“‘And why’, I asked myself, ‘Why should I have learned that this precious book exists, if I I am never to possess it - never even to see it? I would go to seek it in the burning heart of Africa, or in the icy regions off the Pole if I knew where it were here. But I do not know where it is….” Anatole France in The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard written and published in 1881.
Some people have a passion for old books; others have an obsession…The latter seems to be the case in that quote.
The oldest book I have in my library is beginning to fall apart. A few of the introductory pages have been lost even before I acquired it. It is called The Wonderful, The Curious, and The Beautiful in the World’s History by John Clark Ridpath, published in January of 1891. It is a quaint volume of curious facts from the historical past of the world. Some of these facts I’ve never seen in any other book. The book is a curiosity and yet I jealously guard it. Not just because of the fact that its pages are yellowing, its binding coming apart, or for any reason cited in my radio program tonight. I guard it because I found this book among my father’s possessions after he died. Where he got it, how long it was in the family’s possession I have no idea. It is a book that he read, and for that reason I treasure it and look after it carefully.
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Don Jackson
