Washington Beck received this book as a gift in 1884

It's been a while since I posted a book inscription. In fact, I haven't featured one since the "Eight awesome things you'll never find inside e-books" post in early December.

So here's one from 130 years ago.

It appears on the title page of Jane Shore; or The Goldsmith's Wife by Mary E. Bennett. The small, tight cursive handwriting states:

For Washington Beck.
with my love and best wishes on the 16th of January 1884
Miss C Carwood

Perhaps fearing the inscription was not proof enough of ownership, Washington Beck also stamped his name onto the endpapers no fewer than 12 times.

Given that this book was purchased in a Lancaster, Pennsylvania, bookshop, it's possible that this is Washington Beck, as detailed on a website focused on the descendants of Carl Friedrich Gauss. That Beck, who was born in 1816, was a miller, miner and farmer at various stages of his life.

As for Jane Shore, here are the first and last sentences:

FIRST

In September, 1468, a small party of young people were assembled to pass an evening in merriment in the great parlour of a mercer's house in Cheapside.

LAST

The rapid tide of civil discord has prevented the threatened persecution against the Lollard peasantry of Abergavenny, who, with joyful looks, in their holiday clothes, their bards singing congratulatory lays, hailed the return of Sir Leolin, their gifted young constable, and Nest, the "Flower of the Welsh Mountains," to their native province.