After seeing an ad for used books on my computer the other day, I got to thinking about missed opportunities.

The ad featured a vintage leather-bound book with embossed gold lettering and gold-edged pages. It was a bit battered, but for all that, tantalizingly elegant, like a worn but still magnificent unicorn tapestry.

Mesmerized by that ad, I got to thinking about a set of books with which I’d had an on-and-off again love affair many years ago. I met them in an antique warehouse (I don’t remember the name, so I’ll just call it that) on Route 7 outside Oneonta. Seeing a sign announcing “antiques,” I had turned off the road onto a gravel driveway, parked, and walked through the door.

The interior was vast, but somehow warmly welcoming, too, with this and that arranged in such a way that I felt I was roaming through a museum instead browsing through a store. Items on display ranged from carpets to cradles to mirrors, dolls, records, fireplace bellows, Victorian jewelry, violins, gravy boats, and framed prints. At the back of the Antique Warehouse was the best part of all: a large area, vacant of everything except books.

Adding to the coziness of this section was a patchwork of threadbare oriental carpets on which were positioned a ragtag army of mismatched wooden bookshelves containing a treasure trove of children’s books, cookbooks, best sellers, classics, books on architecture, horticulture, poetry, and everything in between. Despite the vastness of the space, though, every book was within reach.

Visiting that store over the years, I had bought a wonderful old copy (illustrated by Charles Robinson) of The Secret Garden. Dracula by Bram Stoker. Daddy-Long-Legs by Jean Webster. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. And a single John Steinbeck volume that contained both East of Eden and The Wayward Bus.

What I did not buy – although I remember arbitrarily removing a book or two from the shelf, thumbing through the thick gold-edged pages, and admiring the marvelously evocative illustrations – was a 12-volume set (two books per volume) of The Waverly Novels.

The Encyclopedia Britannica describes them as “historical novels published by Sir Walter Scott between 1814 and 1832 … (that) deal with several different phases of Scottish history … in periods dating from the Middle Ages to the early 18th Century.”

By the time I encountered that exquisite set, I had already read several of The Waverly Novels, including Rob Roy, The Bride of Lammermoor, Kenilworth, and Quentin Durward, but I’d either had a hard time following the plots or I couldn’t get sufficiently engaged with the characters to care what happened to them.

With one exception: Ivanhoe.

Not only does this novel contain two of the literature’s most fascinating personalities – the beautiful and heroic Jewess Rebecca, and the arrogant but infinitely compelling Knight Templar Brian de Bois-Guilbert, whose lust (and admiration) for Rebecca puts him in a tricky bind when she is about to be burned at the stake – it is also a ripping good tale. Other than knights, jousting tournaments, and crusades, the cast of characters includes Richard the Lion Hearted, Friar Tuck, Robin Hood, conniving aristocrats, brave swineherds, a truly terrifying Grand Master of the Templars, and, of course, our valiant, handsome, noble (and a little boring) eponymous hero, Wilfred of Ivanhoe.

My love for this book, and my not-love for the other books in the series was part of my dilemma. At that time and at that store, the complete set was selling for $75.00. Not a prohibitive amount, but enough make me waver about purchasing the entire Waverly set (sorry. I couldn’t resist that).

I revisited those books many times before the day that I finally decided to purchase them. On that morning, I drove up Route 7 toward Oneota and pulled into the driveway, only to find that the Antique Warehouse was still there, but its sign was gone and a small note pinned to the door advised: STORE CLOSED. MOVED TO FLORIDA.

So … that was that.

I have three or four copies of Ivanhoe on my bookshelf. I buy them to give to friends. But I never did acquire the entire Waverly set. Checking my computer just now, I see that the same leather-bound volumes I once coveted – or an exact duplicate – was selling on the Internet for $1,500.00.

As I think back on my long-ago intimate acquaintance with those elegantly bound novels, I ask myself … Should I have bought them? (Absolutely). Could I have bought them? (Indubitably). Would I have a bought them? (Yes. If I’d had more sense).

The books not purchased. The books not written. The job not taken. The letter not answered. The challenge not met. The reward not risked.

Could’a? Should’a? Would’a?

One wonders.

Copyright © Shelly Reuben, 2024. Shelly Reuben’s books have been nominated for Edgar, Prometheus, and Falcon awards. For more about her writing, vibasit www.shellyreuben.com