Emerson's Essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson

 This has been sitting in the garage in a house built in 1945.  There is no copyright date to be found anywhere, but it does have Chicago: RAND, McNALLY & COMPANY, PUBLISHERS. on one of the pages.

On the inside cover, in pencil, it looks like it says,

Penitentiary     Jim Sanders-      Fort Madison     Speech - '09 H.S. 
101 ? 19709    726     Edith ? '09  'Xmas     Ethyl (?)

(Definitely NOT 2009 because I have had it since before that.)

Please examine pictures carefully, they are part of the description.