Sorting through some of the vintage books today, and came across this sweet little book. It's called "The Bunyan Text Book. A Selection of Choice Passages for Every Day in the Year, from 'The Pilgrim's Progress' and Other Works by the Same Author". There is no date on the book itself, but a few of the entries are dated 1948.
It's obviously come from a box when my parents downsized and unloaded some of their books to me. It's inscribed to Mabel Ware, who was my father's grandmother. Mabel has clearly used it as a birthday book. And right there on 1 January is Dad's name. He was a New Year baby - which didn't work terribly well for birthday catchups when we were young adults. The birthdates of Dad's brother and sisters are all in there as well. We lost Dad in the October before Covid, so it's really special to find something like this.
You can likely guess that this isn't going to go on a shelf for sale. I'll tuck it away in a special place in my own stuff. Perhaps the kids will find it themselves one day.
On the back cover is a lovely little pencilled quote:
If some despondent soul to hope is stirred
Some sad lip made to smile
By any act of ours or any word
Then life has been worthwhile.
This is part of a new blog series I'm thinking about running - just little snippets of my bookselling life. Do you think that's something you'd be interested in reading about? Daily, weekly, monthly, not in a million years?