Reading Wednesday cannot resist a list
Oh look- One hundred lesser known classics. Via ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
oursin
Bold if read, italic if owned,strike if spare me.
1. An Ethiopian Romance, by Heliodorus (Greece, c. 230)
2. The Recognition of Sakuntala, by Kalidasa (India, c. 4th century)
3. The Poems of T’ao Ch’ien, by T’ao Ch’ien (China, early 400s)
4. The Pillow Book, by Sei Shonagon (Japan, 990s – early 1000s)
5. The Tale of Genji, by Murasaki Shikibu (Japan, early 1000s)
6. The Song of Roland, author unknown (France, c. 1040-1115)
-- own and have owned for forty years with no burning desire to read
7. The Essential Rumi, Jalal al-Din Rumi (Iran, 1200s)
8. The Bustan of Saadi, by Saadi (Persia, 1257)
9. The Táin, author unknown (Ireland, 12th-14th century)
--the uses of medieval lit classes. See 6, above
10. Essays in Idleness, by Yoshida Kenkō (Japan, 1330-1332)
11. The Cloud of Unknowing, author unknown (England, later 1300s)
12.The Book of Margery Kempe, by Margery Kempe (England, 1420s)
--I've read some of this, I know I've read some of this, but I doubt I've read it all. A very little Margery goes a very long way
12. Lazarillo de Tormes, author unknown (Spain, 1554)
13. The Heptameron, by Marguerite of Navarre (France, 1558)
-- my mother had this and I inherited. Have read one story therein, where a woman gets stuck to the seat of a privy where a troupe of soldiers have been relieving themselves copiously. Am not inspired to read more.
14. The Blazing World, by Margaret Cavendish (England, 1666)
15. The Princess of Cleves, by Madame de Lafayette (France, 1678)
16. Oroonoko, by Aphra Behn (England, 1688)
17. Brief Lives, by John Aubrey (England, Late 1600s)
18. The Narrow Road to the Deep North, by Matsuo Basho (Japan, 1694)
19. Love in Excess, by Eliza Haywood (England, 1720)
20. A Journal of the Plague Year, by Daniel Defoe (England, 1722)
21. Letters of a Peruvian Woman, by Françoise de Graffigny (France, 1747)
22. Fanny Hill, by John Cleland (England, 1748)
--the uses of a book club populated by English majors
23. Dream of the Red Chamber, by Cao Xueqin (China, mid 1700s)
-- with the caveat that I never finished the last book
24. The Female Quixote, by Charlotte Lennox (Scotland, 1752)
25. Letters of Mistress Henley, by Isabelle de Charrière (Netherlands, 1784)
26. The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, by Olaudah Equiano (Nigeria, 1789)
27. A Simple Story, by Elizabeth Inchbald (England, 1792)
28. Caleb Williams, by William Godwin (England, 1794)
29. A Voyage Around My Room, by Xavier de Maistre (France, 1794)
30. Jacques the Fatalist, by Denis Diderot (France, 1796)
31. Letters Written During a Short Residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark, by Mary Wollstonecraft (England, 1796)
32. The Coquette, by Hannah Webster Foster (U.S., 1797)
34. Wieland, by Charles Brockden Brown (U.S. 1798)
-- book club. Very little of it remains in my memory.
35. The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner, by James Hogg (Scotland, 1824)
--book club, why else would I read it?
36. Hope Leslie, by Catharine Maria Sedgwick (U.S. 1827)
37. The Wide, Wide World, by Susan Warner (U.S., 1850)
-- isn't this one of those uplifting books kid read in 19th century literature, along with The Daisy Chain and such?
38. Cranford, by Elizabeth Gaskell (England, 1851-1853)
-- I *think* I read this back in the late 70s. Might have read Wives and Daughters instead. Book club did North and South, which I couldn't finish
39. Ruth Hall, by Fanny Fern (U.S., 1854)
40. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, by Harriet Jacobs (U.S., 1861)
41. Lady Audley’s Secret, by Mary Elizabeth Braddon (England, 1862)
-- 'Dead! Dead! And never called me mother!' Beyond which I got nothin'.
