First Impressions: A Novel Of Old Books, Unexpected Love, And Jane Austen - Plot & Excerpts
His beloved printing-office was in the last stages of destruction by fire, and grief and anger consumed him just as the flames consumed his paper and his press and melted his metal type. He had gone through in his mind again and again, since he had been shaken awake by his landlady in the predawn hours, the last moments he had spent in the shop, but he knew he had extinguished all the lamps; he knew this was not his fault. For the first time in his life he thought that his ability to recall almost any words set in type was a curse rather than a blessing, for now he could remember nothing but a small piece that had run in the Leeds Intelligencer a few weeks before. In a story about a fire that had been started by some idle boys playing with gunpowder, the penalties for that and related offenses had been stated: Every person selling, or exposing to sale, any squibs, serpents, or fireworks, or permitting the same to be cast or fired from their house, or other place, into any public street or road, shall for every offence forfeit £5, half to the poor, and half to the informer.—And if any person through negligence, or carelessness, shall fire, or cause to be fired, any dwelling-house, out-house, or other building, he shall forfeit £100 or be committed to the house of correction, to hard labour, for 18 months.
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