Compulsively Aimless

Four hundred years ago, religious pilgrims left England for a journey that landed on the shores of what is now Massachusetts.  I have a handful of books on the Pilgrims from the Mayflower. 1. Of Plymouth Plantation 1620 to 1647 William Bradford edited by SE Morrison (1952).  Considered the most authoritative account about Plymouth and written by the settlement's governor and driving spiritual force, William Bradford. Bradford tells the story of the Pilgrims' first stop in Holland, their harrowing transatlantic crossing, the first harsh winter in the new land, and the help from Native Americans that saved their lives. The text was lost for a couple of centuries when it was rediscovered and published in the U.S. shortly before the Civil War. Its discovery and return can be credited with Abraham Lincoln's proclamation of a national day of thanksgiving. Editor and eminent historian, Samuel Elliot Morrison described the return to the U.S. as a "literary sensation."...

With the little mars of ownership and inscriptions, books can be transformed into something more than their content. They can symbolize a moment in time for the family member and the book. Here are a few examples from my library:  1. A Wonder-Book Tanglewood Tails and Grandfathers Chair by Nathaniel Hawthorne (1883).   The inscription in this book marks a moment in time for my grandmother then Dorothy Haynes, who received it as a Christmas gift in 1907 from her aunt Loucella. My grandmother would have been 12 years old at the time living in Sandusky, Ohio at the Ohio veterans home where her father was the chief surgeon. I try to imagine her Christmas morning where she opens the book around a Christmas tree with her for brothers and parents. This was part of a Riverside set of books that was popular at the time one of 13 volumes of Nathaniel Hawthorne‘s work.  2.  Napoleon,  Emil Ludwig 1926. The inscription on this book shows it it was given to my gra...

I’ve been lucky to inherit a handful of books that have come down through the generations on my mother’s side of the family. I think of these books as extensions of family members I never knew but can still understand their thoughts and interests. I try to imagine the life of the ancestor with the book. One day, the book was deliberately selected, or given as a gift, and then read by its owner. Their owners died and the books were taken down from shelves packed up and taken to a new home where they may have been read by the descendant of the owner. They are particularly special because they show the owners added their name to the book. This is to share what I have in two parts: books of the times and books as artifacts of a life. Part One: Spiritualism at the End of the 19th Century Spiritualism flourished in England and America in the 1840s to the 1920s. By the end of the 1800s, spiritualism was said to have more than eight million followers mostly from the middle and upper classe...