Saturday 19 May 2012

Cover Art (Old School Edition)! 'The King of Elfland's Daughter' - Lord Dunsany

It took some tracking down but I finally got there in the end :o) I now own my own copy of 'The King of Elfland's Daughter. It's not the Fantasy Masterworks Edition (I'm trying to collect a few of these where I can) but beggars can't be choosers. Now I need to settle down and read it but the cover art makes for a nice post in the meantime; check it out...

If you're after a copy of 'The King of Elfland's Daughter' (or are trying to track down another 'hard to find' book) then you could do a lot worse than check out www.greenmetropolis.com where I found my copy. Everything costs £3.75 but that's including postage (not sure if this is overseas actually) so you can find some pretty good deals there if you look.

A quick look inside the book told me that it was a Ballantine First Edition from 1969 and that got me thinking... What is the oldest book on your shelves? I'm talking publication date, not when it was actually written (unless you have a first edition Shakespeare or something like that, that counts).
I thought my First Edition (Fourth Impression) of 'The Two Towers' would be a clear winner, having been published in 1956, but there's also a copy of Jules Verne's 'From Earth To Moon And A Trip Round It' that might be even older. I just need to find a publication date for that edition.

How about you? What's on your shelves?

4 comments:

Unknown said...

I would love to find "vintage" copies of Dunsany's books! Considering most of my book shopping is in used bookstores and antique stores, I generally prefer older copies to newer.

My oldest book is an abridged version of The History of Pamela from 1791. Missing the front cover, but the pages are all in great condition and very readable.

dragonb4 said...

Complete works of Schiller from 1890. :)
A bible from 1850.

Fantasy/Sci-Fi.
Not sure, I think I have a copy of Perelandra from C.S.Lewis from the 60's.

Salt-Man Z said...

According to my LibraryThing catalog, the oldest book we own is my wife's copy of Little Women from 1912. The oldest genre book is a 1953 paperback of Clarke's Childhood's End.

Doug M. said...

I've got an 1894 edition of Longfellow's Hyperion.