42. The Story of Avis, by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps (U.S. 1877)
43. A Lady’s Life in the Rocky Mountains, by Isabella Bird (England, 1879)
-- why read about the Rockies when you can read what she got up to in Japan and Korea?
44. Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes, by Robert Louis Stevenson (Scotland, 1879)
45. The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas, by Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis (Brazil, 1881)
46. Hester, by Margaret Oliphant (Scotland, 1883)
47. The Story of an African Farm, by Olive Schreiner (South Africa, 1883)
48. Hunger, by Knut Hamsun (Norway, 1890)
49. Effi Briest, by Theodor Fontane (Germany, 1894)
-- saw the movie...
50. Trilby, by George Du Maurier (France and England, 1894)
51. Elizabeth and Her German Garden, by Elizabeth von Arnim (Australia, 1898)
52. The Conjure Woman, by Charles Chestnutt (U.S., 1899)
53. I Await the Devil’s Coming, by Mary MacLane (Canada/U.S., 1901)
54. The Man Who Was Thursday, by G.K. Chesterton (England, 1908)
-- read when I was twelve. Cannot read now. No notion why.
55. Jakob von Gunten, by Robert Walser (Switzerland, 1909)
56. Kokoro, by Natsume Sōseki (Japan, 1914)
57. Herland, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman (U.S. 1915)
58. Tender Buttons, by Gertrude Stein (U.S., 1915)
59. The Home and the World, by Rabindranath Tagore (India, 1916)
60. Diary of a Madman, by Lu Xun (China, 1918)
61. Return of the Soldier, by Rebecca West (England, 1918)
62. Demian, by Hermann Hesse (Germany, 1919)
-- I'm pretty sure. Read a lot of Hesse in my 20s, none of which made any impression on me
63. The Sheik, by Edith Maude Hull (England, 1919)
64.Kristin Lavransdatter, by Sigrid Unset (Norway, 1920)
-- not sure how far I got with these. Depressed me beyond end.
65. Cane, by Jean Toomer (U.S., 1923)
66. Zeno’s Conscience, by Italo Svevo (Italy, 1923)
-- aka The Confessions of Zeno. Book club, didn't finish. Yanno, there's a lot of these early 20th century 'classics', largely published by Picador. They all give me the lowering claustrophobic horrors and read infinitely foreign, as if they'd been written by Martians. Zeno, Man Without Qualities, A Dance to the Music of Time. Male authors? Yeah, male authors.
67. The Home-Maker, by Dorothy Canfield Fisher (U.S., 1924)
68. There is Confusion, by Jessie Redmon Fauset (U.S., 1924)
69. Bread Givers, by Anzia Yezierska (U.S. 1925)
70. Chaka, by Thomas Mofolo (Lesotho, 1925)
71. Lolly Willowes, by Silvia Townsend Warner (England, 1926)
-- Mom had this. Wish I'd kept it.
72. Home to Harlem, by Claude McKay (Jamaica/U.S., 1928)
73. Quicksand, by Nella Larsen (U.S., 1928)
74. Doña Bárbara, by Rómulo Gallegos (Venezuela, 1929)
75. A High Wind in Jamaica, by Richard Hughes (Wales, 1929)
76. Dance Night, by Dawn Powell (U.S., 1930)
77. A Note in Music, by Rosamond Lehmann (England, 1930)
78. Devil’s Cub, by Georgette Heyer (England, 1932)
79. Frost in May, by Antonia White (England, 1933)
-- owned it. May still own it. Not willing to read about oppressive Catholic girlhoods somehow.
80. Testament of Youth, by Vera Brittain (England, 1933)
81. Street of Crocodiles, by Bruno Schulz (Poland, 1934)
82. Snow Country, by Yasunari Kawabata (Japan, 1935-37)
-- why this one? It's about a complete dweeb.
