Debates, Resolutions & Other Proceedings, of The Convention of the Commonwealth of MA to Which the Federal Constitution is Prefixed The 1789 title page inscribed by the owner, John James Beckley Once in a while. Once in a while you see a book that is so much more than a book. More than a leather binding and all the wear of the dirty fingertips over tallow candles. Sometimes you find a book that talks and breathes, that lives its history and the history of our nation with it. I want to tell you about John Beckley's book. It almost certainly wasn't his only book. He was a learned man. The largest collection of books in the country at that time was probably Thomas Jefferson-- some 6,500 volumes. More typically, people owned a few volumes and the very wealthy maybe owned a few dozen. As Brian Hoey once said, "Some studies suggest that as many 60 percent of colonial households owned at least one book". And more to the point, "..while many people owned