For MetaFilter, in remembrance of so many happy hours--HR

December 21, 2011 9:35 AM

Bookdedications is a collection of gift inscriptions found in used books. Some background from the blog's author.
posted by Horace Rumpole (15 comments total)

A Book of Surrealist Games by Alastair Brotchie

For Ted

my period is 3 days late

x o.d.

Well, that's one way of telling it. Also, do I sense a relationship with ... challenges?
posted by Foci for Analysis at 9:49 AM on December 21, 2011

I love the woman who gave her husband a copy of Death on the Nile for their anniversary! Hmmmmmmmmm.
posted by DiscourseMarker at 9:53 AM on December 21, 2011

Gift inscriptions always make me feel sad, especially when they are really personal.
posted by smackfu at 9:55 AM on December 21, 2011 [2 favorites]

Very neat. Previously on this theme.
posted by yellowbinder at 10:08 AM on December 21, 2011

[Inside Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell]

THIS BOOK WAS PUBLISHED IN 1949, IT WAS ABOUT THE FUTURE 1984

I HAVE GIVEN IT TO YOU WITH LOVE IN 1994, THE START OF OUR FUTURE



Um.
posted by shakespeherian at 10:12 AM on December 21, 2011 [3 favorites]

This is better¹ than I thought it was.


^{1. More entertaining.}
posted by Edison Carter at 10:14 AM on December 21, 2011

i'm always trying to come up with really clever sentimental inscriptions. but they usually come off sounding like uncle buck.
posted by Avenger50 at 10:26 AM on December 21, 2011

My next inscription:

"THIS IS BOOK.

FOR YOU.







BOOK!"
posted by Edison Carter at 10:32 AM on December 21, 2011 [2 favorites]

I have to confess, before donating books to charity I've cut out the fly leaves when they have gift messages to me. They always make the book feel like too personal a thing to give away and put in the hands of strangers. Now that somebody is posting these things to the Internet, I have a second reason.
posted by ardgedee at 11:05 AM on December 21, 2011 [2 favorites]

I found a really crappy abstract painting at a thrift store and the back has a great note:

Dear Dan,

This is my 'I'm sorry I hurt your feelings' gift. I hope, someday, you can find it in your heart to forgive me. This painting symbolizes my regret and deception.

All my love,
Hannah

PS
I went to Europe for you.
I hope you understand.

"You" is underlined twice. The painting is really hideous; it's my favorite piece of art.

If you are either Hannah or Dan, let me know, I'm really curious...
posted by papayaninja at 11:46 AM on December 21, 2011 [1 favorite]

I loathe my childhood and all that remains of it......” Words by Jean–Paul Sartre.
For mummy –
may you read it all – clearly and without prejudice – right to the end!
Lots of love
Hetty xxx

I do hope she feels better now.
posted by adamvasco at 12:04 PM on December 21, 2011

Looking at the relationship ones, I realized that I've inscribed books for ex-girlfriends, but IIRC, never one for my wife.
posted by drezdn at 12:29 PM on December 21, 2011

If this book should ever roam,
box its ears and send it home.
posted by steef at 1:39 PM on December 21, 2011

It is a very strange experience to order a used book by mail, like e. g. A. Alvarez, The Savage God, a Study of Suicide, then open it up and it has this maudlin personal dedication on the flyleaf page. That is the weirdest, but nowhere near the only one.

I have a copy of Henry Rollins Eye Scream that I bought used for three bucks by mail from Powell's and the sucker was signed by Henry Rollins. They did not advertise this. The clerk who filled the order wrote on the invoice "oh cool! it's signed!"
posted by bukvich at 1:40 PM on December 21, 2011

Although most of the flyleaf inscriptions in my collection are of the uninteresting variety, I definitely cracked up when I found the following Victorian doggerel inscribed on a separate leaf in a bound collection of Catholic Emancipation tracts (of all places):

Ah! truth thou'rt a nominal thing

Thy footsteps on earth are unknown

Thy semblance has nought but a sling

Thy light unto darkness is grown

The logic contain'd in this book

Is such as in Bedlam we find

T'is faulty wherever we look

And shows a distempered mind

The last line appears to be borrowed from John Gill's Bible commentary.
posted by thomas j wise at 2:47 PM on December 21, 2011