83. Jamaica Inn, by Daphne du Maurier (England, 1936)
84. Nightwood, by Djuna Barnes (U.S., 1936)
-- possible that I read it, or part of it, for book club. Still own it.
85. Journey by Moonlight, by Antal Szerb (Hungary, 1937)
86. The Death of the Heart, by Elizabeth Bowen (Ireland, 1938)
-- memeing without consultation. My mother owned a bunch of Bowens in hardback which I recently unearthed from the boxes, with good intentions of reading sometime...
87. Beware of Pity, by Stefan Zweig (Austria, 1939)
88. The Invention of Morel, by Adolpho Bioy Cesares (Argentina, 1940)
89. Dust Tracks on a Road, by Zora Neale Hurston (U.S., 1942)
90. Iceland’s Bell, by Halldór Laxness (Iceland, 1943)
91. Love in a Fallen City, by Eileen Chang (China, 1943)
92. Near to the Wild Heart, by Clarice Lispector (Brazil, 1943)
93. The Makioka Sisters, by Junichirō Tanizaki (Japan, 1943-1948)
94. Ficciones, by Jorge Luis Borges (Argentina, 1944)
-- not sure. There's so much Borges. Must have read some of this
95.Miss Pym Disposes, by Josephine Tey (Scotland, 1946)
-- loathe Tey. *Loathe* her.
96. Trilogy, by H.D. (U.S. 1946)
97. In a Lonely Place, by Dorothy B. Hughes (U.S. 1947)
98. The Mountain Lion, by Jean Stafford (U.S., 1947)
99. The Slaves of Solitude, by Patrick Hamilton (England, 1947)
100.I Capture the Castle, by Dodie Smith (England, 1948)
-- read a paragraph. Put out on the boulevard. Voice grated on me.
And in Wednesday memeing, have finished only The Midnight Court, which is probably great fun in Erse and dull in English; continue to plough through The Decameron, Holmes-pastiche, The Prince, and the latest 100 Demons; and will possibly start The Old Straight Track one of these years, having read the introduction which says the ideas stated therein are All Wrong. Which, fine.
oursinBold if read, italic if owned,
1. An Ethiopian Romance, by Heliodorus (Greece, c. 230)
2. The Recognition of Sakuntala, by Kalidasa (India, c. 4th century)
3. The Poems of T’ao Ch’ien, by T’ao Ch’ien (China, early 400s)
4. The Pillow Book, by Sei Shonagon (Japan, 990s – early 1000s)
5. The Tale of Genji, by Murasaki Shikibu (Japan, early 1000s)
6. The Song of Roland, author unknown (France, c. 1040-1115)
-- own and have owned for forty years with no burning desire to read
7. The Essential Rumi, Jalal al-Din Rumi (Iran, 1200s)
8. The Bustan of Saadi, by Saadi (Persia, 1257)
9. The Táin, author unknown (Ireland, 12th-14th century)
--the uses of medieval lit classes. See 6, above
10. Essays in Idleness, by Yoshida Kenkō (Japan, 1330-1332)
11. The Cloud of Unknowing, author unknown (England, later 1300s)
12.
--I've read some of this, I know I've read some of this, but I doubt I've read it all. A very little Margery goes a very long way
12. Lazarillo de Tormes, author unknown (Spain, 1554)
13. The Heptameron, by Marguerite of Navarre (France, 1558)
-- my mother had this and I inherited. Have read one story therein, where a woman gets stuck to the seat of a privy where a troupe of soldiers have been relieving themselves copiously. Am not inspired to read more.
