Here are four things/authors I used to think I had read every word of:
the Bible
Jane Austen
Sherlock Holmes
The Boxcar Children
I was wrong in some way in each case, and I now suspect that it may be very difficult to claim to have read all of anything.
For instance, I have only read all of the Bible in translation, and the translation was not the King James version. To some extent this is a quibble, but it should certainly stop me from thinking I know it all.
I’m wondering if our resident Heinlein experts feel safe in saying that they’ve read all of him (obscure short stories in magazines, anyone?), or whether any of the Tolkien people will think it’s safe to say that they’ve read everything (pending further releases by the estate).
So let’s talk–what do you think you’ve read all of? (Or heard all of–think you’ve heard every Beatles’ song ever written?) You challenge me and I’ll challenge you.
I still think I’ve read every word of Shakespeare. Tell me how I could be wrong.
Heck, you wouldn’t have read it all even if your translation had been the King James Version. There’s this little appendix to the Old Testament called the Apocrypha which appears in some translations but not others. The KJV is one of the translations that lacks the Apocrypha. (It’s typically found in modern translations aimed at Catholics, because the Catholic Church does consider the Apocrypha to be Canon. They call it “the Deuterocanonicals.”)
Have you read the business letters he wrote to the owners of the Globe theater?
Do you mean everything published or everything written? If it’s the latter there’s no way you could have read all of Shakespeare. We’re more than likely missing various folios of his plays and maybe a few sonnets, and there’s more than likely scraps of poems that he threw out and never allowed anyone else to see. Then, of course, there’s the argument that Shakespeare didn’t even write Shakespeare’s plays, in which case I’d have to ask if you mean everything attributed to Shakespeare…
As for me, I think the only thing I can claim to have read all of is Frank Herbert’s Dune series, including the three prequel books churned out by his son in the last couple years. At the risk of blasphemy I must declare that the prequels are better than Frank’s original stuff.
I like to think I’ve read everything written by J.R.R. Tolkien but I absolutely refuse to read “The History of Middle Earth” Do we really need to know how many times Tolkien changed Pippin’s name? I don’t think so.
I know I read every Sherlock Holmes story written by Arthur Conan Doyle.
I’m pretty sure I’ve read everything ever published by Robert Heinlein.
You are kidding, right? Or has someone found some of these and published them? If so, tell me where quick! (There was a poem published about 2 years ago which the linquistic analysts think they have safely attributed to Shakespeare based on word count and usage–I have read that.) saffostarr, I think it’s safe to assume that I’m not talking about his shopping lists, but that is actually the obscure type of challenge I’m interested in. Come at it from all angles and show me other stuff I’ve gotta get to before I can be complacent. If you’ve read all of the Dune stuff, you are a true masochist (I read to # 4 or 5 before giving up in disgust). I could challenge you by askig whether you’ve also seen the movie and the mini-series, but that’s not quite fair. Maybe someone else who knows Herbert better can find something obscure for a challenge here.
I know about and have read the Apocrypha, but that is indeed a most excellent challenge. I have not read all of the apocryphal works rejected by Catholics and others alike, however, so that could be a valid issue.
Biggirl: you of course read Pilgrim’s Progress in Bunyan’s 17th century English, without modernization of capitalizations and punctuation?
[li] Robert B. Park- … no, I haven’t read those new series he’s been writing.[/li][li] Nicholson Bak- … no, I never read U and I (despite owning it :rolleyes: ) and I haven’t finished Double Fold.[/li] Aha! Michael Connelly! Yes!
Meh. I was going for semantics more than anything else. I’ve got no proof, just thought-provoking arguments. Oh well.
I hated them after #3, frankly, but it was a challenge to myself to finish them all. Kind of a perverse fascination, the same thing that keeps people hanging around car wrecks. Even if you gave up, I really recommend Brian Herbert’s prequels, which detail the life of Paul’s father Leto and are much more interesting than the last few of the original books. And yes, I have seen both the movie and mini-series. ::hangs head in shame::
Here’s a possibility - a funeral elegy identified as Shakespeare’s work in 1996 by an academic called Don Foster. He’s the guy who figured out that Joe Klein wrote Primary Colors among other things.
