I was tempted by the price to buy a used copy of the Everyman Library’s hard-back PALE FIRE (1992), the one with Richard Rorty’s introduction. The book arrived heavily stamped front, back and sides: Please Return to The Patients’ Library, The Royal London Hospital, Whitechapel. My fears that it may have been stolen were soon assuaged by a rubber-stamped notice in large red CAPS on an inner page:
DISCARDED BY THE PATIENTS’ LIBRARY, THE ROYAL LONDON HOSPITAL, WHITECHAPEL.
I immediately pictured some over-sensitive (censuring &/or censoring?) librarian deciding that Nabokov’s Pale Fire was not sufficiently comforting for sick readers seeking positive proof of an After Life.
Stan Kelly-Bootle.