14. The Blazing World, by Margaret Cavendish (England, 1666)
15. The Princess of Cleves, by Madame de Lafayette (France, 1678)
16. Oroonoko, by Aphra Behn (England, 1688)
17. Brief Lives, by John Aubrey (England, Late 1600s)
18. The Narrow Road to the Deep North, by Matsuo Basho (Japan, 1694)
19. Love in Excess, by Eliza Haywood (England, 1720)
20. A Journal of the Plague Year, by Daniel Defoe (England, 1722)
21. Letters of a Peruvian Woman, by Françoise de Graffigny (France, 1747)
22. Fanny Hill, by John Cleland (England, 1748)
--the uses of a book club populated by English majors
23. Dream of the Red Chamber, by Cao Xueqin (China, mid 1700s)
-- with the caveat that I never finished the last book
24. The Female Quixote, by Charlotte Lennox (Scotland, 1752)
25. Letters of Mistress Henley, by Isabelle de Charrière (Netherlands, 1784)
26. The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, by Olaudah Equiano (Nigeria, 1789)
27. A Simple Story, by Elizabeth Inchbald (England, 1792)
28. Caleb Williams, by William Godwin (England, 1794)
29. A Voyage Around My Room, by Xavier de Maistre (France, 1794)
30. Jacques the Fatalist, by Denis Diderot (France, 1796)
31. Letters Written During a Short Residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark, by Mary Wollstonecraft (England, 1796)
32. The Coquette, by Hannah Webster Foster (U.S., 1797)
34. Wieland, by Charles Brockden Brown (U.S. 1798)
-- book club. Very little of it remains in my memory.
35. The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner, by James Hogg (Scotland, 1824)
--book club, why else would I read it?
36. Hope Leslie, by Catharine Maria Sedgwick (U.S. 1827)
37. The Wide, Wide World, by Susan Warner (U.S., 1850)
-- isn't this one of those uplifting books kid read in 19th century literature, along with The Daisy Chain and such?
38. Cranford, by Elizabeth Gaskell (England, 1851-1853)
-- I *think* I read this back in the late 70s. Might have read Wives and Daughters instead. Book club did North and South, which I couldn't finish
39. Ruth Hall, by Fanny Fern (U.S., 1854)
40. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, by Harriet Jacobs (U.S., 1861)
41. Lady Audley’s Secret, by Mary Elizabeth Braddon (England, 1862)
-- 'Dead! Dead! And never called me mother!' Beyond which I got nothin'.
42. The Story of Avis, by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps (U.S. 1877)
43. A Lady’s Life in the Rocky Mountains, by Isabella Bird (England, 1879)
-- why read about the Rockies when you can read what she got up to in Japan and Korea?
44. Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes, by Robert Louis Stevenson (Scotland, 1879)
45. The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas, by Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis (Brazil, 1881)
46. Hester, by Margaret Oliphant (Scotland, 1883)
47. The Story of an African Farm, by Olive Schreiner (South Africa, 1883)
48. Hunger, by Knut Hamsun (Norway, 1890)
49. Effi Briest, by Theodor Fontane (Germany, 1894)
-- saw the movie...
50. Trilby, by George Du Maurier (France and England, 1894)
51. Elizabeth and Her German Garden, by Elizabeth von Arnim (Australia, 1898)
52. The Conjure Woman, by Charles Chestnutt (U.S., 1899)
53. I Await the Devil’s Coming, by Mary MacLane (Canada/U.S., 1901)
54. The Man Who Was Thursday, by G.K. Chesterton (England, 1908)
-- read when I was twelve. Cannot read now. No notion why.
55. Jakob von Gunten, by Robert Walser (Switzerland, 1909)
56. Kokoro, by Natsume Sōseki (Japan, 1914)
57. Herland, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman (U.S. 1915)
58. Tender Buttons, by Gertrude Stein (U.S., 1915)
59. The Home and the World, by Rabindranath Tagore (India, 1916)
60. Diary of a Madman, by Lu Xun (China, 1918)
61. Return of the Soldier, by Rebecca West (England, 1918)
62. Demian, by Hermann Hesse (Germany, 1919)
-- I'm pretty sure. Read a lot of Hesse in my 20s, none of which made any impression on me
63. The Sheik, by Edith Maude Hull (England, 1919)
64.
