Smelly Old Books

I have recently started cataloging my sad little library using Library Thing. You can see five of them randomly featured in my sidebar. Most of these books are just books--paperbacks that I picked up to amuse myself on trips or during the summer by the pool. Occasionally, I have read books that have been recommended, and I have some classic books I adore in cheap paperback form--but like I said, just books.

When I was in high school, I started collecting old books at second-hand stores. I snatched up whatever I could find even if I had no intention of reading them. I couldn't stand seeing these dusty old things rotting on a shelf in some back room. I would rescue them, I thought. I recognize that throughout history, books have been more powerful than atom bombs in altering civilization. The Bible, for example has been pretty powerful, as has the Koran. Common Sense by Thomas Paine was instrumental in uniting Colonists against the British. On the Origin of Species, the Communist Manifesto, Mein Kampf--these have all inspired or riled civilizations.

You would think, given the power and significance of books, I might treat mine with a little more respect. But I have let them go to seed. Here is a picture of most of them.


I have books so old they don't have copyright dates. I have a cloth-bound copy of The Merchant of Venice from 1906, The Travels of Marco Polo from 1926, several volumes of The World's 100 Best Short Stories from 1927, and one of my favorites--Around the World in Eighty Minutes, published in 1894. Some of them are in pretty good shape, but quite a few are crumbling as I type, bits of yellowed paper and rotting bindings dropping all around. See the book at the top of the pile, the ratty one with no spine and no apparent cover? That is my mother's mathematics book from 1935. It has actually grown mold. My grandmother's English book from 1908 isn't much better.

These little books are part of a series called Little Leather Library published in the early 1920s. I had quite a few of these but gave so many away as gifts, all I have left are these four. I can't walk into an antique store without looking for more, but based on the state of my current collection, I shouldn't be allowed to buy more. They should be off limits to me until I can figure out how to better care for my collection.

In the meantime, they all sit on a shelf, and because they are so old and crusty, they won't appear in my Library Thing collection.

Now...educate me. What other books have altered civilization.