So what do you do with a book like this one?

So what do you do with the book?

Especially one like this one.

I bought books in the 1970's and 80's that I read at the

time and then more later, after I started working. But

my job really didn't give me time to read. Because if I

wasn't working (overtime, extra days and etc.) then I

was too tired.  And also thrown in there, some where

was keeping the household going.  And raising the last

one of my children, for 2 years after my husband passed

away.  So then bought with the idea, that when I was

either on vacation or retired I could read the books.

Well, here I am 10 years retired and finally this winter,

I have been making a dent into all of these books.

Giving them away after I read them.. Because once I

read a book, I don't go back and re-read them. With the

except of my favorite..Patrick McManus.

This book I just finished.. I don't know what to do with it.

It is a book I got from my mother's house after she passed

away. It is in kind of rough shape. Being an old paper back

it was not standing the times well. All still intact, but rough.

And in its day, it was burnt, banned from libraries and etc. 

The amazing part about this book is that the original is over

270 years old. The paper back is only 51 year old, copyrighted in 1963.

There were many reissues of it over the years..

suffering, they said, from being rewritten and not staying

true to the author's words. Some of it lost in translation.

But this one, of 1963, (you know it is old when it shows it sold hardcover for $6.00 and the paper back sold for 95 cents. It is suppose to be a true to the author's

words that has been done in all these years.  

The book was written by a man...John Cleland. But he

wrote it like it was a journal written by a woman. The book

story spans 4 years.  A girl (the woman who wrote the

journal, in two letters of sorts) was an orphan at the

age of 15.  Her parents died a month apart from small pox. 

She had several siblings, but they all had died earlier.

And her parents were only child in each family.

So there were no relative for her to go live with.

And in the 1700's an orphan is not look well upon.

It is set in England.  

She ends up at a home of a woman who is willing to

take her in.. but as a servant.  When she catches on

what her duties are ... she runs away with a man who

she had came became friends with. Charles. 

They have 2 weeks of wonderful times together,

when the young man's father has him sent off to another

country, as he is a military man.

The young girl goes into mourning at the lost of

her young man. Which she has no way to contact him,

or finding out where he went.  She has no money so

she is once again back on the streets with no money.

The book goes on to tell her tale of going from home to

home.. about 3 if I remember right, before a Mrs. Cole

employs her in her hat making shop, with other young

women. Mrs. Cole also gives instructions to these

young ladies on how to be come proper young ladies.

It seems that is what goes on during the day, but

at night, they all serve in the oldest profession.

After several years at Mrs. Cole's house she is leased

out several times to different men of position. One

passes away and she returns to Mrs. Cole's house.

Then Mrs. Cole retires with poor health.. and the

woman closes up the house and the other young

ladies have moved on.  The woman chances meeting

with an elderly man in a park and she moves in with him.

He ends up dying also, but leaves her a great deal of

money.

Upon traveling around for a few months she is at

a lodging house, when she hears a voice that she

recognizes.. it is CHARLES... the young man who

was send away by his father in the military. And

all ends well...

Then you have 14 pages of how things are different

in this book as oppose to the ones who were not

true to the original book. Which is one of the things

I did not like in this book. It was written by an English

man, and he would take 45 words to say the same

thing that could be said in 12. So sometimes I speed

read or glazed over reading.. The name of the book?

FANNY HILL... Memoirs of a woman of pleasure. lol..

So now what do I do with the book? Give it to Goodwill,

don't know any friend who would want to read it. It was

interesting as their (English) "homes" aren't run quite

like the ones in United States.. And also tells how and

why some of the women ended up in there.  

Now I got to figure out what to do with the book..