There’s nothing like perusing a flea market on a lazy day, especially a market on the side of a road with booths set up under canopies. The kind where sellers spread out a wide array of wares … okay, junk, from every decade since the forties. There’s no rhyme or reason to what’s presented. Nine empty glass honey bear jars stand in front of a handheld sewing machine, still in its original box (but somehow rusted?) and a bowl of plastic fruit. Children’s clothes and oven mitts; mini tool sets and sticker books with faded stickers. Scary looking hair curling irons and barbecue tongs. The possibilities of what can be found are endless.

But the one thing I can’t pass up is the box of books, usually tucked half under a table. Not the clean, shiny kid’s books, not the cookbooks with their paper jackets intact, or the paperback novels with curling covers, the books that someone dumped in a box to sell rather than throw them away. The ones that were in Grandma’s attic or cellar forever.

I pulled out the book seen in the photo from one such box. “Lavender and Old Lace”, By Mrytle Reed, printed in 1907 (first print 1902). I paid fifty cents. Each page has a border and the red font for the chapter and page number. It looks as though the text is hand typed—crisp and clear. “G.P. Putnam’s Sons” Knickerbocker Press knew how to class up a book. The cover is a gilded design. Unfortunately, the spine of the book was repaired (well) so it is doubtful there is any collectible value to it. I bought it to read and also because my husband was impatiently waiting for me (what, there’s no time to read the inside cover of each one?). So, I grabbed a bunch of books and made a deal with the seller in minutes. Now, I wish I had bought the whole box just for fun.

Apparently, Ms. Reed was a successful author in the early 1900’s. Her day came. Her day went. Now I’m going to read her book, a romance story.

So I say, readers, don’t overlook the old books at the flea market, the garage sale, or library sale. You may stumble upon the brilliant work of a (mostly) forgotten author.

If you’ve read Lavender and Old Lace, leave a comment. Tell me what you think of it. What did you like? What did you not enjoy?