A beautiful article about finding an old friend after a purchase of a book with an old inscription
Chester Higgins Jr./The New York Times
Daniel Millstone, 64, tracked down an old friend
after finding the friend’s name inscribed in used books he bought for
$1 each in Manhattan.
Published: June 7, 2010
If the Kindle and its competitors ultimately do vanquish the printed book, stories will keep going, but inscriptions, as we know them, will not. Inky, intimate, idiosyncratic — a good inscription is the bonus in a used book, the plot before the plot, a hint of relationships beyond the ones imagined by the volume’s author. One can see some creative entrepreneur pitching Kindle right now with this concept: one-of-a-kind inscriptions, sold along with the book for a small premium, to lend it that history-imbued, sentimental feeling.
Inscriptions themselves have sparked great story lines — the writer Paul Theroux’s friendship with his mentor, V. S. Naipaul, went downhill not long after Mr. Theroux spied several of his first editions, inscribed “with love” to Mr. Naipaul, for sale in a rare book catalog. And many collectors have quiet versions of their own such legends: the inexplicable connection they feel to people they have never met, but whose names and handwriting grace the opening pages of a beloved edition.
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