Until recently I never thought much about old books. Now I love them. The yellowing pages beginning to fray, delicate bindings, dedications to readers of a bygone era: these are all sources of simple delight.
Some weeks ago I found myself in need of an obscure Victorian text for my dissertation: The Confessions of a Lost Dog by Frances Power Cobbe. It's a charming novella written, as the title would suggest, from the perspective of Cobbe's real-life pet. My library doesn't own it but managed to procure a copy for me from another library.
I was ecstatic to pull a small volume from an envelope, a string substituting the spine that has long worn away. It's a beautiful little book! I suspect it may even be a first edition, since the date in the book matches the original year of publication. Instead of getting carried away with vague descriptions, I will let the photos I took speak for themselves.
Title page
Note how the year of publication (1867)
is depicted in Roman numerals
The Lost Dog -- a pomeranian
Interesting how much breeds have
been modified over the years
Some blurbs
Held together with a string
I was so excited to stumble upon this small treasure: over a century old, new to me, borrowed from the library and featuring a blue cover.
4 comments:
I especially like the "dedications to readers of a bygone era," as you call them I have an amature anatomy book from the 40s, and it cracks me up; just the major differences as to what science had validated then, and what it has now.
um, appears i have a massive run on, but simply left out the . EEKS
You should think about 'misplacing' it... Unfortunately, you'd probably have to sell everything you own including your dignity to pay for it. Why is temptation placed so unfairly in front of us?
Yes, I already thought of 'losing' this entity of awesomeness. Sadly, the accompanying slip for document supply loans immediately specifies that 'lost' items can cost upwards of 100 quid to replace. I'm guessing others have had the same thought before me?
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