from Franco
Below are some pages from the booklet What Say the Scriptures About Hell? published in the Swedish language in 1903. (Click on the pictures to enlarge if you need more detail).
The booklet credits August Lundborg as publisher, and Fritiof Lindkvist as translator. For Lundborg's history see the history of Sweden in the 1991 Yearbook. He is also mentioned in the Proclaimers book. For Lindkvist's history see the history of Norway in the 1997 and 2012 Yearbooks.
8 comments:
An extremely attractive cover.
I noticed that Watch Tower expidition was in Örebro. So it is probably from 1907 or later. I think this was not in the congregation library in Örebro at least not in the 90's when I was there, the historic items are often missing in congregation libraries which is a shame.
Paul
Paul - Do you think the historic items were donated to the branch office, carried off by private collectors, or simply discarded by unknowing persons who thought they were "in poor condition" or "out of date"?
Personally, I know of collectors who did "rescue" items from congregation libraries, primarily to save them from the ignominious fate of being discarded. Having first-hand knowledge locally, many older publications (from the 1930s and 1940s, and maybe even earlier) were discarded during remodeling or annual cleaning projects. Tragic.
Poor condition is a real concern, though. I have in my possession an original copy of the Kingdom News advertising The Finished Mystery (1917), but it is extremely fragile, and the paper keeps flaking off. I'm currently considering how best to preserve it, if even possible.
It is tragic that so much history has disappeared, but hindsight is a wonderful thing. At the time, so much material was just ephemera. Think of the very early books in this history, where only a handful survive, or the periodicals where very little seems to have survived.
Preservation of fragile material is a problem outside of real professional attention - between two layers of "glass" for instance. We should be thankful that so much has been copied and is now available electronically. One of the rare items in my own collection, a complete Pittsburg Gazette on the Russell-Easton debate was flaking away into oblivion. So I chickened out. I sold it on eBay. It now became someone else's problem!
Well I certainly hope you photocopied it before you sold it?
I have a fondness for Daily Heavenly Manna books which can contain a wealth of information when names and addresses have been added alongside relevant birth dates. I recall asking a brother whose Congregation was among the earliest in Britain if his Congregation library contained one. "Oh yes, he said, we have one of these." He made further enquiry and came back to me some days later explaining that following a recent refurbishment the older books that rarely were used were placed in a skip and discarded. Give me strength!
Son of Ton
How is it that people have no concept of history!? Especially when history plays so big a role in WT teaching?
I too have been frustrated by how often literature of significant age is simply discarded by a those looking after congregation libraries. With the "From Our Archives" articles I believe that more and more of the general Witness population are aware of the need to keep some of the older history. Here's hoping.....
Post a Comment