My Dream Rare Books Collection (12 Most Valuable Books)

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Hardcore Literature Lecture Series
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📔Contents Page: cutt.ly/CmNhRY3
🎖️ War and Peace: cutt.ly/U3nzGma
🎭 Shakespeare Project: cutt.ly/B3nxHH7
🐳 Moby Dick: cutt.ly/K3nzVKf
☄️ Blood Meridian: cutt.ly/P3nz6Qp
🍂 Wuthering Heights: cutt.ly/N3nxxYt
🇮🇪 Ulysses: cutt.ly/x3nxQmN
🚂 Anna Karenina: cutt.ly/vmNhAWv
💀 Crime and Punishment: cutt.ly/rmNhFt5
⚓ Persuasion: cutt.ly/amNhX7b
☕ In Search of Lost Time: cutt.ly/5mNh8oD
⚔️ The Hero’s Journey: cutt.ly/UmNjrE3
🌸 Siddharta: cutt.ly/YmNjuzi
🎠 Don Quixote: cutt.ly/cmNjoK4
❤️Shakespeare’s Sonnets: cutt.ly/nmNlW7V
🇫🇷 Les Misérables: cutt.ly/J3YixoA
🕯️ The Turn of the Screw: cutt.ly/nToAQQ3
🖋️ Dickens Seasonal Read: cutt.ly/9ToAybt
📖 Middlemarch Serial Reading: tinyurl.com/45rv965c
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[@nik2860]

The 12 books are :- 1:13 - Shakespeare 1st folio 4:39 - Complete collection of Charles Dickens in Original Serialised form 6:09 - Part 1 , Part 2 & plagiarised Part 2 of Cervantes Don Quixote 7:42 - Mart Shelley's 1818 Original Edition of Frankenstein 8:30 - Walt Whitman 1855 Edition of Leaves of Grass 9:50 - Moby Dick by Herman Melville 11:20 - 1st Edition of Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian 12:10 - The Original 8 part collection of George Eliot's Middlemarch 13:09 - The Original Lippincott's magazine publication of Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray 13:30 - Collection of Early or First Editions of Jane Austen's works 14:31 - Early or First Editions of one of the volumes of Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time 15:28 - Anything by Viktor Frankl

[@BenjaminMcEvoy]

This is awesome! Thank you for the timestamps, Nik :)

[@eligreen7925]

Oh thank you so much I cannot believe the books that people get rid of when they move people who don't realize the value not just monetary but the Deep value that they have I have tried to rescue many of these in the past and I don't think I have anything by any of these authors but you know if they are musty and going south it is very difficult to redeem them and keep them from getting worse if anyone has a great idea let me know really

[@evgeny9965]

Your enthusiasm for books is a spark that can rekindle one's enthusiasm for reading ... bring on the fire!!!!

[@vanessamay3689]

Yep totally agree

[@Hermit_mouse]

I wish I could get the entire collection of choose-your-own-adventure books I read in elementary school

[@davet2625]

I have only ever bought the cheap Wordsworth Classics versions. Until this week. I became enamoured with the penguin clothbound classics and decided that it would be lovely to own a clothbound version of each novel I've read that I consider extra-special (or at least, those that they have published a clothbound version of). So I have ordered 9 (crime and punishment; middlemarch; don Quixote; Les miserables; the count of Monte Cristo; bleak House; David Copperfield; great expectations; and a tale of two cities. [and I already owned Anna Karenina which I received as a gift a couple years ago]). So that makes 10! My idea is to continue to buy cheap versions for first reads of things, and then to buy a clothbound version of those which become special to me. (I've got war of the worlds, moby dick, Tess of the d'urbervilles, wuthering heights, moby dick, and villette, all in the queue, and all those have a clothbound version, so the collection may grow a little in future too. (Also if they release clothbounds of other novels I've already read and consider extra-special!). Anyway, it's not exactly what you were asking, but I'm not really equipped to answer that question! And in the meantime, I just wanted to tell someone about my clothbounds!

[@dianal.clausen8118]

I love and envy your clothbound collection and appreciate your aspirations. What a joy to have and anticipate. I especially envy your Madame Bovary. When deep read one can't help but feel sympathy for her husband even if he is really stiff and stuffy.

[@michaelbroderick2282]

4,000 people crowded Boston Harbour as the ship arrived from England with bundles of the final installment of Dickens' Old Curiosity Shop. "Is little Nell dead?", the crowd yelled up to the crew. If I lived then I believe I'd have been there.

