Have you seen this book?

[Yomiko]

In perusing an old hole-in-the-wall bookstore, I found this decrepit-looking book, and just had to take it home. After looking it over, I'd like to know more about it, like the end of the last chapter, and ideally, anything about the mysterious owner of the book, or maybe even how it got from Massachusetts to Florida.

It's called The Blue Flower, by Henry Van Dyke, and it's apparently an anthology of short stories. It was published in 1902, and the copy I have is a reprinted edition, from 1917. The back cover and some pages are missing. The spine is completely deteriorated, and the pages I have are in a series of separated sections.

Inside the front cover is a handwritten name and address:
Dorothy P. Garland
1134 Beacon Street
Brookline? (Handwriting is difficult to read here) Mass.

Also in the lower-left corner, inside the cover, is a very small tag:

The Old Corner Book Store, Inc.
Boston, - Mass.

Maybe someone here knows of the book, or lives in Massachusetts and might know something about Miss Dorothy or her family? It's just so intriguing!

[Lady19thC]

I live in MA and did a search. The name, address and town did not come up with any matches. It is quite possible that this person retired, and moved from Boston to the toasty climes of Florida, and sold the book when she was done with it.

[Xamonas Chegwe]

Hmmm, that name, "Dorothy P. Garland" - sure she's not from Kansas? :D

[Yomiko]

It might have been a different town? Her handwriting was difficult to make out in a few places, but I could make out Brook fairly well. Is there more than one town in MA starting with Brook?

Well, I'm fairly certain that by now she's passed away. I think at the very least somebody retired to Florida, taking the book with them, if not her.

Yeah, Kansas crossed my mind at one point, but the handwriting is fairly clear on the Massachusetts part. :)

Edit: I plugged the address as I have it in the first post into Mapquest, and got a location. I looked up other towns starting with Brook, and got no exact matches.

[Logos]

Used book sellers have a large network spanning the world like abebooks.com (http://dogbert.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?sts=t&an=Henry+Van+Dyke&y=6&x=51) so that might explain a books long travels.

There are no Dorothy "P" Garlands (http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gsr&GSfn=Dorothy+&GSmn=&GSln=Garland&GSbyrel=all&GSby=&GSdyrel=all&GSdy=&GSst=0&GSob=n) at findagrave.com ..

but there are a few Dorothy Garlands at the Latter Day Saints site which is the largest database in the world for vital statistics :)

LDS (http://www.familysearch.org/Eng/search/frameset_search.asp?PAGE=ancestorsearchresults.asp )

The Dorothy born in 1880 *might* be your Dorothy.