Please write here: your best book inscriptions

News of a possible Jane Austen first edition that found its way to a pile of junk in South Carolina has reminded me of my own serendipitous secondhand finds – and the odd magic of strangers’ inscriptions

Have you found a great inscription? Share its picture – and story – here

There’s little better than a good secondhand bookshop, and once within its hallowed walls, there’s little that is more fun than stumbling across a great old inscription. So thanks to MobyLives for alerting me to this – a possible first edition of Persuasion from 1818, awarded in May 1900 as a school prize to one Lillian M Flood, whose descendants are now being traced by an enterprising high-school teacher.

Flood – no relation, as far as I’m aware (although wouldn’t that be great) – was a student at Ayer High School in Massachusetts. The copy of Persuasion was found in a box of “junk” in a garage by one Alice B Bantle of Pawleys Island, South Carolina, the Boston Globe reports, with the curly-lettered inscription: “Prize speaking, Ayer High School, May 17 1900, First prize, Lillian M Flood”.

Related: The secret histories of secondhand books

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