
Ask HN: Good books written before ~1900? - jonathanleane
I recently saw a post on HN that recommended (among other things) reading books that were over a century old as a way to reflect on how different things were prior to the ubiquity of technology (i.e. social media, the 24&#x2F;7 news cycle, smartphones, etc.)<p>I&#x27;m thinking of spending a week or so doing a &#x27;digital detox&#x27; and aside from hiking, meditation, and journaling, I&#x27;d like to spend most of my time reading.<p>Does HN have any recommendations? I&#x27;m open to pretty much any genre, fiction, nonfiction, or otherwise.<p>A few that I have on my list already:<p>- Meditations by Marcus Aurelius 
- Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville
- Crime &amp; Punishment by Dostoevsky 
- Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
======
simonblack
There are literally thousands of books in the Gutenberg Press,
([http://www.gutenberg.org](http://www.gutenberg.org)) that include stuff as
recent as the 1920s. After the 1920s, things peter out because of the harsher
copyright laws ("The Mickey Mouse Laws") since then.

These include books by many famous authors such as Dickens, Conrad, Conan
Doyle, Defoe, Kipling, Poe, etc, etc, etc. Enough to keep you occupied for
years!

------
dodgyb
Joshua Slocum - Sailing Alone Around the World

A fascinating account of the first solo circumnavigation of the world.
Definitely a digital detox that will prep you the next book in this list

[http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/6317](http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/6317)

John Esquemeling - The Buccaneers Of America

This is a fascinating read and provides some insight into some of the
influences on the origins of American democracy. One to read before you start
the de Tocqueville.

[https://archive.org/details/historybuccanee02perkgoog/page/n...](https://archive.org/details/historybuccanee02perkgoog/page/n10/mode/2up)

Rudyard Kipling - Kim

A spy thriller set during the great game between Russia and the Indian Raj.
Most anything by Kipling is a rollicking good read.

[http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2226](http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2226)

The travel writings of Isabella Bird

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isabella_Bird](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isabella_Bird)

Mikhail Bulgakov - The Master and Margarita

Not pre 1900 but it is the perfect counterpoint to the paranoia inducing crime
and punishment.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Master_and_Margarita](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Master_and_Margarita)

------
jonathanleane
The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money by John Maynard Keynes
The Education of Henry Adams by Henry Adams

------
082349872349872

        The Bourgeois Gentleman
        Complaint tablet to Ea-nasir :-)
        Emma
        Essays
        Gulliver's Travels
        HMS Pinafore
        In Praise of Folly
        Journey to the West[1]
        Mullah Nasruddin stories[2]
        Nicomachean Ethics
        Panchatantra
        Uncle Remus
        War & Peace[3]
    
    

[1] haven't read this one yet myself, but the old cartoon "Havoc in Heaven"
was good, and books are usually better than their movies.

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nasreddin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nasreddin)
, collections are probably available under multiple titles

[3] much more in the book than the movie. it also looks like I should queue up
Eugene Onegin.

------
tomjen3
Adam Smith the wealth of nations

You will understand much about the world and you will know how small the
overlap between what is in the book and what people think is in it is.

------
mytailorisrich
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas.

------
shoo
Seneca's essays & letters.

------
veddox
Darwin "The Voyage of the Beagle"

Homer "The Odyssey"

------
alexmingoia
The Book of Tea by Okakura Kakuzō (1906)

------
gshdg
Bleak House by Charles Dickens

------
Normille
DRACULA [1897]

Interesting as it was one of the first [if not THE first] novels to be written
in epistolary format [ie. composed of a series of extracts from journals,
letters, newspaper articles and even wax cylinder recordings, rather than
narrated by a single person]. So there's a nice contrast there with works of
today which might use a similar style, but compose the narrative from emails,
text messages, TV reports, etc.

As a novel, it's a very mixed bag. The beginning and ending are classic gothic
horror --very action packed and exciting and feel quite modern. However, there
are vast tracts in the middle which are hard going, having been severely
beaten with the 'Victorian Melodrama' stick; women faint at the drop of a hat,
men fall to their knees, beating their breasts, crying and wailing their
devotion in front of all present and everyone eulogises at length on 'good vs.
evil'.

ROBINSON CRUSOE [1719]

I didn't realise this one was _that_ old, til I looked it up!

Another cracking story but, to an even worse extent than Dracula, suffers from
the attitudes of its day. Crusoe is such a pious, pompous self-obsessed prig
that, whenever I read the book, I end up hating him and wishing he'd suffer
some painful testicle-crushing accident, to wipe the sanctimonious expression
off his fizzer.

In spite of being holed up in a cave with barrels of rum, sacks of tobacco,
piles of guns and gunpowder and more food and livestock than the average farm,
Crusoe continually whinges about his terrible lot in life. [Try being cast
ashore with only an ice skate and a netball for company, or confined to
barracks with only a couple of bottles of hand sanitiser to drink --you
pampered pillock!]

And, of course, when he meets Friday, he treats him with the kind of masterly
benevolence you might show a favourite dog; change your name, change your
culture, change your religion, change your language. Good boy! Now you're fit
to be a slave for an Englishman. [and, even the addition of a live-in servant
to his already well-appointed cave, doesn't stop Crusoe endlessly bemoaning
the terrible fate life has given him].

TREASURE ISLAND [1883]

Another great adventure story. It's got pirates and buried treasure. What's
not to like?!

As with the previous two I've mentioned, Jim Hawkins, the hero character is
annoyingly pious and good. However, in the case of Treasure Island, these
niggles are more than rectified by the introduction of a great supporting cast
of villains including Billy Bones, Blind Pew and, of course Long John Silver.

I don't know if Robert Louis Stevenson intended this, or I'm putting our
contemporary preference for 'flawed heroes' onto what he wrote. But, unusually
for novels of that era the 'baddies' in Treasure Island are portrayed as
rounded individuals with likeable aspects to their personalities, rather than
being cast as one-dimensional pantomime villains. I think it gives the book a
feel that's more modern than its vintage would lead you to expect.

------
rurban
It would be much easier and shorter to ask for good books after 2000.

