Old Books and a Rare Book

Hello my friends.  Thank you so much for your kind wishes on the arrival of my new granddaughter.  Little Sadie is doing great.

Are you a book lover?  I love books and reading (although my reading has taken a back seat to my needle crafts right now) but I especially like "old" books.  Growing up, my parents didn't read a lot books.  We had a wonderful set of encyclopedia and of course I had my books that I loved.  My parents worked full time so maybe there wasn't time for them to enjoy reading.  Although, they were devout readers of newspapers.  When we moved from Washington to Idaho when I was a child, my grandmother used to send the local newspapers to my parents via the mail.  I had a Barbie doll back then, and she would hand knit little sweaters and clothing for my doll and wrap it up in the newspaper bundle.  I still have those Barbie sweaters she made for me.

I'd love to have a library filled with old books to the ceiling and have one of those "ladders" that crawl across the book shelves.  I can just picture the room with parquet wood floors, old Persian carpets, a well worn leather chesterfield couch, the smell of old waxed wood and dusty burgundy curtains hung across the window.  But, instead, I have a small book case with an eclectic collection of books.  And, a few of them are very old indeed and one is a bit rare.  Here...I'll show you a picture of them...

When my daughter and I were in England back in 2013, we were staying with friends in Rubery, West Midlands.  I bought this little book of Common Prayer in a charity shop ...

It fits in the palm of my hand and has a leather cover.  From the coat of arms that is shown, I believe it is from the time of King Edward VII.  Written in the inside cover is "K. Haywood, Xmas 1919" and written in pencil on the back cover is "Duncombe St., Wallaston Stourbridge".  It was quite interesting to read it as there are numerous sections such as morning prayer, evening prayer, order of confirmation, order for the burial of the deal, and thanksgiving of women after child-birth just to name a few.

Years ago, my daughter brought home from England  this little collection of small books featuring the classics ...

This is a small book of Aladdin that I picked up at one of my Danish Sisterhood events a few years ago ...

As you can see, it's in Danish (which I can't read) and dates from 1876 ...

I picked up this book at the same event.  It doesn't look very interesting and it's in very bad shape but once you look inside it's amazing what you'll find ...

It's dated 1733!  It is Volume 1 of an 8 volume set. 

It's written in English but not the kind of English that I read ...

The star of my collection is this book entitled Adventures of an Orchid Hunter.  I've googled it and found that it's worth in the range of high hundreds to one thousand (I'm sure depending on how they grade the condition).  I purchased this book years ago at a Friends of the Library book sale in my small town for a vast sum of 25 cents!

It was published in 1891 and is in very good condition inside ...

It features a lovely chromolithograph of  an orchid (and many more lithographs) and tells of the author's travels through the jungles of Columbia in search of orchids ...

 I hope you have enjoyed this little glimpse into one of my collections.  It's probably not worth much but to think of how old these items are and who they once belonged to one day is quite intriguing to think about.

We are in the midst of another heat wave.  I can hardly wait until winter makes it's appearance and maybe we will receive our much needed rain.  I'll sign off with this photo of Lilly.  She sends you her meows and good wishes.

Again, thank you for your kind comments and for taking the time to visit Lilly My Cat.  I hope that you and every one of you has a wonderful day.

my best to you,

Pat

Links:
It's Friday so I'm join in with Amy at Love Made my Home for  Five on Friday ...
Willy Nilly Friday 5