Bibliophile

“ To-day, although national and private munificence has increased the number of public libraries so widely that almost every reader is within reach of books, the private library still flourishes. There are men all through the civilised world to whom a book is a jewel—an individual possession of great price. I have been asked to gossip about my books, for I also am a bibliophile. ”

“ To the real collector there is no more delightful reading than the literature which deals with the subject he has made his own; and the more ample and specialised it be, the greater will be his delight.
What bibliophile has not read, and read again, such delightful works as Burton's 'Book Hunter,' Blades' 'Enemies of Books' and 'Life and Typography of William Caxton,' 'The Library' and 'Books and Bookmen' by Andrew Lang, Harrison's 'Choice of Books' and 'Among my Books,' Clark's 'Care of Books,' Edwards' 'Libraries and Founders of Libraries,' and many others of equal charm? ”

“ In referring to this class of book-buyers, Roswell Field says, "The book-lover, so-called, who lacks any of the thrills that go with the establishment as well as the enjoyment of a library in all of its appointments has deprived himself of many of the most pleasurable literary and semi-literary emotions. That bibliophile never pats his horse or his dog. To him his books are merely tools of trade, accessories to knowledge, to be pawed over, thrown away and replaced by new copies when worn out. ”

“ Rare things and precious, as manuscripts were before the invention of typography, are well preserved, but when the printing press was invented and paper books were multiplied in the earth; when libraries increased and readers were many, then familiarity bred contempt; books were packed in out-of-the-way places and neglected, and the oft-quoted, though seldom seen, bookworm became an acknowledged tenant of the library, and the mortal enemy of the bibliophile. ”

“ It is true enough that one may form, not only a library, but a remarkably extensive one, of books [173] of reference and study; but this does not quite answer to the idea of a bibliophile—in fact, it is little more than the digestion into book-form of a mass of learning and useful information. Again, if, without embracing such classes of volumes, we limit ourselves to those which, as we express the matter above, are positively important, we of course find on our shelves all the capital authors, ancient and modern ”

“ The amateur, then, is the person we have in our eye, and especially the bibliophile who has but lately been bitten with this pleasant mania of collecting. We would teach him how to arrange and keep his books orderly and in good case, and would tell him what to buy and what to avoid. By the library we do not understand a study where no one goes, and where the master of the house keeps his boots, an assortment of walking-sticks, the “Waverley Novels,” “Pearson on the Creed,” “Hume’s Essays,” and a collection of sermons. ”

“ He who collects such large paper books as mature judgment determines are appropriate, and because he sees them to have genuine points of merit over and above small paper copies, is a book lover. In a charming little volume, written by an American bibliophile, I read the following passage, confirming in part the foregoing:—
'Good editions of good books, though they may often be expensive, cannot be too highly commended. ”

“ Civilization has reached the most unexpected of its ages, the age of paper. Now that everyone writes books, no one shows any particular eagerness to buy them. Besides, our young authors are well on [8] the way to building up whole libraries for themselves out of their own works. They need only be left to their own devices.
If we were to subdivide the species book collector into its various classes, the top-most rank in the whole subtle and capricious family should without doubt be given to the bibliophile. ”

“ Against this pernicious heresy it is the duty of every honest bibliophile to protest.
We need waste no words on the purchaser of “subscription sets” and many-volumed collections51 of “Kings and Queens of Neo-Cymric Realism and Romance,” and “The Universalest of All Libraries of Super-extraordinary Fiction,” in forty-eight volumes, fifteen dollars down and five dollars a month until the purchaser is summoned to a Better Land. ”

“ The learned bibliophile, Pierre Alexander Gratet Duplessis, recognizing the value of the paper, and desiring a larger audience for it, translated it into French, and gave it to Jacques Joseph Techener for the "Bulletin du Bibliophile, Petite Revue d'ancien Livres," where it appeared in the number for January, 1839 (No. 11, 3e série) . ”

“ All her rulers, kings, cardinals, and ladies have had time to spare for collecting. Without going too far back, to the time when Bertha span and Charlemagne was an amateur, we may give a few specimens of an anecdotical history of French bibliolatry, beginning, as is courteous, with a lady. “Can a woman be a bibliophile?” is a question which was once discussed at the weekly breakfast party of Guilbert de Pixérécourt, the famous book-lover and playwright, the “Corneille of the Boulevards.” ”

“ Yet the most hostile critic is bound to admit that the fraternity of bibliophiles is eminently picturesque. If their doings are inscrutable, they are also romantic; if their vices are numerous, the heinousness of those vices is mitigated by the fact that it is possible to sin humorously. Regard him how you will, the sayings and doings of the collector give life and color to the pages of those books which treat of books. He is amusing when he is purely an imaginary creature. ”

“ Many of the earlier of these bibliophiles were unendowed with any keen appreciation for intellectual pursuits, and they collected pretty books just as they would collect pretty articles of feminine decoration. They therefore form a little community which can scarcely be included in the higher category of intellectual book-collectors. ”

“ The encouragement of the Study of Bibliography, in its legitimate sense, and towards its true object, may be numbered among the most efficacious cures for this destructive malady. To place competent Librarians over the several departments of a large public Library; or to submit a library, on a more confined scale, to one diligent, enthusiastic, well-informed, and well-bred Bibliographer or Librarian (of which in this metropolis we have so many examples) , is doing a vast deal towards directing the channels of literature to flow in their proper courses. ”