[@Wisdom1944]

Benjamin, I feel severely challenged by your top 12 rare books, but loving every brethless minute!!!

[@BenjaminMcEvoy]

Aw, thank you, Sophia! :)

[@ArtBookshelfOdyssey]

Lovely books! I would for sure have a first edition of A Christmas Carol - it's my all time favorite, and has had such a huge impact in my life.

[@beermarshal2070]

Hey Benjamin, just stumbled across your channel a few days ago and have watched a couple of videos. You are a man after my own heart - well, my own heart when I was in my 20s and maybe 30s, anyway. I majored in English lit in college, and was a serious reader and collector for years, but have gone on different paths since, oh, the 1990s, and my reading unfortunately has dropped off to almost nil, being mostly replaced by film. But for a very long time I continued to collect, even though I wasn't reading so much anymore, and I'm still interested in and excited by used book stores (alas there are none close by me). So this is a fun topic, and my own list wasn't hard to make - I share one in common with you. These really are picks with personal relevance, and they tend more towards science fiction and fantasy than anything else; who knows, if getting back into literature in my declining years yet happens, I might have a different dream list in a few years though. * Gulliver's Travels 1st edition. I've actually seen a copy of this - or a very early edition - at an antiquarian book fair in Chicago in the 90s. I think it was somewhere around $6,000 but I may well be misremembering, or getting it mixed up with an early Paradise Lost which I also remember. A big influence on me in college. * Frankenstein 1st edition. I've actually never read the thing! I was going to in it's bicentennary year but just didn't. But as likely the single most important work of fantastic fiction ever it's something I will have to get to, and I have an Oxford Wold's Classics or Penguin or something like it paperback so no excuse * Alice in Wonderland & Through the Looking Glass 1st editions - I know the true 1st of Alice is super-rare and expensive - probably right up there with Frankenstein as the most expensive on my list. Very formative in my development * The Wonderful Wizard of Oz 1st edition - the early editions of the Oz books were just beautifully done; I will have to settle for facsimiles I'm sure and have been collecting those slowly. Another formative book though I didn't read it in childhood. * A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court - my favorite Twain book, and it makes a nice pairing with Swift's satire. Probably the easiest to get and cheapest book on my list. * The Kelmscott Chaucer - I supposed I'll get a facsimile someday * The Great Gatsby * Absalom, Absalom! - likely my two favorite American 20th century novels * The Hobbit - the book I've read more than any other - this one too I've actually seen, back in the 90s; in fact a store that was literally around the corner from where I lived had one, something in the $5-10k range I think - unsigned and not in great shape as I dimly remember * The Outsider and Others - I'm not as big a Lovecraft fan as many of my friends, but I am a fan of Arkham House, the press that was founded to print this, and I grew up in and live in Wiscsonsin, where the press is located. This was it's first book - also would be "cheap" in comparison with some others. * poetry by Forugh Farrokhzad in original editions in Persian. I can't even imagine where to begin with this - I love her work in translation though, and I love Iranian cinema, which she influenced enormously. * Empires of Foliage and Flower - a chapbook by Gene Wolfe that might actually be the hardest to find of any of these as it was printed in a TINY edition of 100 or so. There were copies that sold on eBay 15-20 years ago for a few hundred dollars but it seems to have totally disappeared - it's one of those books that is probably held almost entirely by collectors. I'd imagine it would be very expensive if it showed up now. Oh, gosh, a lot of babbling. Sorry.

[@laurau6491]

Thank you for sharing your love for reading, Ben. You have inspired me to read many books. This video is fantastic.

[@fkvdmark]

I like this! Apart from the rather obvious I would love a first edition of the Dutch book "Max Havelaar; or, The Coffee Auctions of the Dutch Trading Company" (the title alone...) from 1860 by Multatuli (Eduard Dekker). It is sometimes referred to as the book that brought down Dutch imperialism. Especially its last line (directed at King William III) "Is it your Royal wish that 30 million of your people are mistreated and sucked out there in YOUR name?" (this line in all capitals) - one of the books that got me into reading.

[@BenjaminMcEvoy]

Wow! Really cool choice :) I had a quick search but, alas, could only find English reprints!

