Housman, Barth and Harvard Square
I was admiring my copy of Housman’s Last Poems this morning. It took me back to the rickety old stairs I once climbed to reach a dusty garret, home to a wise, white-haired bookseller who sold it to me. Dickensian it was. Floor boards cluttered with piles of valuable books. Difficult to navigate around them all. The place was located just off Harvard Square. I’ll be there next week, for a short time. Nowhere near the number of used bookstores there were when I first visited 16 years ago…still, thankfully, there’s Lame Duck Books.
I’m able to date the visit because my wife at the time was, at the time, pregnant with our first daughter. And now that my mind is there…I was in another shop, nearby, located on a second floor…much brighter, and more expensive. I remember drooling over a lovely first edition of John Barth’s The Sot Weed Factor. What frolicking fun that book is!
