From The Wired Campus (Chronicle of Higher Ed):
If only the metadata accompanying e-texts were as interesting as that found in used books!
Online bookseller AbeBooks.com recently asked its vendors about the strangest things they’ve found in used books. The list will surprise you: a Christmas card from L. Frank Baum, a Mickey Mantle rookie card, a diamond ring, a strip of bacon, $40,000, a World War II U.S. ration book, and even “a holographic image of a lady who sheds her clothing,” among other items.
Surely similar items have turned up in collections bequeathed to academic libraries around the country. What strange things have you found in your library’s old books?—Catherine Rampell
I can’t say that I have found anything that interesting. A card of a saint once and some notes. It seems to me that visitors to this blog likely have bought more than a few used books. Anyone find anything interesting in a used book?
2 thoughts on “Wired Campus: “Found in Old Books””
I can’t say I have found anything interesting in my used books, but certainly some things are put into perspective by them. My oldest set is the Harvard Classics, which are a collection of 50 books that include the most important writings in the history of civilization as determined by the scholarly community of the 1890’s. Darwin is the only author to get two volumes.
I picked up (at a used book sale) the “Life and Letters of Brooke Foss Westcott,” edited by his son Arthur Westcott in 1903, that to my surprise when I was flipping through it at home included tucked in the pages an actual hand written note from Brooke to his wife, dated to Sept 26, 1886. The handwriting is quite messy and difficult to read. There is a note in the back that says the letter was given to the owner of the volume by Authur Westcott in 1919.