"Take a book -- $1
2 books --$.75
3 books --$.50
4 books -- $.25
5 books -- FREE"
At any rate, even with my few visitors that bookcase has a nice turnover. Someone even took, recently, the big two-volume textbook from the freshman Survey of English Literature, a work that that started with Beowulf and -- back in 1944 -- never even mentioned Jane Austen.
Every now and then, though, I find a book I'd like to re-read, and those go in a different bookcase. Looking it over recently, I discovered that the titles I can't quite part with aren't all that impressive. Not much there in the way of challenging classics. But there was a copy of what I would have said was my favorite book (had anyone asked me) back when I was 11 or 12 -- The Lost Prince, by Frances Hodson Burnett. I'd borrowed some of her other books from the library -- The Secret Garden, Little Lord Fauntleroy, but The Lost Prince I'd taken out over and over. During the Depression I never dreamt of buying a book, but I set out, one day, to make my own copy. I must have given up after just a page or two, because all I remember is a notebook page filled with not very impressive penmanship.
So when did I buy this battered and much-mended copy? In college, when I finally discovered second-hand bookstores? This copy does contain the bookplate I'd made as an assignment in journalism school's printing course -- as close to attempting Art as I ever got. The linoleum block is supposed to be a view down Lake Keuka from my folks' porch.But then I found, at the bottom of page 133, an imprint that said "Portland Psychology Assn". I must have already been teaching at a college in Maine when I found a second-hand bookshop with this copy. And why do you suppose that Assn owned it?
Well, I had some trouble, yesterday, keeping it in order on my bathtub reading rack. The pages kept falling out, and I can no longer read a book straight through. It took two days, but I'm here to tell you, The Lost Prince, with its 1916 copyright and 12-year-old protagonist, is still delightful. I'm keeping it.
Highly recommended.
Books from that age stick. I still read the Ransomes.
ReplyDeleteI don't think I've read this one! The Secret Garden was my absolute favourite as a child. Can I read it while I'm in Roch?
ReplyDeleteShe wrote grown-up books also and I liked them -- think I still own T. Tembarom somewhere, have to look for it.
ReplyDeleteI must admit, alas, that I've never been a huge FHB fan. Never could manage LLF or A Little Princess/Sara Crewe--and the only characters I liked in The Secret Garden were Dickon and his sister. (There I go, hanging out with the servant class as usual.)
ReplyDeleteBut I like both the son's (Avi's?) suggestion for a sign for the "outgoing books" case, and your bookplate. (Don't sell your artistic abilities short; the bookplate is a great job and evokes exactly what you intended it to. In fact, I guessed accurately about the view of Keuka Lake even before I read your description.)