Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Most of the time, I find poetry too hard to read. I know it's laziness on my part. I WANT to like poetry. So I've determined to stretch myself and read some poems. I have several books collected through the years; some left over from college English classes and some bought for the beauty of their covers.

This book falls into the latter category. Found in an antique shop a long time ago, I recently opened it to find the original giver's artwork decorating almost all the pages.

The inscription says, "To My Dear Roderick, Christmas 1935, From Jane.

Since it was a Christmas gift, she decorated quite a few pages with holly leaves and berries and underlined special words in red. I particularly love the sweet face she drew of Mrs. Browning, the author. Reginald must have been a pretty special fellow to warrant so much time and detail. Now I'm going to read a few. I don't think they'll take too much mental taxation.




5 comments:

M.K. said...

Beautiful illustrations from Jane :) What a treasure!

Gumbo Lily said...

What a lovely poetry treasure. I hope you enjoy the read.

The Provincial Homemaker said...

What an amazing testament of one person's love for another - what a pity it's history has been lost.

Sara at Come Away With Me said...

What a sweet and special book. And...I'm so happy to know I'm not alone in that desire to love poetry coupled with the laziness in trying to actually read it and puzzle it out! I so enjoyed your enjoyment of the artistic embellishments Jane added to the book...that is a very lovely face she has drawn! I like Jane's idea of decorating the book as a gift like that...I think she must have been just as special a person as her beloved Roderick!

Leslie said...

What a treasure!!! I would be overjoyed to find something like this...and it really makes me want to do this sort of thing, too. Enjoy!