05-17-2013, 11:30 AM | #1 |
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Your absolute no-miss books in the public domain
What are your absolute favorite, wave-it-in-peoples'-faces-and-tell-them-they-MUST-read books in the public domain? This is by no means comprehensive, but my top-of-mind books are:
- Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas - The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins - Any Bertie and Jeeves novel / story by P.G. Wodehouse |
05-17-2013, 02:36 PM | #2 |
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The Three Musketeers also by Dumas.
Apache |
05-17-2013, 03:10 PM | #3 |
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Limiting myself to one per author, and hopefully not duplicating existing suggestions, and of course, limiting myself to books that I've read!
Little Women Pride and Prejudice Father Brown Omnibus A Christmas Carol Sherlock Holmes Omnibus Good-bye, Mr. Chips Three Men in a Boat Kim The Raven Kidnapped The Canterville Ghost Last edited by pdurrant; 05-17-2013 at 03:16 PM. Reason: trimmed a little, to the best of the best |
05-17-2013, 03:12 PM | #4 |
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A few of Poe's more popular works, such as The Raven...
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05-17-2013, 09:35 PM | #5 |
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All the Tarzan Books and all of the John Carter of Mars books.. Edgar Rice Burroughs
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05-17-2013, 10:30 PM | #6 |
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Treasure Island
Captains Courageous Dracula Frankenstein The Time Machine |
05-18-2013, 12:28 AM | #7 |
Nameless Being
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The Count Of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas.
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05-18-2013, 01:11 AM | #8 | |
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Quote:
I would say the same of all the famous, ancient texts that are still read today. The Iliad, Odyssey, Aeneid, Beowulf, Song of Roland..., and the various religious scriptures. There's a good reason why they haven't fallen into obscurity. Even though the technologies in our lives change over time, reading these illuminate how little we've changed, and what it has meant to be human over the last few thousands of years. |
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05-18-2013, 07:32 AM | #9 |
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Little Fuzzy, and anything else PD by H Beam Piper
The 39 steps by John Buchan |
05-18-2013, 08:02 AM | #10 |
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My favorite H. Beam Piper books is Uller Uprising.
Apache |
05-18-2013, 08:31 AM | #11 |
The Grand Mouse 高貴的老鼠
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N.B. H. Beam Piper's works are only PD in USA, and then only some of them.
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05-18-2013, 10:01 AM | #12 |
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Recently recommended to a friend:
A Christmas Carol Three Men in a Boat The Hound of the Baskervilles If she read science fiction and fantasy, I would probably have added Dracula and The Time Machine to the list. Or something by Jules Verne. Or maybe Frankenstein. Mark Twain is a good candidate, too. And if you aren't too "grown-up", the Wonderland books by Lewis Carroll or A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett. |
05-18-2013, 11:40 AM | #13 |
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in addition to the aforementioned:
Bleak House Great Expectations Huckleberry Finn Barchester Towers The Way We Live Now Vanity Fair The Riddle of the Sands 20000 Leagues Under The Sea Alice In Wonderland Robison Causoe The Prince (Machiavelli) The History of the Peloponnesian War (Thucydides) Moby Dick Animal Farm A Shropshire Lad Lyrical Ballads (Wordsworth) The Wild Swans At Coole In Memoriam A.H.H. Leaves of Grass |
05-18-2013, 11:42 AM | #14 |
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Wilkie Collins' Poor Miss Finch is highly recommended. His description of a woman who gains sight after a lifetime of blindness matches almost exactly reports from Oliver Sacks a century later! The book is quite funny, and the free Librivox audio edition is narrated by a woman who is blind herself.
Anthony Trollope's Barchester Towers is one that folks have commented could easily be set now with its emphasis on spending on credit, financial bubbles, etc. |
05-18-2013, 12:05 PM | #15 | |
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Quote:
If you want to read an English translation rather than the original French be sure to avoid any translation by Reverend Lewis Page Mercier (aka "Mercier Lewis") and any volume derived from his poorly done and bowlderized translation. Life's too short to waste on such trash. I believe the only PD English translation worth reading is Frederick Paul Walter's 1991 translation that he released into PD. I've read an annotated derivative of this and found it excellent. |
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