The Mystery of Dorian Gray
Sep. 5th, 2004 11:47 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tilly_stratfordSpinning: Love will keep us together, Captain & Tenille
Lyric sample:
Whatever young and beautiful
Someday your looks will be gone
Never mind me, I just feel like going on about old books.
I've always loved the feeling of old books - I think it has something to do with all the really old books my local library used to have - you just pick them up and they have this very unique aroma of old paper and frequent use. Just think of all the eyes who have searched over those words before you! One of the things I miss after I moved away, absurdly, is the stamp that was in every library book in Eidsvoll: A little drawing of Henrik Wergeland (the poet who lived in Eidsvoll) and a quote:
Boghyllen er den stige,
Hvor du kan blive din overmands lige
(Roughly translated: "The bookshelf is the ladder/Where you can become your superiour's equal)
I just really miss that stamp.
Now onto a certain old book: Namely the edition of The picture of Dorian Gray I got from my father as a present my last birthday. I knew it was old, but the problem with old books, is that they don't have that little blob of information at the beginning (like, first published, who owns the rights, and so on) so that's been my little task: To find out more about this book.
Firstly, on the first page somebody has written the name Sonja Löchen in black ink - probably the book's first owner.
On the second page is an advertisment for Dr. T. Felix Gourad's Oriental Cream (or magical beautifier) (I'm always taken by surprise when I see advertisments in old books). The advertisment reads: "The only toilet preparation in America that has stood the actual test of public approval for over half a century". Should I then conclude my book is American? (Gasp!)
On the third page, under the author's credit, there's the publisher: New York: George Munro's Sons, Publishers, 17 to 27 Vandewater Street. By Zok! My book is American! Aw, but I still love it... (But how did Sonja Löchen get it?) I know George Munro's Sons used to publish books in New York around the end of the 1800s and in the beginning of the new century. So my book is from around that time.
On page four there are two advertisments: One for C/B Corsets and another one for Mrs. Winslow's Soothing Syrup - and the last one is the answer to all my questions, as it says the brand has been used from 1840 and to the present, which is 1907. Aha!
Conclusion: My dear book book was published in 1907 in America. Case closed!
I really love that book. The cover may be a rather unlovely shade of worn green, the quality of the ink pressing is wildly varied, the pages are in such a bad shape they would crumble if you tried to fold them, and it doesn't even have the well-known Preface. But, it's my favourite story, and the fact that it was published only 7 years after Oscar Wilde died, it sort of keeps some of the mystery of the time it was mean for. Who has read it before me? I don't know, but I hope they loved the book as much as I do.
Lyric sample:
Whatever young and beautiful
Someday your looks will be gone
Never mind me, I just feel like going on about old books.
I've always loved the feeling of old books - I think it has something to do with all the really old books my local library used to have - you just pick them up and they have this very unique aroma of old paper and frequent use. Just think of all the eyes who have searched over those words before you! One of the things I miss after I moved away, absurdly, is the stamp that was in every library book in Eidsvoll: A little drawing of Henrik Wergeland (the poet who lived in Eidsvoll) and a quote:
Boghyllen er den stige,
Hvor du kan blive din overmands lige
(Roughly translated: "The bookshelf is the ladder/Where you can become your superiour's equal)
I just really miss that stamp.
Now onto a certain old book: Namely the edition of The picture of Dorian Gray I got from my father as a present my last birthday. I knew it was old, but the problem with old books, is that they don't have that little blob of information at the beginning (like, first published, who owns the rights, and so on) so that's been my little task: To find out more about this book.
Firstly, on the first page somebody has written the name Sonja Löchen in black ink - probably the book's first owner.
On the second page is an advertisment for Dr. T. Felix Gourad's Oriental Cream (or magical beautifier) (I'm always taken by surprise when I see advertisments in old books). The advertisment reads: "The only toilet preparation in America that has stood the actual test of public approval for over half a century". Should I then conclude my book is American? (Gasp!)
On the third page, under the author's credit, there's the publisher: New York: George Munro's Sons, Publishers, 17 to 27 Vandewater Street. By Zok! My book is American! Aw, but I still love it... (But how did Sonja Löchen get it?) I know George Munro's Sons used to publish books in New York around the end of the 1800s and in the beginning of the new century. So my book is from around that time.
On page four there are two advertisments: One for C/B Corsets and another one for Mrs. Winslow's Soothing Syrup - and the last one is the answer to all my questions, as it says the brand has been used from 1840 and to the present, which is 1907. Aha!
Conclusion: My dear book book was published in 1907 in America. Case closed!
I really love that book. The cover may be a rather unlovely shade of worn green, the quality of the ink pressing is wildly varied, the pages are in such a bad shape they would crumble if you tried to fold them, and it doesn't even have the well-known Preface. But, it's my favourite story, and the fact that it was published only 7 years after Oscar Wilde died, it sort of keeps some of the mystery of the time it was mean for. Who has read it before me? I don't know, but I hope they loved the book as much as I do.
