At first I didn't really pay much attention to the signature as I assumed that it had been placed there by one of the book's borrowers at some point in the past 70 years. Then, a few months ago, for some reason or another I gave the signature another look.
Much to my surprise I found that the signature resembled the name of one of the significant figures in Canadian political science: R. MacGregor Dawson.
That his signature appear in a Dalhousie Library book didn't make much sense to me at first. Fortunately, a quick search shed some light on the situation. Amazingly, it seems that not only was Dawson born in Nova Scotia, but he received his BA and MA from Dalhousie and also had his first teaching gig at the university. The book was published by a prominent University of Toronto scholar at about the time Dawson arrived in Toronto.
I presume that upon his death in 1958 Dawson's books, or a portion of them, were donated to the Dalhousie libraries and have then been in circulation since then. Sadly, the bibliographic record for this book does not seem to note its provenance or provide me a way of finding out if there are other books from the same source (which there likely are).
Why I am mentioning any of this is that I just find it neat to think that because of the signature inside the front cover of this book I am able observe a connection (even if it only one individual owning the other's book) between two prominent early 20th century Canadian writers. It is also kind of neat to think that at some point Dawson was likely hunched over the same book I am now hunched over. I wonder if he was as displeased with the writing style as I am?
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