Bullfinch's Mythology

As a reward for working a Saturday (since I lost Friday to the holiday), I stopped by B&N on the way home and picked up a trio of paperbacks.  Seeing how I am about at the halfway point reading through Homer’s The Iliad (Samuel Butler’s 1898 prose translation), I had it in mind to score a more poetical version – Alexander Pope’s 1715 masterpiece, in particular – to supplement my reading.

No such luck, though.  I was hoping for a rare find in the used book section, but none were to be had.  Nor were there any in the new section.  Plenty of modern translations, yes.  But no Pope.

I did find a used paperback of Bullfinch’s Mythology.  I grew up with Edith Hamilton’s Mythology, so this is a rather recent interest for me.  Apparently, this was the reference source predating Hamilton’s work.  And it is a work which has, for me, an oddness about it.

This is my second time buying it.  Three or fours years back I found another Bullfinch in the used book section.  Thumbing through it to make sure it was sturdy, unmarked, and readable, I bought it.  When I got home and got around to reading it, I was shocked to see whole sections underlined, highlighted, pages folded over, notes written in the margins.  Was this the book I held in the store?  I put it on the shelf where it sat for months and months until I eventually threw it out.  An extreme rarity for me, for I almost never ever throw out a book (Tropic of Cancer was the only one I gleefully did).  But this particular book was unreadable.

So, wary of past experience, I made sure this newer used Bullfinch was acceptable.  It was.  I paid a few dollars for it and two others and drove home.  And lo and behold you know what I’m going to write next, right?  I go out to the deck – it’s a beautiful Saturday late afternoon – pull the Bullfinch out of my B&N bag, crack it open, and –

The entire first thirty pages are underlined, highlighted, all marked up with notes!

How again did I miss this?  How??  Am I forever cursed with this book called Bullfinch’s Mythology?

I think so.  I may have to spring fifteen bucks and buy it new, or else ask Santa for it in a couple of months.

Crazy.  Twilight Zone crazy.