The nostalgia and joy of collecting vintage books

Old books have always fascinated me. Perhaps my interest in them was first sparked by my mother’s extensive collection of original Nancy Drew titles (which I read voraciously, often by moonlight when I was a wee little thing), perhaps it came from the fact that reading was encouraged and fostered in my home. Whatever first planted the bookworm bug in me, I have loved reading and vintage books for as long as I can recall.

As a child I had a rather odd (for someone my age at the time, I mean) assortment of medical books that ranged from 50 to 100+ years old. It wasn’t the largest collection, but at one point I must have had at least eight or nine heavy duty, hard cover medical text books (at that stage in my life I was interested in going into a career in medicine) of the very sort that would have once sat on a doctor’s shelf. Many of these books were lovingly given to me by elderly neighbours, one of whom had been a nurse for many years.

It wasn’t just medical tomes that caught my eye though. I’ve always scoured second hand book shops, garage sales, flea markets and library sales (when libraries sell of their old books) for literary treasures. Though sadly at one point in my life I had to sell off most of my book collection to help raise funds to move overseas, I still have the wonderful memories of the times I spent sifting through stacks upon stacks of books, some older, some newer, endless piles of inexpensive paperbacks and microwave cookery books (seriously, why is there such a glut of microwave cookbooks almost anywhere retro and vintage books are sold?), to find an early printing of a Steinbeck or Hemingway novel.

There is something almost transcendent about holding an older book in your hand, its paper often yellowed as if dipped in tea by the passing years, a slightly musty smell emanating from each page, its typesetting done up in a classy, concisely sized font. As you flip through the pages of any book that’s lived with someone else before, it’s hard not to catch yourself wondering what sort of memories that book would have to tell, if it were alive and able to speak. Did it cross over on an ocean liner, ride around in the back of an old roadster, sit beside someone on a Hawaiian vacation, provide a moment of respite for a weary WW2 factory worker? What thoughts did those who owned the book before you think as they absorbed its knowledge or tale, how did what they read shape or impact their lives – and what impression will it leave on your own?

There is indeed something marvelous and valuable about vintage and antique books; their worth lies not only in their age and content, but in the place in time when they were first released into the annals of history to which they will forever belong. It is this essence of time and distant place, that I feel weaves itself through so much of my love of vintage. When I don a 40s inspired outfit, a pair of 50s heels or a 30s hairstyle, I am reaching somewhere deep into my soul to connect with a world that I while I did not experience firsthand, I can sense I belong to.


{A stylishly well dressed literature fan from a 1941 Vogue spread. Photo found via myvintagevogue’s Flickr stream.}

If you’re a fellow bibliophile, what memories and thoughts do vintage books invoke in you?