The oldest book you own?

I have my mother's copy of Rebecca. It doesn't have a date in it but probably from the 1940s. She passed it to me when I was a young teenager and it was the first "grownup" book that I read. It is too fragile to read now so I had to buy a new copy. For some reason she had written out a copy of If by Rudyard Kipling and that has always been kept in the original book

childhood books -

"Dabbity Duck" from Nan, 1955. Inscribed to me, just as well, as my sis initially claimed it was hers ..😬

I've been an avid reader and book collector since childhood so I do have a vast collection .
I'm not sure which are the oldest books possibly my Victorian ones .
I love the bindings and the yellowed pages apart from the illustrations .

I'm busy working my way through my collection of Leslie Charteris "Saint" books. Some are reprints from the 1960s but there are a few which were my dad's, one of which, "Saint Overboard" (the first one I ever read as a youngster) has an inscription from his sister wishing him a Happy Christmas 1938. But this is not the oldest book I have by any means. One of my cook books was published in the late 1890s and I have several old family books dating from the early 1900s.

My main book buying time was in the 1960s and early 70s, mostly Sci-fi and I still have them. They kept me going through Covid. A good book is worth keeping but some of the paperbacks are on their last legs, the repairs now desperately in need of repair.

I have a copy of the Authorised version of the Bible. It was given to my father when he was in the church choir as a boy. He was born in 1929 so it probably dates from the mid-1930s.

We have some very old books which were inherited from parents (no first editions, unfortunately) but one from my childhood which I loved is More Adventures of a Teddy Bear which dates from about 1950 I think.

I have all my Enid Blyton books and my ladybird books from late 40,s early 50 s I have a 4 shelf bookcase filled with them I ll maybe take a photo tomorrow

I have a copy of A Christmas Carol dated 1920 and a novel The Gay Companion dated 1900. hugs

I love your Dabbity Duck Wyllow!
Your Gay Companion DianneAngel 😂

Most of my childhood books went to my sister......
I have my DC early books including a Nursery Rhyme treasury illustrated by Raymond Briggs from the 1960s.

My mother's first editions were grabbed by my brother apart from the Girls of Slender Means by Muriel Spark which I recently gave to my friend whose DD, an actress, was playing Selina on stage.

I have a set of Scott's Waverley Novels picked up in Oxfam in 1970 for £2 but although very early they're not first editions.

For fun I gave DD an early Motherhood Book when she became a mum. I think it was 1930s. DD thought it was awful and threw it out!

I have my mother's copy of ' The Girl of the Limberlost ' I can't remember the author.

I have Janet and John, book One, from 1949.

Depends. I own a set of seven volumes of Shakespeare plays which my great grandfather bought second in 1856.
But the oldest book I purchased was “Pauper’s cookbook” by Jocasta Innes when I moved to the UK, in 1972.
I have no books from my childhood, they were so precious and rare in the Third World that they were passed on to other children when one grew out of them. That is probably why I’m now so acquisitive and hang on to my books for dear life!

Second hand …

One of my mother ‘s … possibly 1932. ‘ Queechy’

We have a 'birthday book' that has been in DH's family for generations. It has an entry for lots of family members from the early 1800s.

I have cookery books which an elderly neighbour gave me about 30 years ago - they had been her mother's.

And we have a huge number of dentistry text books which were in the roof of a practice DH bought from a man who was retiring. He had bought the practice and the books from a man who was retiring.

I wish we had kept the treadle drill rather than the books.

I have a number of oldish books. My most treasured is a gardening week by week book which belonged to my grandfather and published in the 20s. I still use it but it is falling apart.

Other books are a couple of books owned by my childhood mum - girls stories. I also have A Christmas Carol gifted to me in the 50s by a relative. It belonged to her son who had been killed as a pilot in the Canadian airforce, I also have a book of a cartoon cat called Felix which belonged to an uncle and must date back to the 20s

It is lucky they survived as my mother was an inveterate thrower outer, and only a very few of my books survived - none from my very young days.

A copy of 'Elegant Extracts' dating to the mid 19th century. Jane Austen refers to it in 'Pride and Prejudice'.

It was a book of excerpts from poems prose etc and was revised and published for over 100 years.

I still have my Sunday school birthday books. Little bible story picture books.Can’t bring myself to part with them even though I no longer have a faith.

Pleasebenice, I, too, have Sunday school book prizes from the fifties. Obviously, they were prizes for attendance. Prizes for achievements have not featured in my life!

I still have the first book which was bought for me of Nursery Rhymes. It is torn and scribbled on but I can’t part with it.

My grandmother’s prayer book inscribed Easter 1925, a gift from her aunt.

Equally precious to me is the copy of Jane Eyre which the same Grandma gave me on my twelfth birthday, sixty years ago.

I have some of my grandfather's books from 1910. An H G. Wells one and others. He died before I was born and my dad was little so they're all that's left. I won't throw them out although I expect my daughter will 😂

Arthur C. Clarke's Mysterious World.

I'm now 60 and bought it from WH Smith in 1980, aged 15. Paid £4.50 for it.

It's a bit battered as I've read it several times over the years, but I've still got it!

I still have my mother in laws hardback Mrs Beetons Cookbook, full of very different recipes from years ago.
3 red hardback famous five stories by enid blyton, each book had a triology of 3 of the stories she wrote.
Remember buying them with christmas money in 1966 .
I wrote when bought on inside cover.
Only one Secret Seven which also has different stories.
Never really keen on secret seven.
Kept them all in case i had grandchildren which i have, thinking they would like to read.
But not the type of books they read these days.