My Favorite Bookshelves

This post is written in response to librarian extraordinaire Maeve Clark's Facebook page My Favorite Bookshelf. That got me thinking... I have a LOT of favorite bookshelves. Here is a bit about the biggest one.

The first of many jaw dropping aspects of Foxcroft when we came to look at it was the library. I've written about it and the wall of bookshelves before. Here is the first mention, from June 29, 2005. A Little Bit of Completion.

Here is how the Foxcroft library looks today:

Bess built the library to fit her bookshelves. There is a seven inch gap between the far left hand side of the shelves and the wall. That was deliberate as Bess wrote to the builders "I want a space to store my card tables there." I have found Weis Bookshelf Company catalogs from 1916. That seems to be when she purchased them. That predates the building of Foxcroft by 12 years. I've also found a letter where Bess asked her moving man if they could transport the bookshelves with the books in them. Thankfully he replied "No."

Buying Foxcroft did not include the contents of the house, but we happily purchased these from Helen's cousin. She also told us to keep whatever papers or books we wanted, especially anything related to the house. That is how we were able to merge our collection of books with those already here.