Author: Alfred Tennyson
Title: Poems of 1842
Publisher: Collin Publishers 
Year of publication: London and Glasgow
Place of publication: 1968
Editor: Christopher Ricks
Place of purchase: College Street
Purchase cost: Rs. 200
Ownership: Secondhand
Transcription:
[front cover]
Bhola Banerjee
23/8/68
[flyleaf]
Rs 25/-
Bhola Banerjee
Reader in English
Gauhati University
~Gauhati: 1968~
————————————
Submitted by: Isha Lahiri
Author: Alistair Maclean
Title: Partisans
Publisher: Fontana/Collins
Year of publication: 1988
Place of purchase: College Street, Kolkata
Purchase cost: Rupees 20
Ownership: Secondhand
General comments: On a day in autumn in 2013, while rummaging through the book stalls at Peary Charan Sarkar Street (College Street by lane), I was overjoyed to buy a handful of Alistair Maclean books each at 20 INR. In one of them I was delighted to find this.
Transcription of inscription:
Surajit Biswas.
Class-IX
1989.
Be never too young, never too old
always strong enough
to live and love and inquire
ever loving,
always kind.
May life share its many blessings
with you,
and may its burdens be ever light
The wind at your back,
the sun in your soul,
and our love in your heart
now and forever.
For you and your Daddy,
my heart ever yours,
my love and my life
yours forever.
Submitted by: Agniva Roychowdhury
Author: Amitabha Chattopadhyay
Title: Chalochitra, Samaj o Satyajit Ray Vol.1
Publisher: Film
Year of publication: 1980
Place of publication: Asansol
Place of purchase: Golkpark, Kolkata
Ownership: Secondhand
General comments: I found this book while taking my usual stroll around the pavement bookshops near Golpark. This book is considered one of the first serious studies of Satyajit Ray’s films and won Silver Lotus at the 1981 National Awards ceremony. The transcription on the endpaper of the book suggests that this particular copy was gifted by the author to the actor Anil Chattopadhyay, who himself was part of three films by Ray.
Transcription of inscription:
শ্রী অনিল চট্টোপাধ্যায় কে
শ্রদ্ধার সহিত
– অমিতাভ চট্টোপাধ্যায়
১২/১/৯২
To Shri Anil Chattopadhyay
Respectfully
– Amitabha Chattopadhyay
12/1/92
Submitted by: Sarbajit Mitra
Author: Paul Gallico 
Title: Snowflake
Publisher: Michael Joseph
Year of publication: 1952
Place of publication: London
Place of purchase: Blossom Book House, Bangalore
Purchase cost: Rupees 50
Ownership: Secondhand
Transcription of inscription:
[inscription]
To a favorite uncle
from a favorite (he hopes!)
nephew. Happy birthday
on his ?th birthday
6-2-53
[stamp]
USL
WEEDED
[marginalia on first page] 
Poona
25 : 3 : 53
Submitted by: Vismitha
Author: Gabriel García Márquez 
Title: The Story of a Shipwrecked Sailor
Publisher: Penguin
Year of publication: 1996
Place of publication: New Delhi
Translator: Randolph Hogan
Ownership: Secondhand
General comments: Found in the mixed collection of Toopsi Ray and her daughter, Meghna. Toopsi says she bought this book secondhand to give to Kim, her husband at the time. The copy as she found it already had the first inscription. When her intended recipient didn’t seem to enjoy the book, Toopsi says she simply inscribed it to herself and took possession.
Transcription of inscriptions:
[primary inscription]
Happy Birthday
Shillong
[secondary inscription, lighter impression]
TOOPSIE
2007
Submitted by: Toopsi Ray, via Shalmi Barman
Author: Scyld Berry
Title: A Cricket Odyssey: England on Tour 1987-88
Publisher: Pavilion Books 
Year of publication: 1988
Place of publication: London
Editor: Foreword by Tim Rice
Place of purchase: Amazon India
Ownership: Secondhand
General comments: With photographs by Graham Morris. This book was acquired online by Arshdeep from an Amazon seller who specialises (he says) in secondhand sports books. Spotted by Shalmi in the School of Cultural Texts and Records.
Transcription of inscription:
Scyld Berry
Submitted by: Arshdeep Singh Brar, via Shalmi Barman
Author: Leonard Hutton
Title: Cricket is My Life
Publisher: Hutchinson & Co. Ltd.
