is it false respect, you may ask,to preserve intact a beautifully printed book,an elegantly bound edition?of course not.i'd no more scribble all over a first edition of "Paradise Lost” than i'd give my baby a set of crayons and an original Rembrandt!i wouldn't mark up a painting or a statue.it's soul,so to speak,is inseparble from it's boby.And the beauty of a rare edition or of richly manufactured volume is like that of a painting or a statue. If tour respect for magnificent binding orprinting gets in the way,buy yourself a cheap edition and pay your respects to the author