This has been an ongoing problem since the beginning of Google Books. But I’ve never seen anyone else complain about it. This image says it all:
That’s the final page of results. Sort By Date should go from latest to earliest date (there’s no sort order option, either!). And it clearly doesn’t. How hard can such a basic function be?
I’ve noticed and been perplexed by that too. Perhaps the date that is sorted is not the publication date, but some other date. I confess I can’t imagine what would be more useful than the publication date, but it’s a thought. It might also be that the metadata is just wrong. You’ve seen that before, so I assume you checked. Correct?
You see the date field in each entry? Don’t use metadata as an excuse when there’s that field to sort on!
Sorry, I didn’t see that. I was reading on my iPhone, and it escaped my notice since it was a wee bit small. I hereby retract.
You must use pinch-zoom more! Hahaha
Earliest copyright date would be a nice field to sort by. Then reprints wouldn’t show up out of order.