Place of publication: London
Place of purchase: Ebay UK
Ownership: Secondhand
General comments: I found this book while looking for secondhand cricket books at the Ebay UK website. However, finding a book autographed by Sir Len was too good to be true and I didn’t hesitate for a moment before submitting my bid. Sir Leonard was one of the finest to have graced the game and this signed copy of his autobiography will be a prized possession of my collection.
Transcription of inscription:
Len Hutton
Submitted by: Sarbajit Mitra
Author: উইলিয়াম শেক্সপীয়ার [William Shakespeare] 
Title: ম্যাকবেথ [Macbeth]
Publisher: আদিত্য প্রকাশালয় [Aditya Publishing House]
Year of publication: 1998
Place of publication: Kolkata
Place of purchase: College Street, Kolkata
Ownership: Secondhand
General comments: Found and purchased by Shrutakirti Dutta while collecting ‘copy books’ of Shakespeare for Jadavpur University’s Shakespeare in Bengal project. Translations and prose summaries of Shakespeare’s plays continue to be used by English students of the various Kolkata colleges which have had Shakespeare in their syllabi since inception. Going by the cover illustration and the illustrated flyleaf with a space for inscription, this abridged translation in prose was probably meant to be given to younger readers.
Transcription of inscription:
প্রিয় বিপ্লবের ‘জন্মদিনে’
সোনালীর প্রীতি
উপহার
[On beloved Biplob’s ‘birthday’
Sonali’s loving
gift]
Submitted by: Shrutakirti Dutta, via Shalmi Barman
Author: Edgar Allan Poe
Title: Tales of Mystery and Imagination 
Publisher: Everyman’s Library
Year of publication: 1971
Place of publication: London
Editor: Introduction by Pádraic Colum
Place of purchase: Kolkata
Ownership: Secondhand
General comments: This book was bought by Devalina di at the Kolkata Book Fair 2017. She told me that it was very unlikely she would read it, given the punishingly small print, but Poe is always a good purchase and even more so when the cover art and inscriptions are as interesting as these.
Transcription of inscription:
[flyleaf]
(illustration of four hearts) 10
EVERY B
[title page] 
1975.
To Ruma from herself.
[Introduction, p. v]
A memorable day The 17th, and a happy day to.
Submitted by: Devalina Mookerjee, via Shalmi Barman
Authors: Various
Title: Prize Stories 1984 – The O. Henry Awards
Publisher: Anchor Press
Year of publication: 1984
Place of publication: Garden City, NY
Editor: William Abrahams
Ownership: Uncertain – either stolen from library, bought from library sale, or some other means entirely
General comments: Hardbound edition, with a bookplate inside the front cover identifying it as belonging to the American Center Library in Calcutta. I inherited this book from my father, who once told me that it was absurdly simple, back in the day, to
walk into the American Center Library, walk out with a book that took one’s fancy, and never come back. I wonder if that is how he acquired this volume, or whether it was borrowed in turn from a college friend who had flexible ideas about property. It is one of my favourite inherited books because of the list of unconnected, evocative words scribbled on the opening endpaper. These are words and phrases a previous owner had probably intended to look up (their occurrences are underlined in-text in blue pen), but this page always gave me the impression of a freeflowing prose poem.
Transcription of inscription:
gauzy, numismatic
‘canny burgler’, fomenting
coddling, hammock, winnow
alianthus (tree), whanged,
vamoosed, rancid, drunk-clobbered,
hombre, grue, flamenco, hood-winked,
pit-free, harridan, supine, vim,
popeyed, dire, funk, tummy, sniveling,
purblind, jowled, whoop, hubris, bravado,
permeated, gravy mix, acne, pantyhose, defecation,
enema, paprika, chunk, warped, marauded,
mope, corduroy, macrame, sequined, pardoner
confidante, poodles, cherubic, houndstooth, laundromat,
tawny, faille, shantung, velours, kugel, pirogen, latr[?]
blintzes, zinnias, muggers, stranglers, dentures, coursing,
‘her hair cut short in bangs’, dewlaps, rakehe[?]
toupee, gossamer, dowager’s humps, ‘shoes cut out
for bunions’, tableaux, guitty, conflagrations, marauders,
caldrons, crenellated, circumcision, jonquil, ruse,
brambles, scoffed, marquee, sorcery, dung rodent,
pinochle, squawk, thwack, frond, barrettes, cornet,
obeisant, beak of light, cuneiform, comatose,
Submitted by: Shalmi Barman
EndPapers 