The New Yorker, July 30, 1932 P. 22
True story about an adventure that befell Anne Parrish one June day in Paris. She was wandering through the old book stalls along the Seine with her husband who had been there before. He sat down at a table on the quai an let her go rummaging. She came over with and old English book for children, called "Jack Frost and Other Stories." Only paid a franc for it. Hadn't seen anything like it in twenty years. Not since she was a child. It contained her favorite nursery stories. Even remembered one of them. Her husband looked at it. He admitted she must have know it in her younger days. On the flyleaf was her name and New York address.
lady___day on September 14th, 2020 at 01:34 UTC »
Oh, I have a similar story!
My great great grandfather was a politician and author, not super well known, but influential in his time. My brother likes to search his name periodically on ebay to see if any neat heirlooms show up that we can collect for our family history. Now one of his books shows up, which is fairly common, but this one was signed:
"To my son, from the Author, lady___day's great great grandfather's name"
How fun, it has a connection to my great great grandfather and my great grandfather. My brother reaches out to the seller and ends up buying it as a gift for my dad for father's day.
When my dad receives the book, he's excited because he didn't already have a copy of this one book. He opens it up and sees the inscription and is thrilled. How cool that this has touched hands of four generations. But it gets better...
My dad starts leafing through the pages and out falls a small folded piece of paper, a piece of paper my brother and the seller hadn't even noticed. On the paper is a typewriter written note with a signature below. My dad begins to read the note out loud:
"Dad, I thought you would enjoy this and get a kick out of the inscription. Love, lady___day's Aunt's name"
Turns out that my deceased aunt (my dad's eldest sister) had given this book to my deceased grandfather years before and had somehow ended up donated to a thrift store after his death. So this book had been written by my great great grandfather, gifted to my great grandfather, left the family after his death, was rediscovered by my aunt in the 80s, gifted by her to my grandfather, left the family again, found by a seller in a thrift store, sold on eBay to my brother and then gifted to my father... I doubt my dad is going to let go of this one anytime soon, hopefully it will pass along to my niece and beyond.
damonator5000 on September 14th, 2020 at 00:47 UTC »
For our wedding, we bought old books as part of the centerpieces. We tried to find books that were relevant to the guests at the table and we let them take them home, if they wanted. One of our friends is a huge plant nerd, so we got a botany book as part of the stack for his table. He later informed us the book we got was actually his from decades ago. He happily took it home with him.
CalmPilot101 on September 14th, 2020 at 00:21 UTC »
Not the same thing, but I once did an internet search on a subject I needed info on for work.
Found a great article which contained the exact information I needed.
I then realized I myself had authored the article a few years earlier. My past self was brilliant!