The rudiments of bibliomania

Abstract

This is a discursive essay about the exuberant cult of books as collectors’ items, largely by devoted eccentrics in times when the book was king, as an agency of literacy and civilization. It relates to both national and regional figures, significantly “men only”. It is consequently traditional and retrospective. Nevertheless, even in contemporary times of feminism and electronic information technology, the study of bibliomania may be instructive because the ultimate basis of printed books – their aesthetic appeal apart – is not so very different from that diverse continuum of factual and analytical data the basis of today’s rapidly evolving IT. A brief account of the perhaps excessive devotion to books as printed artefacts by a few of the more picturesque and off‐beat characters along the margins of the English past may prove of some relevance to today’s librarians.

Citation

Glasgow, E. (1999), "The rudiments of bibliomania", Library Review, Vol. 48 No. 3, pp. 152-157. https://doi.org/10.1108/00242539910270330