Thursday, March 27, 2014

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.. 

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