Walter Scott's "Lay of the Last Minstrel"... with scissors. This is a beautifully bound, 1893 edition of Scott's poems. I get a thrill when I open it and smell that familiar, old book mustiness. So why am I reading it with scissors? Well, it so happened a hundred years ago that the signatures would not be cut, meaning every few pages which are bound together would still be connected at the top, and people would read with a knife, cutting the tops of the pages as they went.
Well, in all of this book's many years, it has never been fully read, apparently, because its signatures are still bound together in most sections. In the beginning of each poem, there are one or two cut signatures, and "Lady of the Lake" seems to have been read all the way through, but mostly it's been a shelf book all its life. Now it's mine, and will be treasured for a long time, and I know that even books who look lovely on shelves like best to be read.
I kind of love this.
-Kavod-
2 comments:
Me too!! That's awesome!
Whoops, Jessie, I didn't mean to delete all your comments; just the duplicates.
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