Since the only free online versions of The Phantom of the Opera are all duplicates of a poor translation done way back when. I decided to check around our bookshelves to see if there was a copy in there. I saw Dracula, Moby Dick, some other things, a whole buttload of goosebumps books, and a set of ancient books that look like they were bound in nylon. Here I find "The Swiss Family Robinson", a second "Moby Dick", "The Lone Ranger", and finally the rightmost book on the shelf.
The rightmost book is faded purple, and has no markings on the book cover whatsoever, except for a golden stencil and some crayon scratchings among which the name "Liam" is written diagonally in one corner. Liam is my eldest brother. I'm guessing he wrote this as a child some time around 1990.
Anyway, I gently open the yellow pages of the book to be greeted by a blank page with scroll work depicting Winnie the Pooh. I turn the page to find the title "Now We Are Six" with my mother's name written at the top of the page.
Now there were three things wrong with the name written at the top of the page. Firstly, why was her name there instead of my brothers? Secondly, why was it her maiden name? Thirdly, why did it look suspiciously crooked?
So I turn the page again, and find a page with Pooh holding a sign saying "Catalogue Number [XX/XX/X]", and the writing:
This book was first published October 13th 1927
Reprinted forty times
Reprinted 1961
This damn thing is 50 years old, and belonged to both my mother as a child, and my eldest brother. If that ain't a family treasure, I don't know what is.