We spent part of this morning going through our shelves of books trying to thin them out, an excruciatingly painful task since so many of those we have left - for we have been through this often enough before - hold many memories. In amongst them I found this book bound in green leather and, judging from its state, fairly well used.
I know nothing of the poem it contains - it actually has the same poem twice over, the first and second editions of Edward Fitzgerald's translations of the original Arabic. What did interest me, however, was two inscriptions inside the front cover, one....
....by a Marie Willingdon to a Mrs Stanley Reed, in 1915 in Bombay, and the second by....
....my mother, written when she passed the book on to me. In it she explained how her Aunt Lil, her mother's sister, came by the book. Lil was married to Sir Stanley Reed who was editor and owner of The Times of India, which position brought him, and Lil, into the social orbit of the Bombay governor, Lord Willingdon.
I did try to read some of the poem but it's very hard going. However, a few minutes' leafing through the book was well worth it for....
....the illustrations by Edmund Dulac, each individually stuck in to the book with a cover of semi-transparent paper. They're beautifully done but what one notices is the lack of any sign of happiness, from what I take to be the angry sultan to....
Coming to think of it, perhaps I really ought to persist with the poem.
The unhappy Sultan needs to take a walk along the shore and into thje hills! The picture shows that money cannot buy happiness. Finding a Scarlet Elf Cup, following a Four Spotted Chaser or watching a starling mermeration might lighten his step. Thank you for showing us this little gem.
ReplyDeleteIf only the book could talk, what tales it would tell of people long gone - but, because of it, not forgotten.
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