There it is, The Best American Short Story anthology of 1978.
I was a worried that I would have difficulty finding a copy.
I should say a copy that I could afford. There are/were several copies out there floating around, but finding one for the price I could afford was difficult.
I saw a copy several months ago on Amazon, and failed to make the purchase, and when I was able to make the purchase, someone had scooped it up. I sought a copy out on ABE Books, and was able to make the purchase from them. I was very happy with the price I paid, and I could hardly wait for the package to arrive.
As I stated in my earlier post, I think that the discussion and review of the 1978 collection will be my starting point.
A bit about the book physically. Overall it is in good shape. No dust jacket and I’m not sure if it ever had one. It is a former Public Library book with all of the expected markings. I am attempting to find out where this book lived in the past, and I have two candidates with the second state being my guess at its former home.
There is a prominent stamp in the front of the book which reads:
“No longer property of Richmond Heights Public Library”.
and
There are several pages that contain stamps with numbers that were, for sure, some sort of library indexing numbers.
The two candidates:
I sent an email message to the director of the Richmond Heights Memorial Library (name change in 1974) to ask if this particular book was once theirs. I have included the Library Directors response below.
Mr Hays,
I have been working at the Richmond Heights Memorial Library since March of 2000. That being the case I can only guess whether or not the stamp on the book in your possession could have come from here. My guess would be that yes, it could very well be the case that the stamp for withdrawing materials from the collection was not necessarily updated immediately when the name was changed. While the stamps to mark new materials being entered into the collection would probably have been a priority for updating, the stamps for withdrawing materials might have been a much lower priority.
This is conjecture on my part. Is there nothing left on the book of the original stamp stating ownership of the book? We currently stamp books in about three places with our current name and address. I am sure you have already searched for that.
Good luck in your quest.
Sincerely,
Jeanette Piquet, Director
Well, That’s good enough for me. I think that it’s great that she took the time to write and help me out.
Many thanks to her.
So, I’ll end this entry with that and get on with the reading. I will be making other entries from time to time concerning other points about the series and the particular edition I happen to be reading.
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