A trip to the past
June 26th, 2007, 8:34 am · Post a Comment · posted by fsherman
I love looking at the old books at the back of Destin Library, the ones collected in the glass-fronted cabinets. To me, they’re like a time machine.
•Stories of Tom Swift, boy inventor back when being a ground-breaking inventor meant stories such as “Tom Swift and the Electric Locomotive” or “Tom Swift and the Wireless Message” (i.e., radio).
•A 1912 book by reformer Jane Addams on “white slavery,” the supposedly widespread practice of sinister immigrants seducing wholesome American virgins, hooking them on drugs, then forcing them into prostitution (this scare was mostly bogus, but created a huge controversy at the time).
•An 1895 Baedeker travel guide.
•A “History of the World War” from back when there was only one world war to keep track of.
•Famous authors (Dickens, Hugo, Kipling, Dumas), less famous authors (Zane Grey, Lord Dunsany) and people largely forgotten today such as Swinburne or F. Marion Crawford.
•A multivolume set of John L. Stoddard’s Lectures. Who the heck was Stoddard and why did anyone care enough to have his lectures bound?
•An 1837 edition of Moliere’s plays. Just the idea of a book close to 200 years old fascinates me.
•Perhaps the most obscure item in the cabinet (OK, most obscure next to Stoddard’s lectures) is “The Ideal Fitter,” on installing heaters (”The best and most comprehensive book ever offered the heating profession.”).
I love old books. They’re a glimpse into a time when people thought differently, kids played differently, when the horizons of what was possible and what was fantasy were different, and all of that fascinates me.
