Friday, April 17, 2009

The Private Language of Book Inscriptions


Sometimes it's what's written on books rather than in them that means most, if only to their owners. The Guardian has the story.

From the piece...

I've just moved house and, while sifting through all the books I've accumulated over the past few years, I found a copy of Sylvia Plath's Ariel I picked up from a secondhand bookstall. I had it for several weeks before I noticed the inscription: "Dear Lucy, thank you for helping me that day in the hospital. You did wonders for my self-confidence." It is signed "From Tony". And there's more in the back: "Some of us know this is somewhere", it says. "One flower each and one for luck, but I don't know which the lucky one is, so we will all have to share."

I went back to the bookstall in the hope of finding out more. Why hadn't Lucy kept it? Had she died? Perhaps she was angry with Tony for some reason. Was this a case of spurned love, or perhaps the unrequited variety? The stallholder couldn't help, so the trail ended there.

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