Why is this book so tattered? Is it that you love it so much that you’ve read it a zillion times? Is it a reference book you’ve used every day for the last seven years? Something your new puppy teethed on when you weren’t looking?

Anyway, I climbed up the ladder, moved some books around, oh! there it is. Poor, dear book. I carefully removed it, got down off the ladder, and put it on the floor. I’m fairly certain I won’t fall off the floor, though I won’t make any guarantees as to that. I do live in California, after all. (Before you ask, no, I haven’t read James Mitchner’s Space yet. Mom gave it to me a long time ago now, and I simply haven’t been able to get into it yet.) As to the why of it. For one, when I was in junior high, I didn’t take as good care of books as I do now. Add to that, my friend Debbie stole it from me when I was part way through it, and read it cover-to-cover before giving it back. Then I finished it. And the poor book has one thousand twenty-four pages. I don’t think the publisher meant for two young teens to read the book, one right after the other. The spine got bent, the cover got bent, pages started falling out before I was anywhere near done reading it.

I taped it back together using the then readily-available cellophane tape. You can see it in the picture of the spine—Ricki was helping. Now the tape has died, and the poor old book is really trying to fall apart. Yes, I gently replaced it on its shelf when I was through.

And as for Martin Chuzzlewit… Well, this book was much easier to reach, thank goodness, being on the bottom shelf of a barrister in the library. This book was one of the few that I nabbed when I moved out of my grandmother’s house. I don’t know if I’ll ever read this copy of it. The leather cover is tattered and falling apart, leather flakes drop off if you look at the book funny. But it’s marvelous. It boasts still barely legible gilt-lettered spine with five leaf ornaments, pages of paper so fine you can see through them, colored text on the title page, a beautiful plate opposite the title page with a super thin sheet of tissue between, and in spite of
its being 897 pages long, it’s only three-quarters of an inch thick. If I can ever afford to have it restored, I might read it. If not, I may have to get another edition of the book some day.

Since you we about to ask, this edition of Martin Chuzzlewit was published by Thomas Nelson and Sons in 1906. It’s one hundred years old this year!