Fine line black tattoo of an open book with a script quotation on the upper back of a woman with her hair pinned up.

Open book with quote on upper back

Fine line · Back · Black and grey · Photo

An open book is drawn in thin black linework with curled page edges and a shaded spine. The pages carry a line of handwritten script reading "I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading." The design is in black ink only, centred on the upper back, and the photograph is taken from behind against a plain white background.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Marguerite,

Keep reading

I have read your letter four times now, once for the news and three times for the handwriting, which has gone very spiky since you took up the new pen. The post office in Dover kept the parcel two days because the customs man could not believe a box of second-hand novels had crossed the Channel without a bribe. I told him the only contraband was Mrs Ainsley's secret pudding recipe, which I have now memorised, so you may stop worrying about it.

The book you asked after is the blue one with the cracked spine. It was tucked under the seat of the carrier's cart, wrapped in oilcloth, and when the driver unwrapped it on the quay he swore it had been reading itself. I am not sure he was wrong. The inside cover still says Ruth, in pencil, and beneath it someone has written, very faintly, that an open book is a door nobody can lock. I have decided to believe that is true.

I am sending you a sketch of the page I like best, the one with the line about there being no enjoyment like reading. Copy it out for your own cover if you like. I shall expect a reply by the next boat, and if you do not write I will assume the lighthouse keeper has finally kept you in conversation until midnight again.

Your loving sister, Frances

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