“ What, moreover, would be the object of these precious collections, gathered at so great expense by fortune or by science, if they were not consecrated, according to the intention of their generous founders, to the advancement, the glory, and the perfection of science and literature?
But that a library may fully attain the end of its foundation,—that it may be in reality useful, and useful with equal certainty and facility,—it should be administered by a librarian distinguished for soundness of judgement no less than for the readiness and accuracy of his memory. ”

“ In the past librarians have hesitated to discard any book which has once been placed on the shelves. They have believed that all printed matter has value and that a book which belongs to the library is sacred and must on [Pg 132] no account be destroyed. It is difficult to defend such an attitude. If we admit for the time being that the librarian never makes mistakes in acquiring books, still it is sure to happen that many books will outlive their usefulness, except as a part of the history or bibliography of the subject. ”

“ It was amusing to discover, by means of these autograph letters, how seldom a good author was an equally good bibliographer. And this is as it should be. The author’s business is, not to take account of first editions, but to make books of such virtue that bibliomaniacs shall be eager to possess the first editions thereof. It is proverbial that a poet is able to show a farmer things new to him about his own farm. Turn a bibliographer loose upon a poet’s works, and he will amaze the poet with an account of his own doings. ”

“ Sometimes it seems as if that was the one thing we were leaving out of our thought—the book, not as a material object, paper, printing, binding, to all of which we pay much attention, but the book as literature. Is the library, too, becoming materialized? As the authorized custodians of the wisdom of the past, we stand in an important and dignified relation to the present. How can we share our treasures with a public that too often fails to appreciate its need for them? ”

“ Bibliography, in its most intimate sense, is the proper science of the librarian. To many it is a study—to some, it is a passion. While the best works in bibliography have not always been written by librarians, but by scholars enamored of the science of books, and devotees of learning, it is safe to say that the great catalogues which afford such inestimable aid to research, have nearly all been prepared in libraries, and not one of the books worthy of the name of bibliography, could have been written without their aid. ”

“ There are relics of the age before circulating libraries, there are fragments of the lettered store of some scholarly great-grandfather, and these, with a few odd numbers of magazines, a few primers and manuals, some sermons and novels, make up the ordinary library of an English household. But the amateur, whom we have in our thoughts, can never be satisfied with these commonplace supplies. He has a taste for books more or less rare, and for books neatly bound; in short, for books, in the fabrication of which art has not been absent. ”

“ Yet printed books must almost always make the greater part of a collection, and it may be well to give some rules as to the features that distinguish the productions of the early press. But no amount of “rules” is worth six months’ practical experience in bibliography. That experience the amateur, if he is wise, will obtain in a public library, like the British Museum or the Bodleian. Nowhere else is he likely to see much of the earliest of printed books, which very seldom come into the market. ”

“ We rejoice to see well-printed books for the Library appear at half the old prices; and to know that there is some chance of the eyes of a generation not prematurely perishing under the inflictions of a typography inferior to the ordinary newspaper. Free Libraries would create a large and certain demand for such works. With the majority, the fame of our great writers is little more than the scrolls upon their tombs. Let our glorious Literature no longer be, for the People,
"The Monument of banish'd Minds."
THE END. ”

“ Little did those barefooted priests know what an opponent to their Romish rites they were fostering into life; their [301] love of learning and passion for books, drove all fear away; and the splendor of the new power so dazzled their eyes that they could not clearly see the nature of the refulgent light just bursting through the gloom of ages.
After the invention of the printing art, bibliomania took some mighty strides; and many choice collectors, full of ardor in the pursuit, became renowned for the vast book stores they amassed together. ”

“ No person, who is impatient, indolent, inaccurate, or careless in his personal habits; who is ignorant of literary history and bibliography; who is unacquainted with the classical, and with the most important modern languages; or who is destitute of that general knowledge of the circle of the sciences, which is attained in, what is usually called, a liberal education; can be expected to make a catalogue of a general library, that will not be discreditable to the compiler, and to the institution employing him. Great care should, therefore, be exercised in selecting men for such work. ”

“ To collect books indiscriminately tends to develop the dread bibliomania. To specialise in a particular class of books should be the object of every collector; but to adhere so rigidly to that one class of literature as to exclude from our library the great books of the world, is to deprive ourselves [59] of all the advantages which a library can offer. 'There are some books, as Homer, Virgil, Horace, Milton, Shakespeare, and Scott, which every man should read who has the opportunity ”

“ The great object of a Public library is despatch in procuring books. This can only be secured by perspicuity in describing them. In my humble judgment no better mode could possibly be devised for obtaining any particular work than the printed tickets which I suggested in 1837, and which are now in use. By specifying the Titles from the Catalogue, and copying from it the Press-marks, the applicant can at once identify the particular edition or copy of an edition which he requires. ”

“ What does the average user of a public library want to know? He wants to know whether you have a book by a certain author, by a certain title or on a certain subject. Ninety-five per cent of the borrowers of books want nothing more than that, and I am excluding fiction entirely. Consequently for the possible five per cent, and that is a high percentage, you spend much time in giving gratuitous information. The man who knows his subject goes to the bibliographies of the subject and does not depend upon your card catalog for bibliographical information. ”

“ To the printer the librarian would say: since wishing is easy, let us imagine that what ought always to happen is happening regularly instead of rarely, namely, that the author produces a book worth printing and that the publisher leaves you free to put it into a worthy form. This is the opportunity that you have always been looking for. How are you going to meet it? Do you know all the elements that you deal with and can you handle them with a sure touch practically and esthetically? If so, you will not need any hints from the librarian, and he will order your book "sight unseen." ”