[@tomsmith7429]

My 12 would be: 1. The Book of Kells 2. The Gospel of Henry the Lion 3. The St. Cuthbert Gospel 4. The original illustrated manuscript of 'Alice in Wonderland', gifted by Lewis Carroll to Alice Liddell 5. 'The Great Omar', with jewelled binding by Sangorski & Sutcliffe 6. The Kelmscott Chaucer 7. The Gutenberg Bible 8. 'Codex Leicester', by Leonardo da Vinci 9. 'Dracula', by Bram Stoker, first edition, first issue, first printing 10. The Domesday Book

[@kinchan3988]

Happy new year to you ,Benjamin for such a nice KZbin video ,get me into all the great books from all over the world Thank you

[@tumblyhomecarolinep7121]

That has to be the best video by you ever! Excellent choice. I would go for the Proust and Moby Dick and Dickens… and actually all of these with a bit of a hold on some Austen while I decided. I might add a Wuthering heights and an Origin of Species by Darwin.

[@BenjaminMcEvoy]

Thank you! I enjoyed making this one :) very nice additions with Wuthering Heights and Origin of Species - I thoroughly enjoyed rereading the latter last year. I could be swayed to swap these two into my list too!

[@ronnietopper4915]

Great video as usual. I would bid against you for Dickens and Austen and add Tolkein's and Pratchett's writing and Steven Erikson's Malazan. I'm very interested at picking the authors's brain to how they develop the characters, so their notebooks would be fascinating.

[@michele4814]

Thank you, happy reading!

[@steveallen8800]

I used to own a 1st Ed, 1st Printing, Signed Hemingway For Whom the Bell Tolls. Unfortunately I needed to sell it.

[@buddharuci2701]

Since we are in the world of fantasy, Caxton’s Chaucer. It’s beautiful. And the fonts are easily read.

[@ralphroe5625]

I would add a Kelmscott Chaucer. Maybe next year.

[@ya_soy_una_senora]

Hi! I'm totally in love with the way you pronounce Cervantes! Greetings from Querétaro México, a town nearby Guanajuato where an annual Cervantino Festival is held every year in October. 😊

[@giorgimerabishvili8194]

You're amazing man!

[@word42069]

I think the Folger Shakespeare Library should loan your a first folio. :)

[@BenjaminMcEvoy]

I completely agree! ☺️

[@laquerisma]

I came to own a 1905 copy of The Pickwick Papers over 20 years ago in my previous home. It appeared in my infant son's room and I have no idea where it came from.

[@scholarstica1]

Wow. That's awesome. Wonder where it came from.

[@monicacabrera3965]

How do you find out when a facsimile edition is on sale?

[@steveallen8800]

1st Ed, 1st printing of Tolkien’s The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.

[@sherrillfair3601]

How do you keep track of your collection?

[@captain2fat]

*Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer first editions. *Walden first edition.

[@scholarstica1]

Love your selection. I'm new to his channel, does he ever mention any works by Mark Twain? I have seen a few videos but I have yet to hear any mention of Twain.

[@terencemeikle534]

For me it would be a first edition of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, published in Riga in 1781. His two other Critiques would be lovely, too. (I do at least possess the modern complete edition of Kant's works in translation published by Cambridge University Press, a very beautiful set of 16 books.)

[@rosanna5515]

I share your love of Don Quijote and several other masterpieces you mentioned. My wish for you is that as show of gratitude for the splendid work you offer us, you will be rewarded with the granting of at least one wish of your literary dreams. It would be glorious🎉

[@BenjaminMcEvoy]

Aw, thank you so much, Rosanna. That is so lovely of you. You have completely made my day 🙏❤️

[@furiosaningveryserious7104]

John Powys Cowper “s essays. Charles lamb. Walter pater. Roger fry. Edith Wharton and Henry James.

[@susprime7018]

Interesting list. All true firsts of To Kill a Mockingbird, Grapes of Wrath, All Quiet on the Western Front, Brideshead Revisted, any Dashiell Hammett, any Updike, Cheever, O'Hara and Gardner that I do not have and I would like them in signed limiteds and of course any Mark Twain. Throw in a warmly inscribed Winston Churchill to George VI.

[@BenjaminMcEvoy]

Tremendous choices. I've been enjoying quite a few on your list recently :) It looks like that last one could well set you back $10,000+

[@mefogus]

My twelve: Bukowski’s The Poet, Delaney’s Voyage, Orestes!, PKD’s The Owl in Daylight, Stephen King’s The Aftermath, Hunter S Thompson’s Prince Jellyfish, Vonnegut’s If God Were Alive Today, Byron’s Memoirs, Gogol’s Dead Souls parts 2 & 3, de Sade’s Les Journees de Florbelle, Bruno Schulz’s The Messiah, and Plath’s Double Take.

