Dance with Death, contemporary Hand-Coloring.
Schedel, Hartmann. Nuremberg Chronicle. (Folio. Nuremberg, Anton Koberger, 12 July 1493).
The reader’s rorschach? You can find different patterns every few pages. Wormed worse than anything I’ve ever seen. Viz,
In December, 1879, Mr. Birdsall, a well-known book-binder of Northampton, kindly sent me by post a fat little Worm, which had been found by one of his workmen in an old book while being bound. He bore his journey extremely well, being very lively when turned out. I placed him in a box in warmth and quiet, with some small fragments of paper from a Boethius, printed by Caxton, and a leaf of a seventeenth century book. He ate a small piece of the leaf, but either from too much fresh air, from unaccustomed liberty, or from change of food, he gradually weakened, and died in about three weeks. I was sorry to lose him, as I wished to verify his name in his perfect state. Mr. Waterhouse, of the Entomological department of the British Museum, very kindly examined him before death, and was of opinion he was Oecophora pseudospretella.
William Blades, The Enemies of Books, Chapter 6: The Bookworm.
Bibliothecae Cordesianae Catalogues (4to. Paris, Antonius Vitray, 1643). A rare library catalogue, the first major catalogue to be published in France, of volumes belonging to Jean de Cordes and compiled by his friend Gabriel Naude. The books eventually went to Cardinal Mazarin (whom Naude worked for), whose 60,000+ collection later became the first public library in France.
Her voice died away. She sank down on the edge of the bed. She was tired, no doubt, by the stairs, by the heat. “But we have other lives, I think, I hope,” she murmured. “We live in others, Mr… . We live in things.
“
| — | Virginia Woolf,Between The Acts. (via fuckyeahvirginiawoolf) |
You know, like all them books in his library. He frontin’ with all them books, but if we pull one down off the shelf, ain’t none of the pages ever been opened. He got all them books and he ain’t read near one of them. Gatsby, he was who he was and he did what he did. And cause he wasn’t ready to get real with the story, that shit caught up with him.
“
| — | The Wire, Season Two, Episode Six |
