Over at Quickly, Quietly, Carefully, Paul listed a version of "Appendix N" that only includes pre-1900 works. It's a good list. One of the bookshelves right next to my computer has a shelf with mostly classics, and a little bit of history. It would make for a very odd campaign, I think, but here it is anyway:
Dante: The Inferno
The Song of Roland (trans. Goldin)
Njal's Saga (Penguin Classics)
Eyrbyggya Saga (Penguin Classics)
The Vinland Sagas: The Norse Discovery of America (Penguin Classics)
Laxdaela Saga (Penguin Classics)
The Mabinogion (Penguin Classics)
Early Irish Myth and Legend (Penguin Classics)
Geoffrey of Monmouth: The History of the Kings of Britain (Penguin Classics)
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (Penguin Classics)
Tacitus: The Agricola and the Germania (Penguin Classics)
Caesar: The Conquest of Gaul (Penguin Classics)
Homer: The Iliad (Penguin Classics)
Homer: The Oddysey(Penguin Classics)
Poems of Heaven and Hell from Ancient Mesopotamia (Penguin Classics)
The Upanishads (Penguin Classics)
The Epic of Gilgamesh (Penguin Classics)
Sun Tzu: The Art of War
Lao Tzu: Tao Te Ching
The Prose Edda of Snorri Sturlusson
Bullfinch's The Age of Chivalry and Legends of Charlemagne
Beowulf (prose trans. Donaldson)
The Saga of the Volsungs (trans. Byock)
[one of my wife's photo albums randomly stuck in here--Not part of Classic Appendix N]
Ronner, John: Know Your Angels [a 20th Century work, but full of angel/devil lore from antiquity to the present]
Roesdahl, Else: The Vikings
Eckert et. al: Korea Old and New: A History
The Taiheiki
Strange Tales of Liaozhai
Werner, E.T.C: Myths and Legends of China
Mitford, A.B. (Lord Redesdale): Tales of Old Japan
Immortal Poems of the English Language
[an out of place book: Moorcock, Michael: The Chronicles of Corum--I suppose adding this one in might be okay, even though it breaks the rules!]
Ἀληθῆ διηγήματα (True History) by Lucian of Samosata. A party of adventurers (D&D anyone?) sails into the Atlantic, gets blown off-course and ends up on the Moon where they get embroiled in an interplanetary war between the King of the Moon and the King of the Sun.
ReplyDeleteDon Quixote by Cervantes. The Don lives out the role of a paladin in his head. His delusions actually provide GREAT MATERIAL to inspire a DM. Edith Grossman's translation is a delight to read.
True History sounds awesome! I saw Jeff Rients mentioned it in the comments to the original post I'm riffing off of, and your capsule review means that's going on my 'must read' list.
ReplyDeleteAnd if anyone's wondering, I took the Moorcock off the shelf, and replaced it with:
Malory, Thomas: Le Morte D'Arthur
The Short Stories of E.A. Poe
Oh, and the photo album had, in addition to pics of my wife's graduation, some of us at a castle in Japan and also at the set of the Korean historical drama Dae Jang-Geum, so now that I know what's under the pink Hello Kitty cover, I think the album would fit in nicely (or at least some parts of it).
ReplyDelete