| The Books of John "Poet" Close | |
| We've been lucky enough to receive a couple of books penned by the ... eccentric ... John "Poet" Close from one of our contributors, Lorraine Smith. | |
| They are in a fairly worn condition, but have a fantastic insight to the Close Family, in particular Poet Close. There are innumerable drawings accompanying his doggerel (too many exclamation marks for my liking) with commentaries on the Lake District in general and Kirkby Stephen in particular. | |
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Given that they are 140 and 120 years old respectively
they are in remarkably good condition inside
(unfortunately the covers have suffered). You can occasionally find originals of these but they are incredibly rare and cost a fortune. |
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| If you are a Close, any relation to John "Poet" Close, or are looking for background into mid-nineteenth century Westmorland and Cumberland ... you will not be disappointed by these. | |
| What we are offering are complete scans of each book into a Portable Document Format (.PDF) file. This can then either be read and / or printed with the Adobe Acrobat Reader. Chances are you already have this installed on your computer, but if not just visit the link below. | |
| You'll need to have the Adobe Reader installed. This is a freely available piece of software commonly used for the creation and display of documents. You can get a free copy here: Get the Adobe Reader | |
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Because there are so many scanned pages (he didn't skimp
on volume), these files are
BIG!
As a result we can't email them out because there's not a mail server in the world that wouldn't complain! So, what we'll have to do is pop them onto a standard CD-ROM and mail them. Unfortunately this means a small postage cost, but to keep it simple it will just be a Worldwide flat rate. |
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| The quality of image below is a meagre fraction of the full high-res scans... yes, you can read them. They are very clear. | |
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| Poet Close's Grand Lake Book of 1869 | |
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64 pages of doggerel and commentary based in and around
Kirkby
Stephen, Westmorland in 1869. This volume also contains (rather bizarrely) an additional 24-page reference manual entitled Diseases of the Lungs and Air-Ways. Total number of printable A4 pages: 57 File size: 175 Mb Format: .PDF |
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| Poet Close's Christmas Book of 1885 | |
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114 pages of doggerel and commentary based in and around
Kirkby
Stephen, Westmorland in 1885. This volume contains a drawing of his daughter Elizabeth and grandson Cecil Oversby Sayer. Total number of printable A4 pages: 61 File size: 150 Mb Format: .PDF |
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| Thanks for looking ... oh yeah ... and please visit our shop ... | |
