My brother is here visiting from Minnesota, and we spent the day driving to estate sales. I got some exciting things!
There were political buttons! I got two Clinton-Gore ‘92 buttons! Al Gore looks like he is six years old in these!
Then I got one that is much more awesome! LOOK IT IS A STEVENSON BUTTON. STEVENSON.
They totally charged me twenty-five cents each for these babies! I had totally been expecting Stevenson to be at least $5.
THEN I got books! I got a copy of Shadow of the Wind for a buck to give my brother to read on the plane going back home, and then:
YES THAT IS A FIRST-EDITION OF CAKES AND ALE THAT SOMEONE WAS SO SCANDALIZED BY THE USE OF INITIALS THAT THEY HAD TO DEFACE IT WITH W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM’S FIRST NAME, WILLIAM.
And then there is THE BEST FIND OF THE DAY:
ALSO KNOWN AS THE BOBBSEY TWINS AND THE MOST RACIST ADVENTURE EVER.
Yes, folks, the Bobbsey Twins books WEREN’T ALREADY RACIST ENOUGH. So now we have to send them down south to a cotton plantation where they totally make friends with not one but TWO Uncle Toms and go OUT TO THE FIELDS TO PLANT COTTON:
I photographed a page so you can see a sample of this excellent culturally-aware and unoffensive text:
Yeah. That is what the whole book is like. I already knew that the Bobbsey Twins were ridiculously racist just in the portrayal of the family servants, but man, this one takes the cake. It really disturbs me now that my parents even let me read these when I was a kid. What was WRONG with you, Mommy and Daddy?
