12 Books I've Loved That Were Written Long, Long Ago

The Essential Rumi (1273)

"The ecstatic, spiritual poetry of thirteenth-century Sufi Mystic Rumi..."

The Decameron (1349)

"In the summer of 1348, as the Black Death ravages their city, ten young Florentines take refuge in the countryside. They amuse themselves by each telling a story a day for the ten days they are destined to remain there—a hundred stories of love, adventure and surprising twists of fate."

Don Quixote (1605)

"Don Quixote has become so entranced reading tales of chivalry that he decides to turn knight errant himself. In the company of his faithful squire, Sancho Panza, these exploits blossom in all sorts of wonderful ways."

The Narrow Road to the Deep North and Other Travel Sketches by Matsuo Bashō (1702)

"This seventeenth-century travel writing not only chronicles Basho's perilous journeys through Japan, but it also captures his vision of eternity in the transient world around him."

Candide by Voltaire (1759)

"We are living in the “best of all possible worlds” and everything that happens is “all for the best”. This was the basis of Leibniz’s optimistic philosophy. Voltaire, on the other hand, found these notions patently absurd and decided to show this absurdity through his satirical masterpiece Candide."

The Complete Grimm's Fairy Tales (1812)

"They are the stories we've known since we were children. Rapunzel. Hansel and Gretel. Cinderella. Sleeping Beauty. But the works originally collected by the Brothers Grimm in the early 1800s are not necessarily the versions we heard before bedtime. They're darker and often don't end very happily--but they're often far more interesting. "

Persuasion by Jane Austen (1817)

"At twenty-­seven, Anne Elliot is no longer young and has few romantic prospects. Eight years earlier, she had been persuaded by her friend Lady Russell to break off her engagement to Frederick Wentworth, a handsome naval captain with neither fortune nor rank. What happens when they encounter each other again is movingly told in Jane Austen's last completed novel. Set in the fashionable societies of Lyme Regis and Bath, Persuasion is a brilliant satire of vanity and pretension, but, above all, it is a love story tinged with the heartache of missed opportunities."

David Copperfield by Charles Dickens (1850)

"David Copperfield is the story of a young man's adventures on his journey from an unhappy and impoverished childhood to the discovery of his vocation as a successful novelist. Among the gloriously vivid cast of characters he encounters are his tyrannical stepfather, Mr Murdstone; his brilliant, but ultimately unworthy school-friend James Steerforth; his formidable aunt, Betsey Trotwood; the eternally humble, yet treacherous Uriah Heep; frivolous, enchanting Dora Spenlow; and the magnificently impecunious Wilkins Micawber, one of literature's great comic creations."

Moby Dick by Herman Melville (1851)

"A sailor called Ishmael narrates the obsessive quest of Ahab, captain of the whaler Pequod, for revenge on Moby Dick, a white whale which on a previous voyage destroyed Ahab's ship and severed his leg at the knee."

L'Assommoir by Émile Zola (1876)

"L'Assommoir  is the story of a woman's struggle for happiness in working-class Paris. At the center of the story stands Gervaise, who starts her own laundry and for a time makes a success of it. But her husband soon squanders her earnings in the Assommoir, a local drinking spot, and gradually the pair sink into poverty and squalor."

The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde (1895)

"The Importance of Being Earnest is a farcical comedy in which the protagonists maintain fictitious personæ to escape burdensome social obligations."

Anne of Green Gables by L. M. Montgomery (1908)

"Eleven-year-old Anne Shirley has never known a real home. Since her parents' deaths, she's bounced around to foster homes and orphanages. When she is sent by mistake to live with Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert at the snug white farmhouse called Green Gables, she wants to stay forever. But Anne is not the sturdy boy Matthew and Marilla were expecting. She's a mischievous, talkative redheaded girl with a fierce temper, who tumbles into one scrape after another. Anne is not like anybody else, the Cuthberts agree; she is special, a girl with an enormous imagination. All she's ever wanted is to belong somewhere. And the longer she stays at Green Gables, the harder it is for anyone to imagine life without her."

Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January of 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together. Each Tuesday That Artsy Reader Girl assigns a topic and then post her top ten list that fits that topic. You’re more than welcome to join her and create your own top ten (or 2, 5, 20, etc.) list as well. Feel free to put a unique spin on the topic to make it work for you! Please link back to That Artsy Reader Girl in your own post so that others know where to find more information.