For the Love of Old Books

I wonder how many of you have a love for old books? Over the years I have collected some very old books, primarily from a couple of favorite authors who are long gone and out of print, but they wrote such interesting, old-fashioned, clean but adventuresome, romantic but mysterious thrilling novels. 

Here's a few of my favorites: This first shelf (below) is primarily from one author, Mary J. Holmes. Most of her books were written before the turn of the 20th century, in the late 1800's.

Below are a couple of the covers of her books. They are so old they are falling apart. Many of these books I found at estate sales and/or bookstores that sell old books. I've had these for at least thirty years! They are that good that I don't want to get rid of them. 

You can't find these in any library today.

 I  found this bookmark in one of the books:

(Front)

(Back)

Wouldn't you like to have some of those "Five Good Things to Have in the Home"? Ha Ha. I believe they will cure most anything that ails you!

I am not sure exactly how I got started on these particular authors.  George Barr McCutcheon was

one of my mother's favorite authors and she shared his books with me, so that explains that...and apparently even her mother, my grandmother, enjoyed reading his books, 

because this one in particular was in my grandmother's collection...

and it was passed down to me from my Grandpa Tedlie after my Grandma Tedlie passed away:

As you can see, it is quite vintage...copyright in 1906!  My Grandma and Grandpa were married in 1901, so perhaps she had this book from the time it was brand new!

Don't you love these wonderful illustrations?

 They certainly make you want to start reading to find out exactly who's who and what's what!
And that is what I am planning to do. I am sure I have read this book many times over the years since first receiving it in 1967...but usually enough time goes by between readings so that the details have been forgotten to make it seem brand new again. (Nowadays that doesn't take very long...)

While flipping through the pages to look at the illustrations above, this little "Easter" card fell out of the book.  Apparently it was being used as a bookmark, and by the looks of it, it is also quite vintage. It must have belonged to my Grandmother, which makes it even more special to me.

This picture of my Grandma Tedlie was taken about the same time this book was written!

This is my Grandma many years later, but still before I was born:

Click HERE for a link to a previous post that has more pictures of my maternal Grandparents and family.

I guess I'm getting a little side-tracked here.  The reason for looking at these old books was because I found myself between library books and looking for something from my own collection to read until I can get back to the library to check out some new books.  I've ordered some books online from the library, but it takes a while for them to locate all of the ones selected and send them to our local library where they can be checked out.  If our local library branch doesn't have all of the ones in a certain series or by a selected author that I want to read, they can usually be found in some of the other branches of the county library system and sent to our local branch usually within a few days of when I requested them.  If timed just right, by the time I get finished with one stack of books, the next batch is ready and waiting for me.  However, this time, for whatever reason, they haven't shown up yet and I was finished with the others and getting anxious to read something else! Reading is my evening entertainment while hubby enjoys watching sports or other programs on the TV.  (and reading library books is FREE!!)

Of course, my other form of entertainment is sitting here at the computer and reading the things my friends write on their blogs or on Facebook and then also sitting here and writing my own blog like I am doing right now (instead of reading the book I was wanting to read! LOL! I do get side-tracked quite often!)

Do you have any favorite "old books" that you treasure and enjoy reading over and over again? Would love to see what you have or hear about your favorite "old" authors.

Well, it's getting late and if I am going to get up in time to go to Sunday School in the morning (at 8:00 am), then I'd better quit yakking here and start getting ready for bed. Guess I sort of ran out of reading time for tonight...but I hope you enjoyed seeing these interesting antique books with me.
Have a peaceful good night and a blessed SONday tomorrow!