I love old books.
I have one in front of me now. It lies open on my desk.
One of twenty volumes bound in watered silk entitled Author’s Digest,
The World’s Great Stories In Brief, Prepared By A Staff Of Literary Experts,
With The Assistance Of Many Living Novelists, printed in 1908 on thick vellum
paper with deckled edges and that’s not the best part. I ordered them on line
and when they came the tracking number told me they had been delivered, but when I
opened the front door and opened the box, I found only ten volumes of the twenty
volume set and the tracking information on my computer told me they had all been
delivered. I felt inconsolable, for I had ordered a set of books printed over one
hundred years ago and to think if I ordered them and half of them had been stolen off
my porch, I myself had somehow contributed to breaking up the set. I waited. I hoped. I chose
to believe and sure enough, a week later the second box arrived.
The set sat safe and sound.
Forgive the alliterative literary syntax.
That’s not the best part.
Dinah Maria Mulock wrote in her story John Halifax, Gentleman printed in 1857, “It is right, Miss March,” said John, “that I should tell you who and what I am. You will pardon me for not telling you sooner what I was only too willing to forget, that we are not equals – that is, society would not regard us as such. You are a gentlewoman and I am a tradesman.”
In 1882 Georges Ohnet wrote The Ironmaster in which we read, “In a fine new mansion on the river, somewhat removed from his mills, Monsieur Derblay lived alone with his little sister Suzanne. Their parents were dead, and as yet neither had fallen in love. They were all in all to each other.”
Or if you care to read The Footsteps Of A Throne by Max Pemberton printed in 1900 the scene opens:
In the drawing-room of a great house in Grosvenor Square Lord Dane stood conversing with Count Varso, whom he had met only that evening. The latter, a bent old man with snow-white hair, and singularly like in feature to the great Count von Moltke, interested his companion exceedingly.
“I do not play,” he was saying, “and you, Lord Dane, are also among the unbelievers?”
“I never had the fever,” replied Dane, “though in your country, I understand everyone plays. I intend to go to Russia next year, that I may slander its people for myself.”
“If you do, I hope you will not judge us by what you see to-night.”
They laughed, and, passing into the next room, joined the little group that followed a game of roulette, without having courage to participate.”
That’s not the best part.
The best part is no one has ever read these books. These volumes, all twenty of them, in perfect condition, have remained on a shelf somewhere unopened since the day they were printed one hundred and sixteen years ago at this writing.
How do I know?
I know because in those days the process of printing included large folded sheets to be cut along the edges before being bound together and placed between two covers and in these volumes there are uncut pages. Lots of them. Pages still folded together and not separated along the bottom edge. As I read I have to be careful and use a sharp knife to cut the pages apart in order not to tear them in haste as I turn the page.
That’s how I know and that’s how people read books in times past. They cut the pages apart and that’s the best part.
There’s an adventure here, perhaps the same as an archeologist might experience excavating a site and shedding light for the first time on artifacts from a bygone age. In this case the artifacts are words and ways of speaking and meaning no longer in existence.
That’s the best part.
Whenever I want to escape the world as it is, I can open my knife and a volume which in this case happens to be XIII and carefully spread the virgin text.
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