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Lovejoy was a completely brilliant series from the UK in the early to mid 90s. it was about an antiques dealer who could sense things of age when he was near them.

I felt like him today as I wandered through Steptoe's 2nd Hand Store. I was wandering around, vaguely wondering what would be worth buying, when I stopped at a book case full of crap books like Dick And Jane. My eyes fell on three books in one corner. They were old. One was pre-WW2 old, and judging by the leather spines on the other two I guessed they were pre-1900s.

I opened the cover of the oldest looking one.



Needless to say, I bought them.



It's BRILLIANT! The bloke writes about using Mr Leewanhoek's new invention to look at the animalcules in stagnent pond water, Of Vulanof: "That there are fcarecely any Countries that are much annoyed with earthquakes, that do not have one of thefe Fiery Vents, And thefe are conftantly all in flames." and that light "it has the instataneous swiftness of almost two hundred thousand miles in one second of time, being much swifter than sound or the bullet from a large gun."



The second book is about diesel engines and was written in 1928. It's packed with the theory of the operation and has many line diagrams.



The third book is about the geogpraphy of Scotland, and was written in 1790. it has this wonderful hand-coloured map in the front.



All in all, I think it was $10 well spent.

I just find stuff.

Date: 23 May 2002 07:50 (UTC)
From: [identity profile] dewhitton.livejournal.com
The cover of the oldest is in very poor condition and has detatched from the spine, but I have them both. I bet someone brought in a box of old books and the shop owner made up an amount of $10 for the tree of them. They weren't priced.

I found my way into the store at Ross On Wye in the UK and had to be physically dragged from there. 8) I couldn't afford anything they had on offer, or I would have bought the 1st printing 2nd edition Lord Of The Rings they had. (I made myself feel better by taking a trip on a canal boat, but that's another story)

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