Private library…
I have a small collection of very special elderly books. Some come from my own childhood and some from my parents’ childhood. But I’ve read them all and they are cherished.
They’re stored in this bookcase and some are stored on a table that belonged to my ‘godmother’.
Budge and Betty was Mum’s absolute favourite series and I have to say I loved it too. Based on a brother and sister who meet elves and have a range of adventures across the globe with them. Simplistic but fun.
These go without saying. Still love the world they pull me into.
These little books were adored when I was young and I still love the illustrations and stories. My favourite?
This one … I love dogs. Even when I was four, I loved dogs.
My small collection of miniatures, mostly from Bopress Miniature Books.
The squirrel book is my own – a stumpwork stitched squirrel which I then bound into a small blank journal. The larger book behind is redolent of Victorian diaries and small sketchbooks. Very old and very personal.
These two ‘comic’ books belonged to Dad when he was a boy. They are in terrible condition but are incredibly funny and much loved.
This lot from my very early days at school.
And these, bound by my bookbinder grandfather – that was his profession.
And finally the book on William Wallace – Dad found it in a second-hand shop when he was researching our Wallace family tree fifty years ago.
Of course he bought it and whilst it could do with re-binding, it is much loved by me and like everything else in my little library probably should be stored archivally without light and with mylar covers and within acid-free boxes. But then it would be static and I wouldn’t see the collection every day and love the books and hold them – it’s the price one pays.
What a lovely read (and look) this morning from you.
I collect Victorian children’s books after beginning to find them outside a very junky secondhand furniture store around the corner from my parents’ house in Croydon England. They were on the 6 penny and 1 shilling shelves and there went my teen years’ pocket money.
Among them was “:Seven Little Australians” and I still wonder how this ended up there, it is a first edition, too. I was able to read its sequel also, many years later.
My daughter and her daughter now have many of these, except for special authors (among them Charlotte Yonge and Mrs. Molesworth, which I cherish at home still)
Inherited books from my grandparents’ childhoods include lots from the Librairie Rose, in French, and also American books from the other side of the family.
Thank you for a great treat.
Thanks Erica. It’s such an unconscious collection (except for the miniature collection which is a VERY conscious thing). I am lucky to have had a dad who loved books and gave me his love by osmosis. He also, I guess through Pa Wallace the Bookbinder, knew the value of the printed word and that to keep rather than toss made for a really interesting library.
I would love to start collecting old books and find myself drifting to the book collections in secondhand stores more and more although I am yet to make a purchase. Once I found an Edwardian pop-up book and kept saying to my husband ‘I must go back and buy it!’ Of course when I finally did, it had gone! I must say, I am envious of your first edition of Seven Little Australians!
Beautiful. I have a few ancient children’s books that belonged to my parents, too. Yours look as if they’re in better shape then mine. And your miniature books are so charming.
Ancient is good, Anne. Cherish them like mad!
What an incredible treasure! I enjoyed seeing them and recognized a few of them.
Thanks Ann. I think they’ll be quite a few titles that are recognised!
wow what an amazing collection – I have all my books from when I was young still – love them, also a few older ones I have collected along the way but nothing like this! My sister tracked down the set of Beatrix potter books but most of them are actually re-prints
Hi geckogirl, I love hearing that booklovers have kept their childhood books. I don’t know what era you were born in, but I was a product of the 1950’s and I think there’s something really naive and sweet about book illustrations from that time. Not only that but they were all HARDBACKS! Sadly most of the toddler and preschool aged books of today seem to paperbacks. Mind you, illustration today is to die for, isn’t it! Thanks so much for commenting.
I’m salivating here, Prue. How utterly gorgeous your nostalgic treasures are. Sadly I lost all of mine bar one or two in the course of far too many moves. I have found odd replacements, which are great, but somehow they’re not quite the same as the genuine article.
Giselle, how lovely to have you here again! Moving is difficult, I know. Things get ditched for ease of transport. I was lucky – I left all my own books in boxes under Mum’s and Dad’s house on the bald assumption that I would one day move back to Tasmania. When that happened, I couldn’t wait to unpack those boxes and place the books in my own house. And of course, I inherited Dad’s when he passed away. I think nostalgia becomes stronger as we get older, don’t you?