Can you recall the first literary work you read?

[Dinkleberry2010]

By literary I don't mean Dick and Jane stories, but the first work of literature.
The first work of literature I recall reading is The Fall of the House of Usher when I was ten (maybe that should tell me something).

[OrphanPip]

A French translation of Treasure Island when I was 8 or 9 I think.

[JuniperWoolf]

Anne of Green Gables. I think I was in the fourth grade.

[IceM]

I read the Boxcar Children in 1st grade, but my first actual piece of literature might have been Oliver Twist, in the 2nd grade. Yeah, I actually read it.

[dfloyd]

A Stdy in Scarlet by Conan Doyle, The Three Musketeers by Dumas, Robinson Crusoe, Treasure Island, et al.

[sixsmith]

It may have been 'The Pit and the Pendulum' by Poe.

[Jazz_]

I remember reading "The Iliad" when I was 11/12 - but I don't think it was the first I ever read... I think I read "Great Expectations", "Pride and Prejudice" and "Ivanhoe" before that (not sure of age or order though ;))

[Modest Proposal]

I think mine was Treasure Island at 9.

[kiki1982]

I was a late-comer. I didn't like reading at all, until I read The Assault by Harry Mulisch (Dutch writer) when I was 16-17. It was the first grown-up book I read and th first I liked. I never looked back on children's books or so-called 'teenage' books again. :sick:

[JuniperWoolf]

Kid's books are classic literature too. Wind in the Willows, Stuart Little, The Secret Garden, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Watership Down, and then there's Anne... I love kid's literature.

[Red-Headed]

The earliest genuine literary work I can remember reading was when I was given a copy of David Attenborough's Zoo Quest for a Dragon by my mother when I was quite young. I was probably four or five years old.

[MarkC]

Hi,


my first literary classic was David Copperfield by Charles Dickens


MarkC

[CaptainHatteras]

I think the first novel that I voluntarily read and enjoyed was The Lost City by brothers Strugatskiye

[Pryderi Agni]

I think it was The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes at age 5. Yeah, that was it.

[stephofthenight]

The Secret Garden-9

[Winston-Smith]

The Earthsea Trilogy by Ursula K. Le Guin. I think I was eleven.

[Dimitra]

Sans Famille by Malot and Uncle Tom's Cabin.Particularly that affected me the most and I still remember how much I cried lol.I was about 6-7 and I swore never to read that again,though now I doubt it would affect me much.: p

[Bastable]

Les Miserables when i was about 16 or 17

[Lumiere]

I don't remember any books before I devoured Jane Eyre at 13. :nod:

[Snowqueen]

I read an Urdu translation of King Solomon's Mines at the age of 7. While the first English novel that I read was Oliver Twist.

[marcolfo]

'twas Truman Capote's In cold blood.

[Jozanny]

I really can't remember. When I was young I read copiously and wrote badly. I had to get past university, in fact, for my bylines to take off, as it were, but I was genre driven and read a ton of then contemporary science fiction, Charlotte's Webb, and Toni Morrison, who I did not fully grasp at the time.

The best I can recall is that when I was twelve, getting butchered in the hospital by orthopods, I read Margaret Mitchell, and a fictional biography of Napoleon, called Desiree, Golda Meir's autobiography, and maybe a quickly done pastiche about the life of Judy Garland--but for that last I might have even been younger, when we still lived on Camac Street in the city.

We recently rode past there on the bus, my ex and I, but that world and this one I'm in now might have occurred in another universe.

[hack]

The first "literature" I recall reading (not having been read to me) were the poems of Robert Louis Stevenson. I suppose I was 8 or 9. My bed is still my boat.

[Amoxcalli]

I was read Le Petit Prince when I was very young, but I think the first literary work I read on my own was Robinson Crusoe. What age? About 7, I think, give or take a year.

[Katy North]

The first work of children's literature I read was "The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe".

The first work of adult literature that I enjoyed was "The Lord of the Flies". I had read others before then, but didn't understand "how" to read them, if you know what I mean.

[neilgee]

With me it was more a case of discovering what wasn't "literature" when I was about 14/15. When our lit teacher encouraged us to "read" I didn't know there were any distinctions until I told him one day that I'd read The Exorcist and didn't get a response. I thought he hadn't heard me so I repeated myself only to get a rather weary "Oh, have you?" and I suddenly understood there was a distinction without him having to say anything else.

