Extract from a romance which is not yet written and probably never will be

To a Modern Poet by GK Chesterton
(The resolution for some reason is very low, so click on them to see them in their full and readable form.)



Books touch that deep down part of me that you might refer as my inner child. They get me excited. It's not just the reading of them, but the tactile experience of them. The crinkle of the pages, the slight grain of the paper rubbing up against the tips of your fingers as you pass your hand over it, and in the case of old books, the smell of history that only something of past generations has. This is a love affair that has been going on for some time.

This past weekend I struck gold. It has become a habit of mine when going into any used book store, as I can often be found doing, to ask if they have any Chesterton. Most often they will have a copy of "The Man Who Was Thursday" or some of the Father Brown collection, both of which I purchased long ago. It just so happened this time that they had a copy of collected poems by Mr Chesterton himself. A first edition printing of "The Collected Poems of Gilbert Keith Chesterton" from 1927 in surprisingly great condition for being over 80 years old. When the owner of the bookstore handed me the book I was positively giddy and the story of the pearl of great price kept running through my head. Thankfully it only cost $25, a steal for such a valuable pearl.

The book held more treasure than I could have guessed. Beyond the accidentally unevenly weighted text on the rough cloth paper pages, included were newspaper clippings from the 20's and 30's. Some about the book, some not. (I love the typo in the second paragraph of this one where they refer to him as Mr Chesterfield.)



DEH Cleveland MD, the previous own of the book whose claim to the copy was found on the inside cover also left notes throughout the book. It is interesting to see what moved this total stranger, but fellow Chesterton lover. Looking through the book it is fascinating to see what poems he marked off with a short line in pencil beside the title. It feels like a strange connection to some person I have no real connection to. It is like I am privy to the ruminating and thoughts of a stranger, an odd sort of voyeurism.



I found this photo in there as well. No markings on it to say who is in the photo. Is this his mother holding his son? Perhaps, it is his grandmother holding him when he was a child. It is left to the imagination to tell the story and fill in the gaps.

A treasure of a book, and I look forward to reading each of it's 356 pages.