Books: BookPlates

Sooner or Later You Get Them

It begins by somebody saying: " Why don't you have a bookplate— you have such a lot of books."

You think: "Why, yes—I guess I will." You remember, vaguely, bookplates you have known—heavy engravings of armorial bearings in large volumes bound in calf—cute, little bookplates, nauseatingly quaint, with florid mock-Old-English lettering, " From among Ye Bookes of Cleo. S. Eiswasser "—sentences written with a damp pencil on the title pages of schoolbooks ("If my name you wish to see—," "If this book should chance to roam,"...

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