I wouldn't say I was into literature though until I tried Shakespeare again at 18 and actually began to enjoy it.

[myrna22]

It was probably Little Women. Also Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, Tom Sawyer, Uncle Tom's Cabin. I was a voracious reader as far back as I can remember. My dad started taking me to the local library when I was very small; in elementary school I went there on my own. I worked my way through the children's and young adult sections and on to real literature. By the time I was in high school I was taking the bus into the city once a month to go to the main county library and roam the 'stacks' for anything that looked appealing. I became an author reader. When I read something I particularly liked, I'd read everything they had by that author. I still tend to do that. So, I've read everything Hemingway wrote. Everything Steinbeck wrote. Everything Thomas Hardy wrote. And so on.

Although my dad introduced me to the local branch library and read to me at night, things like The Bobbsey Twins and Pippi Longstocking, I didn't get much guidance about what to read beyond children's literature. I would read books that had been made into movies because I believed if a book had been made into a movie, it must be a good or important book (and back in those days, it often was). So I read things like The Grapes of Wrath, The Good Earth, Rebecca, Gone With the Wind, Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre, Anatomy of Murder, Breakfast at Tiffanys, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, East of Eden, and so on, all films I had watched as old reruns on TV. It is also how I got into reading plays, such as The Glass Menagerie and A Streetcar Named Desire, when most kids didn't read plays. I don't actually rememeber most of the stuff we read in school. I remember the many, many books I read on my own, and those wonderful trips to the downtown library, half an hour on the bus each way, a couple of hours roaming the stacks.

[thelastmohican]

I'd say mine had to be Tom Sawyer. I read it when I was about 10 and still have the same copy 35 years later.

[blazeofglory]

I remember when I read Robinson Crusoe as a small boy

[Three Sparrows]

Hm...I believe the first I read was the Laura Ingalls Wilder books, if that counts, when I was 6 or 7. I remember reading Anna Karenina when I was 11 though, and I actually liked it.

[wat??]

Kid's books are classic literature too. Wind in the Willows, Stuart Little, The Secret Garden, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Watership Down, and then there's Anne... I love kid's literature.

I may have mentioned this in another thread, but I never understand the association of books like Wind in the Willows, The Secret Garden, or perhaps especially Charlie and the Chocolate factory with Watership Down.

As far as I can tell Watership down is a political novel aimed at adults and young adults, but featuring anthropomorphic animals; which seems to be the cause of its, rather incorrect in my opinion, classification as a "kids book".

But I digress. The first acclaimed piece of literature I picked up and read on my own time (previously myself and my mother had read some classics together) was The Catcher in the Rye when I was eight years old. It went right over my head, but I enjoyed it. I was almost suspended from school, actually, when I was caught reading it in the library.

[Jeremydav]

Probably "Of Mice and Men" by Steinbeck, though the first I read on my own accord was "The Metamorphosis" by Kafka.

[milktea]

Had to have been something by the Brothers Grimm. Maybe Snow White and Rose Red since that is what comes to mind when I try to think back.

[pooteeweet]

Probably "Of Mice and Men" by Steinbeck, though the first I read on my own accord was "The Metamorphosis" by Kafka.

.................same for me :) both books

[Ashbe Maeur]

If I remember correctly, it was "Where the Red Fern Grows."

[MrRegular]

20,000 leagues under the sea is where it all began for me.

[TurquoiseSunset]

Geez, I read a lot so I can only remember a fraction of the titles...but let's say a Roald Dahl book, but I'm not sure which one. It might even have been an Afrikaans lit book...who knows.

[keilj]

Nancy Drew!!!

Naw, just kidding. I can't remember exactly, but I think it was either Of Mice and Men or Animal Farm. My mom got me some cool books when I was 12 or so to get me started - Brave New World, Lord of the Flies, One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest..

[commandoratchet]

That's a tough one... let's see, it was 'The adventures of Tom Sawyer' by Mark Twain, I think. I remember thinking that it would be cool to have an adventure like that. My parents sort of put me in a plastic bubble, sort of, and I would definatly get in big trouble if I snuck off and everybody thaught I was dead.