den | Getting The Lovejoys

It happened again. I was wandering through my favourite 2nd hand place when I found myself in front of the crap used book shelf. I idly pulled a small, coverless book from the middle of the shelf and almost fell over. I was holding a near perfect facsimile of Izaak Walton's "The Compeat Angler, or The Contemplative Man's Recreation."

The publisher went to a great deal of trouble recreating the book that was published in 1653. They used a photographic process to copy the typeface and the wonderful woodcuts, and cut the pages to all odd sizes so they're never quite the same size. They even turned page 217 upside down as it was in the original. This was done (said Mr Walton) so that two anglers could stand facing each other with the book between them and read the music for the Angler's song that was there "for two voyces, Treble and baffe"

$1.00. I am insanely happy. It would be nice to have the covers, but you can't expect much for $1.00.