Your most obscure book

[hitmouse]

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I used to have a copy of this.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Do you have Frank Frankfort Moore’s The Ulsterman in your store? I’m not looking for a copy — I have one. But that was the book that Warren H. Lewis felt enabled him to understand his father — who was, of course, also C. S. Lewis’s father, namely Albert Lewis.

Sadly not but it is the sort of thing my husband turns up from time to time. If he does I’ll have a look at it!

 

[Foxbat]

 

[Foxbat]

 

[Stephen Palmer]

Nice one, Foxbat! I have the Second Earth book, which I expect thousands own...

 

[mosaix]

I have, but can't find right now, my mother's copy of Harris On The Pig published in 1881. As a child I always imagined it was about a guy called Harris riding around on the back of a pig, which would have been wonderful. But, sadly, no. It's about the 'Breeding, Rearing, Management and Improvement of Pigs' by a guy called Harris.

 

[Mouse]

I also have this, that I don't expect anyone else here has.

 

[kythe]

I once gave my daughter a copy of Black Beauty I found in a thrift store with a printing error - the cover is upside down. When you open it, you have to flip it over to read it. Unfortunately I don't have a picture.

 

[Toby Frost]

@Mouse

My mother owns the other copy of Vinegar: Nature's Secret Weapon.

 

[Stephen Palmer]

I once gave my daughter a copy of Black Beauty I found in a thrift store with a printing error - the cover is upside down. When you open it, you have to flip it over to read it. Unfortunately I don't have a picture.

My years working for Waterstones taught me one thing - manufacturing errors for books are legion.
Your copy is probably one of many!
My own collection contains quite a few title-paged copies of such books...

 

[Extollager]

I once gave my daughter a copy of Black Beauty I found in a thrift store with a printing error - the cover is upside down. When you open it, you have to flip it over to read it. Unfortunately I don't have a picture.

I had a copy of the original version of Tom Shippey's Road to Middle-earth with a similar defect.

 

[BigBadBob141]

My dad had this old (late 40s or early 50s) American handbook on machining and machine tools, his job was as a machinist, the book was as thick as a brick and it's black cover was a strange fake leather which was actually more like cardboard.
Really well written and illustrated, it even had a really good section in the back on maths, which helped me out when I was young.
The people who published these did a whole wide range of subjects, auto mechanics, radio engineers even a book on refrigeration.
It's knocking about somewhere but I haven't seen it in years so I can't remember who published it, but I would never get rid of it.

 

[Extollager]

Here's another obscure one, which happens to relate to the Victorian clergy like J. M. Neale whom I mentioned before...

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This is Liddon's four-volume biography (1893-1897) of E. B. Pusey, who's kind of a hero of mine. I have all four volumes. The second volume is on top of the stack because it's in better shape than the others. I've read it except for some appended material (about 20 years ago).

E.B. Pusey | Anglican priest, Oxford Movement, Tractarianism

E.B. Pusey was an English Anglican theologian, scholar, and a leader of the Oxford movement, which sought to revive in Anglicanism the High Church ideals of the later 17th-century church. In 1823 Pusey was elected to a fellowship at Oriel College, where he met the churchmen John Keble and John

www.britannica.com

 

[Extollager]

Here are the three books of Letters to Malaya, poetry by Martyn Skinner reflecting the Second World War and apprehensions about the powers of the State that would ensue. The manner is deft and the sensibility conservative. I liked these 1941-1947 books & expect to reread them. I doubt if anyone's heard of them.

 

[Extollager]

If anyone wants to read about some of Skinner's other poetry...

“An ‘Easy to Read’ Modern Arthurian Epic” by Dale Nelson - A Pilgrim in Narnia

Two years after his Arthurian novel, That Hideous Strength, was published, and a year before he was discussing Arthur’s multiple “disqualifications” to be a “hero” with Dorothy L. Sayers, Lewis did not allow the complexities of his thoughts about King Arthur to prevent him heartily recommending...

apilgriminnarnia.com

“Tiny Fairies: J.R.R. Tolkien’s “Errantry” and Martyn Skinner’s Sir Elfadore and Mabyna” by Dale Nelson - A Pilgrim in Narnia

Many will remember Sørina Higgins’ playfully entitled paper, ‘King Arthur was an Elf!’, which she has described as “the seed” of The Inklings and King Arthur. But how have various Arthurian writers down the ages envisaged elves – and other ‘folk’? Earlier in the series, Dale Nelson introduced us...

apilgriminnarnia.com

Obscure-book mongers should enjoy these postings.

 

[Extollager]

Herbert Palmer must be more obscure than Martyn Skinner! Around the time I was fixing to retire, I bought quite a few books while I still had a salary, and these were among them. Palmer was a friend or at least acquaintance of Ruth Pitter and C. S. Lewis. Palmer published quite a few books in his day, among them an autobiography, The Mistletoe Child, which might be the first book of his I will read. I anticipate delving into his work eventually, but right now am focusing on Walter de la Mare, who, happily, is not forgotten.

A Point Of View: Ghosts in the material world

John Gray revives the memory of a supernatural Walter de la Mare story to discuss materialism - the theory that only matter exists.

www.bbc.com

The Armed Muse: Herbert Palmer and the Hogarth Press

A picture of Richard Kennedy preparing the press for Herbert Palmer's works at the Hogarth Press, provided by Richard Kennedy for A Boy at the Hogarth Press. With his first collection of poetry, Songs of ...

scalar.usc.edu

 

[Extollager]

One more. This 1850 Hand-Book of London ("New Edition Corrected and Enlarged") was a favorite book of Arthur Machen. I have enjoyed multiple readings of various stories and essays by Machen with London settings. The book also was appealing because of its obvious relevance to another favorite author, Dickens.

To go with it, I bought a set of reprinted old London maps.

 

[tachyon]

I have a copy of the Shaw Alphabet edition of Androcles and the Lion by George Bernard Shaw. Definitely the most obscure book in my collection.

The Shaw Alphabet was a phonetic alphabet intended to replace written English with a logical system based on modern (at the time) pronunciation, graphically, it seems to have been based on shorthand.

The book includes the text of the play in English in both standard Latin alphabet and the Shavian alphabet.

My copy of the book is in a box somewhere in my attic so I don't have photos for you, but a web search will turn up plenty of examples.

 

[Bick]

I loved the look of the British Birds book, tegeus.

 

[hitmouse]

I have a copy of the Shaw Alphabet edition of Androcles and the Lion by George Bernard Shaw. Definitely the most obscure book in my collection.

The Shaw Alphabet was a phonetic alphabet intended to replace written English with a logical system based on modern (at the time) pronunciation, graphically, it seems to have been based on shorthand.

The book includes the text of the play in English in both standard Latin alphabet and the Shavian alphabet.

My copy of the book is in a box somewhere in my attic so I don't have photos for you, but a web search will turn up plenty of examples.

I have that somewhere. A Penguin edition I think. Really quite strange. Pinched it from my grandfather’s library.