100 Years of Wharton’s The Reef . . .
Thursday, January 5, 2012 | By Library Goddess | 1 Comment
. . . OR SHOULD IT BE “THE GRIEF”?
I’m holding a 100 year-old copy of Edith Wharton’s The Reef that is part of West Chester Public Library’s collection.
In a search to find out whether it was recorded in the library’s old accession books, we found the following:
The Reef, by Edith Wharton, published in 1912, was purchased early in 1913 from John Wanamaker’s store, Philadelphia, for $1.17.
(I didn’t know that Wanamaker’s sold books, but according to the accession records, WCPL purchased numerous books from them. I wish I could have seen the store in 1913!)I’m thinking this copy must have been required reading at some point because of the commentary on the opening page. Someone wrote (thankfully in pencil) “good” in the corner. Another person followed that with “good?” and in still different writing, someone had replaced the title with “The Grief.”
Wouldn’t you like to know how
many people have picked up this
very book in the last 100 years? I,
for one, love the feeling of holding
a 100 year-old book in my hands. I
think I’ll read it.
Contributed by a Staff Member and Devoted Reader.
LG’s note – this book suffers from the 100 year curse, meaning the curse of acid paper. The pages of this book are already very brittle; dog-ear one of the pages, and the corner will simply break off. We’ll retire this little tome to the special collection shelves and replace it with a new copy.
That’s cool to think that we would still have a book on our library shelves after 100 years! I’ve never heard of “The Reef” before, but I’ll have to put it on my reading list now. If nothing else, I’d love to know why someone felt the need to rename it “The Grief!”