A long wait
We were in a small library in Dornoch, Scotland. They were getting rid of donated books from their collection. In the pile was a “book” Colleen spotted. A find! Ha ha!
Sights and Scenes in Scotland was published in the time of Queen Victoria circa 1900. It was often the case that there was no publish date at that time. An internet search – five editions in 25 libraries. The approximate publish date is 1896.
Colleen was instantly in love with this book. She recognized it was a special book. I recognized that this book was gonna be hard to carry around especially back into the United States.
So, off we went. Colleen made a donation of a few pounds. Then, to the post office. The book weighs about five pounds. The cheapest postal shipping cost over $100. Yes! $$$! The final word was that the shipping would take about a month. A month?! Wow! Ok. We agreed. I forgot about the book. Colleen remembered and brought up the fact that the book had not yet arrived six weeks later. … two more weeks would go by… and then magically, the book was on our doorstep.
Yes! Arrived! Intact! Less than $10 for the book, more than $100 postage, about two months shipping. I gotta ask: how? what? Did they row it across the ocean to the USA?
Meanwhile Colleen has the book now. Priceless! No publishing date. I always assumed there is a publishing date. But, in this case, it was murky as to exactly when the book was published. Old indeed!
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