Alex B
I’m pretty sure I’ve read all M. R. James’ ghost stories (including “The Malice of Inanimate Objects”, which doesn’t appear in the supposedly definitive collections I’ve seen).
I’m fairly sure I’ve read all the published works of H. H. “Saki” Munro.
And that’s it, I think. Oh, and the Bible (KJV and RSV), and the Apocrypha, and all Conan Doyle’s “Sherlock Holmes” stories. But that’s it.
No, tracer was kidding – no letters from Shakespeare are known to exist at present. His will is still around, as you probably know; have you read that?
And I remember when the Funeral Elegy came out, though to be honest I haven’t read all of that, because it really isn’t all that good. (But then, I can’t actually say I’ve read all of the plays anyway, as I haven’t read all those minor comedies, or the histories that don’t go in the two tetralogies.)
saffostarr, I doubt we’re missing various folios, although there are two plays known to be lost (Love’s Labour’s Won, although that might just be an alternate name for Much Ado About Nothing, which was probably written by 1598 but isn’t mentioned by Francis Meres in Palladis Tamia, and Cardenio, a collaboration with John Fletcher) and a few anonymous plays sometimes attributed to him. One of these, Edward III, is sometimes admitted to the canon. I’ve read it; though I’m not expert enough for my opinion to count for much, my suspicion is that he wrote some of it. (The anonymous Arden of Faversham was sometimes attributed to him, but nobody takes that seriously now. Anyway, it really doesn’t read like Shakespeare.) And there’s a play called Sir Thomas More that exists in manuscript form; it’s widely believed now that Shakespeare was involved writing of this play, as some of the pages appear to be in his handwriting.
furryman: The problem I found I had with Sherlock Holmes was not reading everything else by AC Doyle, and also not reading the fairly popular and mostly worthy The Seven Percent Solution, which I have since read. Of course there are also all those other rip-offs (I mean homages, of course) that others have tried which I will probably never bother with. You have of course read [iTree and Leaf** and Farmer Giles*? Those aren’t very obscure–what do you think is the most obscure Tolkien you’ve read, as a challenge for the rest of us? You and Fenris will have to challenge each other on the Heinlein–I’ve read enough to know that I could never stump you two on there. Fenris–what non-fiction did he write about?
Knead: here’s an obscure-looking Connelly I swiped off Amazon: Riders in the Sky–Legends of Philmont Scout Ranch? Ever read it?
Alex, that poem was the one I referred to in my second post. Whew–dodged that one!
I am an idiot. I thought the thread title was: I hated every single word of. . .
Not that my previous post would be untrue (the version I read was in Modern English-- with punctuation and capitalizations), but now I see your picks in a completely different light.
One thing I certainly never read a single word of was that prior post on PREVIEW. sorry. There’s more than just a coding error in there too–I meant to say that I saw the movie, The Seven Percent Solution–I’m not sure it was ever a book.
And Katisha may have punctured my Shakespeare pride–I know I haven’t read the Faversham or the Thomas More referred to, though I think I may have read the Edward III (I’ll check tonight if it’s in the book I think it may be in). I have read the will. IIRC, Shakespeare gave the instructions for it, but his lawyer really wrote the words, right? In any event, I think it’s safe to say that I can’t be a know-it-all without having read all likely-looking candidates. Kudos, Katisha!
SlickUSA: if it wasn’t the non-condensed OED, I’m not going to count it.
stuffinb: My first problem with Austen turned out to be some published juvenilia she wrote (A History of England with Very Few Dates); while I have since remedied that, I still have not read all of the omitted chapters found among her papers. There’s also a fairly recent biography which has some new letters in it (IIRC) which I haven’t yet read. Hitchhiker’s Guide will have a posthumous volume next year, so be sure to update yourself on that when possible.
Working on all of Doyle’s Holmes stories. I might think of more later.