Quotations

When we quote from the Bible or from Shakespeare, everyone can access the original text but this not true of every work ever published! Not everything is on line. When I want to quote from Poul Anderson or from some other sf writer, I need a physical copy of an edition of the relevant work and ideally, although not necessarily, each of my readers also possesses a copy of the same work from which to verify the quotation.

A passage in a work by Poul Anderson reminded me of a passage in a work by Isaac Asimov so I thought that I would quote both passages. Then I remembered that I had disposed of all my Asimovs as part of a downsizing, decluttering, pre-house-move operation. This is not a tragedy. I am very unlikely to want to reread or study Foundation and, in any case, can probably buy a new copy if I ever do want one: more on this below. I thought that, if I described the passage, then someone would be able to quote it for us but then something else happened.

The Search For A Physical Copy Of A Book

Lancashire Libraries do not have all the Foundation volumes and now charge £5 for every out of county reservation. Sod that for a game of cricket as some of my compatriots would say.

In the sf section of Waterstones Bookshop, I found new copies of recently published editions of the original Foundation volumes, of I, Robot and of some Dune volumes but no Poul Anderson. So people read about Asimov's and Herbert's interstellar empires but not Anderson's...

I bought a new copy of Second Foundation so that now I am able to quote the relevant passage but that will have to wait until tomorrow.