[@LIsa_Shi]

I'm happy to say that I do possess the 1st edition of several Dumas books😍 but if we're allowed to dream my desires lie in the direction of manuscripts not printed editions. I'd like to have a 1375 Catullus. Which is obviously impossible. But it's a dream😂

[@dannydoj]

The last printed edition of the Encyclopaedia Brittanica. Also first editions of every HV Morton travel book.

[@llywrch7116]

The problem with a list of dream books is that I'm tempted to add books I would have no practical use for -- say one of the papyrus copies of Sappho's poems or a Late Classical manuscript copy of Vergil's _Aeneid_. (I know little Latin, & less Greek.) And as others have pointed out, some first editions just don't lend themselves to daily use. (I've not read my autographed first editions of _Hitchhiker's Guide_ since Adam's death.) But they would include first editions of James Bruce's _Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile_, & Edward Gibbon's _Decline & Fall of the Roman Empire_. (Although the first edition of Gibbon's work with J.B. Bury's notes/commentary would be equally acceptable.) And I wonder what the first edition in hardback of Raymond Chandler's works would be: I think he was first published in paperback, & hardback would stand up to use much better than paperback or aging magazines.

[@80aj21]

Great Video. For me personally I have a list of FE books i hope to buy one day made up of those who created me as an Author. First on my list is Carlos Ruiz Zafon's Barcelona series, beautiful books, beautiful covers, and life changing stories.

[@BenjaminMcEvoy]

Thank you! That sounds like it would be a very special collection - each of those books would have great personal meaning for you. Nice choice with Carols Ruiz Zafon!

[@80aj21]

@@BenjaminMcEvoy I have spent the last 30 minutes looking at first editions online now, with dozens of tabs open at all the different books I would want in my billionaire library. your list has completely taken over my morning.

[@BenjaminMcEvoy]

@@80aj21 What a fun way to spend the morning :) I was hoping I would tempt some readers down a few rabbit holes!

[@buddharuci2701]

I hold myself back from buying 19th. C. Books because the paper is often poor. I recently bought Samuel Johnson’s Milton’s Paradise Lost with bio and notes published 1796. Not a first, but wonderful for holding and reading.

[@monicacallesarenales5865]

A Coptic gospel with its awesome miniatures....or a Beatus from my country 😊

[@breakout4347]

In my Christmas list is a collection of CHarles Dickens books!!!!

[@ornleifs]

Very interesting - Loved this video. I would love to own First edition of Dickens Christmas Carol - First edition of the Tintin books - First Edition of Evely Waugh Brideshead Revisited - First Edition of Oscar Wilde The Importance of Being Earnest. And first editions of the Jeeves and Wooster books by P.G Wodehouse. And since I also love Sheet Music I would love to own first edition of The Well Tempered Clavier by Bach - First editions of The Piano Sonatas by Beethoven - First edition of The Piano Sonata in B Minor by Liszt and Basically all the first editions of the piano works by Ravel.

[@fkvdmark]

I would love the original Tintin in the Sovjet Union and Tintin and the Black Isle. And then compare the latter one with the "improved" version!

[@BenjaminMcEvoy]

Nice choices! I can especially get on board with some Tintin first editions. That was my childhood, and even today I enjoy poring over them in bookstores - beautiful stories. I'd also love some first editions of the J&W novels. I always have one on my bedside. I believe there's quite a community centred around Sheet Music :) Lovely selections!

[@lisavitale8410]

I’d want the 1st edition of the White House Cookbook published in 1887 as I’d love to start collecting cookbooks. I’d also love a 1st serialized edition copy of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas by Jules Verne as I’ve read this novel numerous times already, or any 1st edition signed copy of one of Agatha Christie novels as I love her novels.

[@Bazza1025b]

As we only have 20% of what Aristotle wrote; and on this he is considered to be one of the top philosophers EVER; can you imagine what the other 80% would be? And to think I have 11 other selections to come. 😂❤

[@gleeeshee]

great list

[@melissarestous1204]

I would stole your first edition of The Picture of Dorian Gray (I'm already collecting this book, it would be nice having the first one on my shelves). Same for Persuasion by Jane Austen (one of my favourites). And maybe the first edition of Les Fleurs du mal by Baudelaire (the book was censored in 1857 after a trial and the judgement was broken nearly 100 years later)

[@BenjaminMcEvoy]

It's so cool that you're collecting Wilde :) One could have quite a nice theme going along with Baudelaire, Poe, and a handful of Decadent/Fin de Siècle writers. I'm particularly drawn to The Yellow Book. Thank you for sharing, Mélissa!

[@melissarestous1204]

@@BenjaminMcEvoy An original edition of Poe's Tales illustrated by Harry Clarke would be great too. Oh yeah, the infamous yellow book :) It would be a nice collection.

