I BOUGHT A GERMAN-ENGLISH DICTIONARY FROM AN ANTIQUE SHOP AND I JUST LOOKED THROUGH IT AND IT'S FROM 1929.

It's (possibly) original owner wrote in it quite a bit, with a black pen rather than a pencil, including what I can gather of her name: Jillie A. Lareev. It's written in cursive English, except for the many notes she makes on different German words and prepositions. Also written on the same page as her name is this: (München, 1930). I did some research, and München is Munich, the capital of Bavaria (Bavaria is a federal state of Germany). Since she wouldn't just write that for no evident reason, my theory is that she was an American who traveled to Germany, possibly in order to study the language and culture, and that's where she got this dictionary and the newspaper clipping (more about that soon) within it, bringing both back with her to the United States when she eventually returned. However, I keep in mind that this is after World War I and just a few years before Adolf Hitler first claimed the Third Reich (plus the Nazis occupied the Bavarian Parliament in 1933) so there's probably quite a lot that I'm missing in terms of theories and info.

On the fifth page, there was a cut out section of a newspaper from 1929 Germany. I did some translating, and the portion of the article was on the topic of a German poet named Thomas Mann winning the Nobel Prize for Literature.

While I'm talking about this, I just wanted to point out the German word for dictionary: Wörterbuch. Wörter means words. Buch means book. The German translation for dictionary is literally "book of words" and I think that's beautiful.

If I find out anything else I'll try to post it immediately.