I love old books – maybe because I believe that The Neverending Story was a documentary, maybe because I just love the mystery of them – but I always get this rush of excitement whenever I find a beat-up, wrinkled old book. I love imagining the hands they’ve passed through, whose lives these words have maybe influenced, the stories behind the stories themselves – which is why I flipped when I found this one, Reflections collected by Virginia Clarke, at my favorite Brooklyn shop.
This small book was published in 1914, and is a collection of poems written by the likes of Shakespeare, Poe, Browning, Tennyson, Longfellow, and others. I’m not sure if this was a personal publication of poems that Virginia Clarke just seemed to enjoy – but either way, it’s pretty freakin’ cool. There are also handwritten notes inside by a mystery hand, with a short scribbled intro on the first page:
“These Reflections I’ve read for the last time. I return them – now- together with the clippings attached to this page that were enclosed. I’ve taken the liberty to make a few marginal notations to sort of supplement yours marked, so…”
The notes must have continued onto the page that was originally clipped to the book, which clearly lost its way along its travels. If anyone knows anything about the old Virginia Clarke (not the current living editor of the same name, coincidentally), please do share!