-- not sure how far I got with these. Depressed me beyond end.
65. Cane, by Jean Toomer (U.S., 1923)
66. Zeno’s Conscience, by Italo Svevo (Italy, 1923)
-- aka The Confessions of Zeno. Book club, didn't finish. Yanno, there's a lot of these early 20th century 'classics', largely published by Picador. They all give me the lowering claustrophobic horrors and read infinitely foreign, as if they'd been written by Martians. Zeno, Man Without Qualities, A Dance to the Music of Time. Male authors? Yeah, male authors.
67. The Home-Maker, by Dorothy Canfield Fisher (U.S., 1924)
68. There is Confusion, by Jessie Redmon Fauset (U.S., 1924)
69. Bread Givers, by Anzia Yezierska (U.S. 1925)
70. Chaka, by Thomas Mofolo (Lesotho, 1925)
71. Lolly Willowes, by Silvia Townsend Warner (England, 1926)
-- Mom had this. Wish I'd kept it.
72. Home to Harlem, by Claude McKay (Jamaica/U.S., 1928)
73. Quicksand, by Nella Larsen (U.S., 1928)
74. Doña Bárbara, by Rómulo Gallegos (Venezuela, 1929)
75. A High Wind in Jamaica, by Richard Hughes (Wales, 1929)
76. Dance Night, by Dawn Powell (U.S., 1930)
77. A Note in Music, by Rosamond Lehmann (England, 1930)
78. Devil’s Cub, by Georgette Heyer (England, 1932)
79. Frost in May, by Antonia White (England, 1933)
-- owned it. May still own it. Not willing to read about oppressive Catholic girlhoods somehow.
80. Testament of Youth, by Vera Brittain (England, 1933)
81. Street of Crocodiles, by Bruno Schulz (Poland, 1934)
82. Snow Country, by Yasunari Kawabata (Japan, 1935-37)
-- why this one? It's about a complete dweeb.
83. Jamaica Inn, by Daphne du Maurier (England, 1936)
84. Nightwood, by Djuna Barnes (U.S., 1936)
-- possible that I read it, or part of it, for book club. Still own it.
85. Journey by Moonlight, by Antal Szerb (Hungary, 1937)
86. The Death of the Heart, by Elizabeth Bowen (Ireland, 1938)
-- memeing without consultation. My mother owned a bunch of Bowens in hardback which I recently unearthed from the boxes, with good intentions of reading sometime...
87. Beware of Pity, by Stefan Zweig (Austria, 1939)
88. The Invention of Morel, by Adolpho Bioy Cesares (Argentina, 1940)
89. Dust Tracks on a Road, by Zora Neale Hurston (U.S., 1942)
90. Iceland’s Bell, by Halldór Laxness (Iceland, 1943)
91. Love in a Fallen City, by Eileen Chang (China, 1943)
92. Near to the Wild Heart, by Clarice Lispector (Brazil, 1943)
93. The Makioka Sisters, by Junichirō Tanizaki (Japan, 1943-1948)
94. Ficciones, by Jorge Luis Borges (Argentina, 1944)
-- not sure. There's so much Borges. Must have read some of this
95.
-- loathe Tey. *Loathe* her.
96. Trilogy, by H.D. (U.S. 1946)
97. In a Lonely Place, by Dorothy B. Hughes (U.S. 1947)
98. The Mountain Lion, by Jean Stafford (U.S., 1947)
99. The Slaves of Solitude, by Patrick Hamilton (England, 1947)
100.
-- read a paragraph. Put out on the boulevard. Voice grated on me.
And in Wednesday memeing, have finished only The Midnight Court, which is probably great fun in Erse and dull in English; continue to plough through The Decameron, Holmes-pastiche, The Prince, and the latest 100 Demons; and will possibly start The Old Straight Track one of these years, having read the introduction which says the ideas stated therein are All Wrong. Which, fine.