Well,
dear followers. I don’t know about you, but I must confess I recognized myself as
sufering form the illness I describe in today’s post. But let’s not waste the
time and proceed with the post:Bibliomania
Have you ever heard about
an illness called Bibliomania? Neither have I. Yet, this dark desire for books
infected Europe in the 1800s. Book lovers and collectors feared becoming a
victim of the pseudo-illness.
Book collectors and
bibliophiles described “bibliomania” as a medical condition. “Any obsession can
become real disease,” says David Fernández, rare book librarian at Thomas
Fisher Rare Book Library at the University of Toronto.
The social elite and
scholars did everything they could to obtain and collect books—no matter the
price. Some collectors spent their entire fortunes to build their personal
libraries. While it was never medically classified, people in the 1800s truly
feared bibliomania. There are several written accounts, fictional and real, of
bibliomania, but the most famous and bizarre documentation is by Reverend
Thomas Frognell Dibdin, an English book lover and victim of the neurosis. In
1809 he published Bibliomania - or Book
Madness- a series of strange, rambling fictional dialogues based on
conversations and real collectors Dibdin had encountered.
The first edition of Bibliomania; or Book Madness published in 1809 is regarded as one of the most famous descriptions of bibliomania and book collecting in the 1800s. The Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, University of Toronto
David Fernández , speaking
about this book states, “I think a very
good word to describe the book is that it’s very bizarre.” He says it after
studying his library’s preserved copy of the 1809 first edition. “It’s a
product of the generation in which it appears.” On the title page of the book,
an engraving depicts a “book fool,” a character originally featured in the 1498
book, Ship of Fools, the first work of fiction to reference the discovery of
the new world. That character is described as a vain book collector, the story
touching on madness among scholars and collectors, explains Fernández.
According to Reverend
Dibdin, the author of this strange book, the “book-plague” had reached its
height in Paris and London in 1789. After the French Revolution in 1799, French
aristocrats sold their estates to flee from the country and many private
libraries emptied their shelves.
A bibliophile caring for his extensive collection, painted by Carl Spitzweg in 1850. Public Domain
Men and some women
collectors purchased books to conserve and preserve Europe’s literary heritage,
while others did so as a symbol of wealth and power. At this time, constructing
books was a delicate and laborious art completed by hand—from cutting the paper
to creating the binding—which added value.
Dibdin points out eight
particular types of books that collectors obsessed over: first editions, true
editions, black letter printed books, large paper copies; uncut books with
edges that are not sheared by binder’s tools; illustrated copies; unique copies
with morocco binding or silk lining; and copies printed on vellum.
Some contemporary scholars
have linked bibliomania with obsessive compulsive disorder. “The pleasure that
hoarders take in collecting can be so profound that it might define a person’s
self-image and even give the individual a life purpose.”
Reverend Dibbin’s Bibliomania was widely
popular among Dibdin’s fellow book lovers, with collectors getting in reckless
bidding wars at auctions over a copy. The book is said to have spurred a 42-day
auction at the 1817 Roxburghe sale.
