Bookplates

Don’t you just love to pick up an old book and wonder whose eyes visited the same words, the same pages?





I have an embosser, that when gently pressed between two pages, scribes my name in the book I’ve read in delicately raised letters. But it is so impersonal, unwelcoming and cold that I always write my name next to it, in ink, with the date and sometimes even the city.

Whenever I purchase an old book where a past name and date already appear, I simply write my own name beneath theirs with my own date. If they wrote initials, I write my initials; first letter, last name; last name only; first name only, whatever the case may be, I mimic the reader before me.

Most of my antiquarian books, however, have the essence of another life, not just the eyes of another reader. On the inside cover there waits a Bookplate, scrolled with the name of a previous owner and, if I am lucky, a date.

A Bookplate is personal, reflective of someone’s personality. I linger and run my fingers over the name, and imagine the person whose eyes have crossed over the same words my eyes will fall upon. Does this person still remain within the pages, the words, the story? Will I be joining or intruding?

I slowly read the copyright page, Dedication, Table of Contents, Forward, Prologue. I read every word, every number before settling into page one of the first chapter.

It is a love affair, after all, and must be savored.