Vintage Books and Old Lace

You have heard of  "Arsenic and Old Lace" - the old movie and play?  Well, this post is all about  vintage books and old lace.   I might need some of that arsenic to kill my thrifting addiction!

I found and bought so many treasures this weekend, it will have to extend to two posts.

First up is eight pounds of old lace.  Yes, I did say eight pounds!  I bought this from a seller on eBay who found it at an estate sale.

I was a little leery - the photos were not not great and I was in a bidding war with another buyer.  Plus, have you seen the price of postage these days!?!

On Friday a huge box arrived with the best assortment of lace any girl could wish for.

There is homemade lace, tatting, crochet, eyelet, lingerie, and just plain purty lace!

I will try to post soon on some of the things I will do with this.

Thank you, Natasha!  I love my vintage lace assortment!  And a special thanks for getting all the musty smell from the lace.

THE BOOK SALE

 Every year our AAUW (American Association of University Women) hold their annual book sale.  It is quite the event.  Since I was the 1971 recipient of one of their scholarships, I always try to support them.  I would not have been able to go to college without scholarships.

I will admit I am too embarrassed to show all the books I bought.  Let's just say I LOVE books.  And it took three trips to the truck to load all of them.

Here are a portion of the music books I found.

A random selection of songs from Handel's Messiah to My Bonnie Lives O'er the Ocean to You Are Woman, I Am Man to People.  I am thinking that Suzan at Simply Vintageous could possibly transform a piece of furniture with these songs - all together!

I was searching for Hungarian books because they are tiny, but was out of luck this year. I did find two  Arabic translation dictionaries. 

I have a definite desire for dictionaries in any language.

These two are my first Arabic ones.

Here is one page of the larger Arabic dictionary.  I know you are not interested, but I wanted to show it!

I found two French textbooks and a huge French dictionary from the 1930's.













I dug out several German textbooks and dictionaries.  I like to put these in vignettes with my Frozen Charlottes  who are also German.  I order the dolls from a dealer in Germany who does not speak English so actually the dictionaries come in handy!  

Though I will admit my feelings were hurt after I sent him a thank you note in German for the last shipment, he just answered "HAH!"

 I wonder what I wrote?

 A Spanish textbook and tiny pocket-sized translation dictionaries for French, German, and Italian.

 As a retired literature teacher, I love to collect vintage textbooks, chapter books, and picture books.

Here are four of Madeline Brandeis's series of fiction books about children around the world.

The illustrations are precious.

Copyrights are from the 1930's.

 Three literature books and a French version of The Little Prince.


I will read each of these to decide which to keep.

None of the books I bought will be torn apart.  I have a hard time doing that.  I will scan if I need something from them in a project.

 Le Petit Prince was heavily annotated with the English translation.

I taught seventh grade and on days when it was just too hard being that age, I would spend part of the class reading aloud to bring peace to the restlessness of a teenaged soul.  My students loved this book and sometimes I did read from the French version.

In my very best South Carolina French accent!

THE QUEEN

 

If you have somewhere to be, go now because I have to give this book some respect.  It will be a gem in my collection.  It will take years to read and digest all its wisdom.

It is The Queen Of The Household.

Applause would be appropriate at this time.

It is chocked-full of handwritten notes and recipes and advertisements cut from magazines and newspapers.  I am so glad someone did not dump these out!


It has hundreds of recipes, tips on managing a household, etiquette, how to raise children, and just everything.

 Here is an example of how to invite someone to your garden party or picnic.  It must be an engraved invitation on handsome paper sent 8 to 10 days in advance.

If guest comes by rail, you must send a carriage to get them.

The book also has some magnificent engravings throughout.

I thought this one of a mother and child called "Golden Sands" was very poignant.

So when was The Queen Of The Household published - the book every woman must have?

The copyright for this edition is 1889!

Yes, this book is 124 years old!

The Queen will have to have a special place to sit.  Maybe I will even use a cleaning tip or two from her.




You may be surprised to know that a book's age is not reflected in the price.  It depends on the condition and the edition.  Even though she is not worth much on the book market, she is priceless to me!

Stay tuned for another vintage thrift post soon on the rest of the story.  (Didn't you used to love hearing Paul Harvey say that?)

See y'all!


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