Books - They're Not Just for Reading

Libraries are a great place to spend a rainy afternoon--especially if you're looking for a new subject to sketch. While wandering through the stacks, I discovered that the library contains a good share of old and obscure books. Luckily, those make for very some interesting sketching. Kindlers Literatur Lexicon is an encyclopedia of world literature that I'm sure would be very helpful--if you can read German.

The angle is a bit off, but here's how the books looked on the shelf.




I also came across this beauty titled Gleanings for the Curious from the Harvest Fields of Literature by Charles Carroll Bombaugh published in 1875. I count myself among the curious, so this seemed like a book for me. Apparently Bombaugh was enthralled with language so he compiled a book filled with "miscellanea of the omnium-gatherum sort." 

What sort of miscellanea might you find in this book? Well, things like odd and uncommon epigrams, facetious drolleries, whimsical mottoes, and merry tales and fables. There are chapter headings such as alphabetical whims, palindromes, macaronic verse, emblematic poetry, paronomesia, and puritan peculiarities.

I don't know what most of these words mean, but they are certainly curious and so much fun to say!


 

A little online research tells me that this book might not be as obscure as I initially thought. However, C.C. Bombaugh remains a bit of a mystery since I could find very little information about the man who has aroused my curiosity about whims, drolleries and peculiarities.  Is there anyone out there familiar with this book or its author?