Why read an Antiquarian Book, in the first place.. ?

THAT is a good question.

Most people who are interested in old, antique books are collectors; they don't actually read them; they just want to look at them. It's really not practical to read an old book, per se, because they are simply too delicate to handle; they would not survive. So, they sit on a shelf, and collect dust. I'm guilty of this myself. I've read most of John Steinbeck's works, in paperback, but I also collect hard bound copies of the same books simply because he's my favorite. I don't read them; I just look at them, without opening them.  I suppose some day, after I'm gone, my children, or my grandchildren will have to deal with my old book collections, and they will probably sell them at a flea market.

A while back, I bought an antiquarian book about the San Francisco earthquake of 1906. And I actually read it, and I was totally enthralled by it. I knew about the earthquake, and I knew that the earthquake was terrible, and that it destroyed much of the city, and I kinda knew that a resulting fire nearly finished the destruction. I think my Grand Father might have told me all about it at one time.

Up until this point, that is about al I knew. It was a genuinely horrible disaster. By reading the book, I learned about the human toll, and tragedy; the heroic's, and the not so heroic's. For example, refugees were living in tent encampments around the city for weeks and weeks. Looters were shot on sight. Merchants gouged refugees;  loaves of bread were being sold for up to a dollar (a huge amount in 1906), and that soldiers took it upon themselves to order the merchants to stop such practices.  Bejeweled fingers were removed from the bodies of their victims. Soldiers who were leading the rescue operations forced idle civilians to help fight the fire, or carry bodies, or help in any number of ways. Many kind people simply devoted themselves to helping others.

I'm sure that if I'd purchased a modern day book about the earthquake, that I'd be given lots of facts, and figures, and opinions, and comparisons, etc, but I know I would not get the flavor of the day-and-age; aura of the times. I wouldn't get a taste of the 'times'; of the morals; and the immoral. I would miss the quaintness of the times. This was a time when men wore suit and tie to the beach, and women wore gowns, and dresses.

So..... reading antiquarian books gives you more than just the facts; it also gives you a feel for the times, and the morals; the good, and the bad; the language; the science; the philosophies, etc. Even the prose itself can be fascinating; the wording, and the language. The stiff upper lipedness of the times.

Until I read the antiquarian book about the San Francisco Earthquake, I just thought of it as an old frontier town that burnt down. I had no idea that it was one of our most modern, and progressive cities, and second to none in the world. It had many automobiles (in 1906 ?), as well as horse drawn trolley's and wagons; it had huge ferry boats; many large, and tall buildings; sky scrapers before the term was ever coined. A brand new, City Hall, which was destroyed, had just been finished at a cost of $ 7,000,000.00.

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Selected titles available at our main website include The Civil War Through the Camera, Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant, Panama and the Canal in Picture and Prose, and the San Francisco Calamity by Earthquake and Fire. New titles in the works include Aritc Explorations by Elisha Kent Kane, a Pictorial History of the World War, Sinking of the Titanic, etc.

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