SERENDIPITY: THE AFTERLIFE OF THE OBJECT (HB)

Carol Mavor’s first ‘happy accident’ occurred in 1980 when visiting New York’s Serendipity 3, a café favoured by Andy Warhol. The book’s happy, yet dark, accidents include Anne Frank’s journal, discovered in the Secret Annex after the Second World War; Emily Dickinson’s poems, scribbled on salvaged envelopes; and Lolita, rescued from incineration by Nabokov’s wife Véra. All history is about loss, and in the case of this book, much of it is tragic – but Serendipity also offers the happiness that can be found in unexpected discoveries.