Book serendipity

I had planned to write a post this evening about a book I've actually read, but instead I have to share some books that I found today, serendipitously. (The spell-check thinks that isn't a word; if not, it should be.) I enjoy tracking books down on-line, and there is a particular joy in finding an elusive title. Then there are the books that turn up when I least expect them, often the unusual ones - and frequently completely new to me.

The first, on the left, came from a charity shop where I will soon be volunteering. I went to a lunch for new recruits today, and according to the people at my table, the book section needs workers. I have to circulate through the different areas at first, to get a sense of the operations, but I'll be putting my name in for the book section. After the lunch I had my first real browse through the shop, and there in the book section I found Give the Lady What She Wants, a history of Marshall Field and Company, the iconic Chicago department store. This is where Emily Kimbrough worked, and the book even has a picture of the Charley who guided shoppers Through Charley's Door. I might not have bought it just for that, or for the mentions of Kimbrough and Cornelia Otis Skinner, but the jacket copy promises "the story of Woman's Century in which females won their right to buy, dress and live as they chose..." and "the rise of militant Feminism, paced by the marching Bloomer girls." I'm curious, I admit, to see how the two male authors define "militant Feminism" in a book written in 1952. I will say, the pictures are fascinating, particularly of women's clothes (I haven't found the Bloomer costumes yet).

Later, just to kill a few minutes, I stopped in at Half-Price Books. First, in the "old and interesting section," I found The One I Knew Best of All, an autobiography by Frances Hodgson Burnett. It's a lovely hardback from 1895, in a green binding with gold decorations on the front cover and spine. She wrote in the Preface,

I should feel a serious delicacy in presenting to the world a sketch so autobiographical as this if I did not feel myself absolved from any charge of the bad taste of personality by the fact that I believe I might fairly entitle it "The Story of any Child with an Imagination."

Next, in the general fiction section, I passed right by a small grey book before my mind registered it as a Persephone. And not just any title, but Dorothy Whipple's High Wages, the book of hers I've been anxious to read next. (I talked myself out of a visit to the Persephone site to order it just three days ago.) It is in perfect condition and even has the bookmark. I will continue to order directly from Persephone, because I want to support their work, but I can't pass one up one of their books for a good price and no international shipping costs.

Finally, in the travel section, I saw Jerome K. Jerome's name on a title I didn't recognize: Diary of a Pilgrimage. Published in 1891, it is an account of a trip to Oberammergau to see the Passion Play.  I think Germany brings out the best (or the worst) in Jerome, and I'm really looking forward to reading this.  Since I was going to break the TBR Dare anyway, this might be the perfect book for Easter time.

I was going to break it with Emily Eden, but there has been a slight delay in that plan. Despite what many booksellers apparently believe, her book Up the Country is not Volume II of her Letters from India. Thinking that I had already read the second set of letters, I only bought Volume I of the Letters. Now I've realized my mistake and I'm waiting on a copy of Volume II, before I start Volume I.