Bibliomania

There's an interesting article in today's Guardian about 'Bibliomania: the strange history of compulsive book buying'. It's good to know our symptoms have pedigree.

You would have certainly witnessed 'courage, slaughter, devastation, and phrensy' during any Folio Members Room sale.

>1 cronshaw: "You would have certainly witnessed 'courage, slaughter, devastation, and phrensy' during any Folio Members Room sale."

Dismemberment, even.

>1 cronshaw: There's an interesting article in today's Guardian

Excellent read. What I love about articles like that is you can read them, gaze at the photos of thousands of books, and then conclude "well at least I'm not that bad."

I would have loved to have been at that auction, though even early 19th century prices seem a tad rich for me.

Even though I am picky over what I purchase and do buy only books that I will read or at least browse through, I have a mania over pictures of shelves, libraries, and books about books, people buying books, listing books they have read or want to read. So, yeah. I fit into the Bibliomania category! I am not OCD, but for some books that I love to reread every year, I buy up to 3 copies of from FS. One to read, one as a backup in case something happens to my reading copy. Then a backup for my backup, in case something happens to that.

Someday, when I am in my grave and my nieces and nephews come down upon my belongings, they will wonder why on earth I had three copies of Lark Rise to Candleford. I'll leave no explanations for them. Let them wonder! :)

Since neither were mentioned in the Guardian article, I will add a couple of books about bibliomania. A Gentle Madness , by Nicholas Basbanes, a tale of a man who went to extraordinary lengths to steal rare books from libraries, and The Anatomy of Bibliomania by Holbrook Jackson, which is loosely in the style of The Anatomy of Melancholy, but not anywhere near as long.

As for >4 Lady19thC:, I can recommend a great picture book of libraries, "The Library: A World History", by James Campbell and Will Pryce. I got it from the FS, although it is published by Thames and Hudson.

>4 Lady19thC:

Libraries with an essay by Umberto Eco is amazing.

>4 Lady19thC: I cannot imagine having backups of books, though I have backups of perfumes since sometimes formula changes can render them entirely different.

>7 katielouise: And I cannot imagine backups of perfumes, even though I own over 50 fragrances! It is hard enough to get through those before they expire! At least my books will last generations and thus the same title can be passed down to several of my family members rather than just to one when I kick the bucket!