Comments | evelyn_b: NOT ANOTHER BOOK LIST (aka another book list)

evelyn_b

NOT ANOTHER BOOK LIST (aka another book list)

Apr 27, 2015 11:38

Today I accidentally found this list of The Daily Telegraph's "Best 100 Novels in the World" from 1899, and I probably shouldn't try to read my way through it right now, since I already have two book lists running plus "all the mysteries ever," but here it is anyway in case I ever get done with one of those.

( THE BEST )

woo books

Comments 14

lost_spook April 27 2015, 18:59:20 UTC

Oh, that is interesting! I think in particular, not so much which authors are missing (because time and stuff), but which titles they've chosen by the authors they have included - I mean, Martin Chuzzlewit for Dickens and not Bleak House, or any of several others. And Shirley over Villette, and only Orley Farm for Trollope, while Thackeray is minus his most famous work.

evelyn_b April 27 2015, 19:06:44 UTC

Yes! And Scenes of Clerical Life by George Eliot!

lost_spook April 27 2015, 19:09:15 UTC

Yes, because it's not as if she wrote anything else!

Also, they can't spell Jane Austen. It kind of spoils their air of authority right from the beginning there. And, my, I know Scott had gone out of fashion, but look at him taking over the end of the list there, without even getting round to Ivanhoe...

(I think Orley Farm might be the Trollope I enjoyed most, but surely The Way We Live Now even if not one of the Palliser of Barsetshire set would have been more likely.

evelyn_b April 27 2015, 19:37:31 UTC

SO MUCH SCOTT OMG. Even more than Dickens and Bulwer-Lytton! It occurs to me now that even at my most indiscriminate, I never made it through a Walter Scott book (even though I know I tried, because was surrounded by Ivanhoe and other references in the books I was reading). Not even the Illustrated Easy Classics version! But all that could change, who knows, I might discover a new favorite author. One million Victorians can't be wrong!

(yes they can)

Thread 5

silverflight8 April 28 2015, 02:44:55 UTC

There are some I recognize but yeah, a lot of them seem to have fallen into obscurity these days, at least as far as I can tell.

evelyn_b April 28 2015, 04:40:41 UTC

Yes! Some of them I have literally never heard of until today, like "Soapey Sponge's Sporting Tour."

silverflight8 April 30 2015, 03:58:18 UTC

Some books have weathered time better than others, it seems. What a title :P

wordsofastory April 28 2015, 18:43:50 UTC

Whoa, I haven't heard of a lot of these! It's surprising how much tastes can change in a century. (On the other hand, it's not at all surprising that all of these seems to be Europeans or Americans.)

And I'm with you on never having been able to enjoy Scott. Maybe I should try him again! It has been a long time since I gave up on Ivanhoe ten pages in.

evelyn_b April 28 2015, 19:52:14 UTC

Olive Schreiner's Story of an African Farm is on here -- white South African author. There could be an Australian or two lurking in this list, though I wouldn't bank on it. Definitely a narrow time and geographical range for a "best 100 in the world" list. And really, a narrow range of Europe, too -- England, France, one Russian, one Pole, maybe a handful of others that I'm missing. Not that today's "best ever" lists don't tend to be narrow in one way or another.

Scott used to be SO POPULAR. INCREDIBLY popular. Permeating everything like the smell of cigarettes used to (remember that smell?) (I'm old). One of these days I'm just going to tunnel through all those books like a giant drill. But it is not this day.

wordsofastory April 28 2015, 21:54:11 UTC

I missed that one! And yes, true.

Hahah, that is a fantastic description. I do remember that smell. Perhaps, like it, we're better off without Scott.

ramasi May 2 2015, 15:12:38 UTC

Anyone who puts (as they should) The Three Musketeers and Twenty Years After into such a list and then leaves out The Vicomte de Bragelonne is wrong.

...I have more opinions on this list of books I mostly haven't read, but this is the really important part to me.

evelyn_b May 2 2015, 17:47:23 UTC

One of my saddest Secret Cultural Literacy Failings is that I have never read ANY Dumas, at all, ever. Of course that will eventually have to change, maybe even soon! But it will probably have to wait a little while longer -- though I might be able to start The Three Musketeers this summer. Maybe. It's a pretty quick read, right? That's the impression I get.

Please feel free to share your other opinions, if you have them!

ramasi May 6 2015, 11:37:16 UTC

You should definitely start with The Three Musketeers if you start with anything, and yes, I'd say it's a rather quick read; I'm not sure what the consensus is these days, but I think it used to be considered YA for a while?

Narrow range has been mentioned already; mostly I feel like it's extremely English-language heavy. I feel like they might as well have called it 100 best English language novels and replaced the few that don't fit. OTOH, this reminds me I should read Quo Vadis (I had no idea who it's from).

(Also, I'm enjoying the discussion about Scott above.)