An antique book, bookmarks and more!!!

As some of you may know, my husband and I own a used book store. Some of the books are newer than others. Some of the books that come in are antiques that people bring them to my husband for evaluation purposes.

One such book that came through our door recently was called Annals: The True and Royal History of the Famous Empress Elizabeth. This book is a translation from Latin and was written by William Camden in 1615 under the title Annales rerum Anglicarum et Hibernicarum regnante Elizabetha. The translated copy of the book that I looked at was dated 1625. The front board is detached and the binding is somewhat damaged but otherwise, for a book that's almost 400 years old, it's in pretty good shape. My husband could not find this book for sale anywhere and only found a reference to it in another book. Needless to say it is indeed rare!

I saw some writing inside (it's pictured in the last photo). I couldn't make out what it says but the hand-written date is pretty clear: 1645. Click on the photo to see a closer view.



Our bookstore seems to be continually in flux. My husband, Pierre, always seems to be building more shelves and staining them, moving book genre sections, adjusting book tag locations and lots of other activity that keeps him very busy. Recently a friend asked him if he would like to have a book- mark collection that he's been amassing for the last 30 years. Of course Pierre said yes. Well, we now have hundreds of bookmarks that hail from all over the world, one as far away as Nairobi. Several date from WW II and are, to say the least, politically insensitive for the world we live in today. Some are downright racist and sexist. All are interesting and reflect (mostly) the culture of the western world through last several decades.