Books I Have And You Don't: Penna School Report 1869--a Commonplace Book

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This entry in the series may be cheating a little... But most readers of this blog are on the bookish side, so coming up with something none of you have is a challenge.

 Anyway, sometime in the 19th century, either one or two men... And here I have to pause because Albert B. Flagg and Indecipherable M. Stone both put their names and addresses (22 Derby Street, Jamestown, NY) in the front endpapers. They both, or presumably one of them, were or was the editor.

So, as I was saying, someone(s) took a book he or neither of them gave a fart about and turned it into an anthology of stories clipped from the newspaper.  Back then, newspapers published overt fictions with titles like (chosen at random):

[WRITTEN FOR THE NEW YORK WEEKLY]

THE INDIAN'S REVENGE

A TALE OF ILLINOIS

BY FRANK E. T[AGESPOT]E CLAIRE

"an  o'er true tale"

Which begins:

The scene of this sketch is laid on the Illinois river, something over a hundred miles from its mouth, where the town of Meredosia now stands. The time of which we write, the pioneer days of the Pioneer State, prior to its admission into the Union.

There are also poems and non-fiction articles that the compiler(s) found amusing.

And it has to be said that most of these gems of prose and poetry so carefully preserved from the winds of time are dreadful. So much so that I have never read the whole book through and can only sample it in small sips.

Yet, every now and again, I pick up the product of the (surely young) Mssrs. Flagg and Stone and am transported back to their time. When newspapers printed fiction. And readers cared enough to want to preserve what they felt were the best of that.

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