[@roseannerussell7034]

My Dream Rare Books Collection: Anything first edition from Oscar Wilde, signed!...and the paper back version of "king of scars". Its not rare or very expensive I just can't justify buying a book for that price at the moment just so that I can have a matching set.

[@debohare674]

A Guttenburg Bible would be appreciated by me. 😁

[@luciano2166]

The 1780 Quixote by Ybarra is my dream to, after watch the movie The ninth gate, a movie wich i highly recommend for book lovers❤

[@scoutdarpy4465]

Loved your list! I'm not sure what mine would be; it's something to consider. I do have a question that's unrelated to the video, however. I bought a Kindle recently, and I'm curious of your opinion on it. Do you think you get the same experience as you would reading a physical book? I prefer physical copies, but I think Kindles can be pretty useful.

[@stanbrown32]

I don't know when other copies of these go up for auction, but if I had unlimited funds, I would want to get Tamerlane, And Other Poems, by a Bostonian (Poe's first publication), and a Bay Psalm Book.

[@BenjaminMcEvoy]

Nice choices! Now that would be an enviable collection :)

[@johndogwater]

I love that Proust self-published and write good reviews of himself under fake names! All of the things contemporary amateur authors are derided for as kind of pathetic, turns out they're in great company.

[@gruesometwosome6098]

I would love to own a copy of Andrea Palladio's 4 books of architecture bound as one.... If l could find a copy in English even better 🤔 l live in hope 📚🙏 yes it would have to be an original edition 🤯

[@tylerconley7739]

1. Dracula first UK edition 2. Tales of grotesque and arabesque 3. The hobbit 4. Lord of the rings 5. Dorian gray 6. Dr jekyll and Mr Hyde 7. Frankenstein 8. Moby dick 9. Invisible man 10. War of the worlds 11. 20k leagues 12. The castle of otranto All of these in the very first printing or earliest completed form.

[@gabrielplattes6253]

Most of Dickens's original editions, I have; some solid Machen and Hodgson too; &c. What is on the wish/dream list: The Great Gatsby, in dj; Wind in the Willows, in dj; Maltese Falcon, dj; Red Harvest, dj; Dain Curse, dj; Thin Man, dj; [insert Chandlers here]; Pastures of Heaven, dj; To a god unknown, dj; Vanity Fair, in the parts; Life in London, in the parts; Boxiana, in the parts; Sketches by Boz, in the parts; &c., &c. ✌️😉

[@RSEFX]

Do you know what was the year of first publication of Poe's cosmological lecture thesis EUREKA?

[@card_hoarders7227]

I buy sports cards collections and recently bought a collection with rare books I want to sell.

[@fuhawv9367]

Nice

[@nata3467]

My dream collection is the full Agatha Christie bound collection in Black so expensive so desirable if I ever win the lottery first thing I do is buy it.

[@kellybennett3846]

I like the copies with the surreal covers drawn by Tom Adams.

[@FlowerKimonoCaptain]

I prefer the Road

[@TheElectricUnderground]

1st edition of the bible ;-)

[@chickencharlie1992]

First edition of Moby Dick Dune The Film Book adapted from Frank Herbert First Edition Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas The Lord of the Rings first edition All those books Yoda and Luke burned in episode 8 The Sports Almanac from Back to the Future Part 2 and 3 but real also a time machine Alexander The Greats annotated edition of The Iliad and The Odyssey by that Greek Guy from The Simpsons. Fast Cars by Paul Sheldon, wish he'd go back to books like those instead of those miserable books about that woman

[@johndogwater]

I think 'The Whale' is a better title, am I insane? Of course now its a movie about a fat guy.

[@raytrack3552]

Garfield

[@elizabethmurphy3931]

Well, this has not helped me with my serious addiction to beautiful and exceptional books. I mean, seriously, how am I supposed to not covet such lovely items? Facsimiles of such wonderful editions would be the only way to go, simply because I would not want to actually handle the authentic item, for fear of damage. At this point, I am content with Everyman's Library, Library of America, Barnes and Noble leatherbound, and a few Easton Press beauties. Ah, now I have something to put on Santa's list for me. Hmmmmm..........

[@BenjaminMcEvoy]

I completely agree. I would love to have these volumes, and read them, but I would be terrified to handle them - even with gloves. Facsimiles are a great remedy for this. I'm also quite happy with my Everyman and LOA editions... for now :)

[@bbbrown3408]

yeah but the best things in life arnet tihings