Unusual Inscription

A couple weekends ago, I picked up a book with an unusual inscription.

First, the author was Sterling Seagrave, a 5th generation (!!) American
ex-patriot living in China while retaining American citizenship. His father was
Dr. Gordon Seagrave, the author of the well-known WWII era book "Burma Surgeon".
The family had spent nearly 200 years in the orient.


The book was "the Soong Dynasty" (Harper & Row 1985), only a 5th printing, but
the inscription is the thing. This copy of the book had belonged to Hugh
Wheeler, a friend of Sterling Seagrave, and a famous Broadway librettist, best
known, perhaps, for the libretto to "Sweeney Todd" or for the libretto to
Sondheim's "A Little Night Music".


The inscription:

"2/8/86

"Hugh -

"A volume for bedtime reading and opium dreaming!

"Best Steve"



Francis A. Miniter

. . . American ex-patriot living in China . . .

This is positively painful.

--
Don Phillipson
Carlsbad Springs
(Ottawa, Canada)