Nostalgia

I went to a not-too-far-away city today with a friend, and among other things, stopped in a local used book store. It was a really nice place, with a lot of books.

And so, I went for the drama section. When I was in grad school, I'd go to the occasional used book store, and look for the blue "Renaissance" drama editions out of U of Nebraska press. (The Restoration editions were in grey, remember?) They were great at that point, abundant enough in used editions (paper and hardcover), usually in decent shape, so that I could build a minimal early modern drama library cheaply over my grad years. But there weren't so many that you'd find more than a couple at a time, so I'd spend maybe six bucks, and feel lucky to find one.

I have a feeling that I went to grad school in a sort of golden age for finding used early modern drama texts; there'd been money in the late sixties and seventies for editions and such, and faculty were teaching lots of cool classes. And then by the time I was in grad school, folks were retiring and selling off their teaching collections, and so, I could find and afford some.

Today, of course, I found only one of my beloved Nebraska editions in the familiar blue colors, a Massinger play with heavy ink scrawling, so I passed it up. I saw one more recent edition of Behn's The Rover, but I already have several copies, so I didn't bother.

I miss the pleasure of finding those blue Nebraska editions, of feeling hopeful adding to my library.