Unusual to see a byline shared with elm trees.  Yet who better than hedge-row elms to know about the countryside?  And Mr. Woodward is aptly named, for whether we head woodward, hillockward, mountainward, rivuletward, or valleyward, we'll undoubtedly learn to enjoy the countryside.  From How to Enjoy the Countryside by Marcus Woodward, undated.

From Ohio Wesleyan University's 1923 yearbook.An illustration by D. Beck for Ohio Wesleyan's 1923 yearbook.

A throne atop a giant book.  Yet he didn't remove his shoes.  From Monmouth's 1913 yearbook.

What is this theme of shoes on books?  Also pictured is one from Bennett's 1966 yearbook.

You noticed how dumbed-down movies are, and here's why -- the dictionary ran out in 1934.  In case viewers couldn't follow the simple statement, both the projection room and dictionary are labeled.  The artist put the book title on the back cover.  From The Film Daily, 1934.

Reblog if you walk through the valley of giant books.

From Mary Washington's 1947 yearbook.

Manx Crosses, or, The Inscribed and Sculptured Monuments of the Isle of Man From About the End of the Fifth to the Beginning of the Thirteenth Century by P. M. C. Kermode, 1907.

You've heard of the art crowd, but did you know they're color-by-number?  From The Art Crowd by Sophy Burnham, 1973.

From Japan and Its Art by Marcus Bourne Huish, 1912.

A decade before Jonathan Livingston Seagull, there was Evangeline: Pigeon of Paris by Natalie Savage Carlson, 1960.

"Her book."  From Lasell's 1929 yearbook.

Here are four different / same books by Dostoevsky / Dostoyevsky / Dostoieffsky: Injury and Insult, The Insulted and Humiliated, The Insulted and Injured, and Humiliated and Insulted.  We wonder if even a single person on earth has read all four.

A rose is a peacock feather.  From Rosa Amorosa by George Egerton, 1901.

When a bookworm doubles as a bookmark.  From Unknown magazine, July 1940.

"The word-hoard."  From Handbook of the Old-Northern Runic Monuments of Scandinavia and England by George Stephens, 1884.

Dancing on a dictionary.  From Colorado College's 1927 yearbook.

From St. Joseph's 1922 yearbook.

Who Lifted the Lid Off of Hell? by Elbert Hubbard, 1914.

"A book is tremendously important.  Nobody ever paid for the price of a book, they pay only for the printing.  But a book is actually an offering and must be regarded as such.  If you give honor to the man who writes it, there is something in that which further induces the expressive powers of writing."

—Louis I. Kahn, "I Love Beginnings" lecture, 1972

A true skeptic is skeptical even of the rock-solid.  Note that the author of this book opted for anonymity, for Big Science bullies were as bad in 1877 as they are today.  From Skepticism in Geology by Verifier, 1877.