Much of the beauty of searching for things in the physical world (in contrast to buying online) is coming across things I'd never look for--though of course it's the danger too, as there are so many different sorts of empathetic objects! This was propped in a glass case, spine concealed, but a little handwriting visible, so of course I had to ask to see it, to discover it is a (hefty!) pocket Bible, published by Sanborn and Carter, Portland ME, 1852--a fairly scarce one, with red leather cover, this copy very much worn and with a cracked spine, originally the possession of a Maranda Mowry of Cumberland Hill (I believe referring to Cumberland country in Maine), who wrote her name in it in 1853. Of course it's the first end page, filled with the tiniest cursive handwriting, that made me  bring it home - an inscription written as if speaking to the bible itself: Dear sacred book. Oh, let me treasure thee, Immortal word, O'er all the pleasures life and sense afford....Plea to defend me from the sinners doom...etc! In the recent wake of Jimmy Carter's death, and Bishop Mary Ann Edgar Booge's words, I've been thinking even more than usual of the vast gulf between Christian faith as guide for goodness and kindness and just behavior vs. its cooption for self-interested purposes, which makes it seem, just like a read of the Constitution is ever-useful, so perhaps is a read of the Bible itself! Anyway, I like Maranda's earnestness, and felt I needed to salvage this one.

4 3/8" x 2 3/4" x 1 1/2" thick. Spine cracked as documented, but pages still mostly bound. With some notes on the interior back cover too and a few elsewhere.