Images
Bookplate - Boy with Book
fig. 1 bookplate bearing "Harry W", 1931's Keyser Söze?
Being a bit obsessed with bookplates (how can ya not?) here's a cleaned version of the one found in this book for you to print and now use in your books. The original measures 2 3/4 inches by 3 1/2 inches (see figure 1).
Interior Pages 42-43: "Spring", "In The Valley", "Toby Tyler", and "Pretending"
The header of each page has, on even pages, "By Fifth Grade Pupils", and on the right or odd-numbered pages, "A Book of Short Stories". Read "Pretending".
fig. 2 Unfortunately the pages are quite brittle which prevented using a flatbed scanner and OCR-ing the text. Even shooting with the camera, converting to grayscale, and sharpening -- even that failed (at least with Adobe Acrobat Pro's OCR). On the upside, every page is really beautifully patina'ed.
Book Cover
Judged solely by its cover this looks to be a small, pocket accounting or shopkeeper's ledger.
Bookplate, inside Cover
fig. 3 No reason to have included this again -- except it's a great image, with a Winsor McCay-esque tuft of hair protruding over the book's cover.
"Harry W" taunts, a mystery like none other since "Keyser Söze" or Deep Throat's identity, or that utterance "Rosebud", or perhaps I'm overthinking this a bit. Regardless, it's a nice bookplate, eh?
Title Page
fig. 4 Though the cover is unadorned they did add this great ornament to the Title Page (another bonus: having cleaned and retraced this in Illustrator I'm sure I'll reuse this somewhere.)
The title page bears a second lost world, throw-away tease: "printed and bound under supervision of K.E. Killeen, Director of Handiwork"! Ummmm, hey, yo... I want that job!? Please??!
Introduction: "Your Little Friend..."
The tone of this introduction pleases me no end! The paper's about as smooth as a weekly's newsprint, which, combined with the yellowing, has thwarted OCR efforts.
