enjoyable to others and not just wildly self-indulgent #i had fun and learned a few things about the books i own #and remembered a few i had forgotten i have #about

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