Bibliomania; Or Book-Madness: A Bibliographical Romance

The first great meditation on book obsession, written by a man who suffered from it profoundly. Thomas Frognall Dibdin coined the term 'bibliomania' to describe an affliction that transforms sane men into frantic collectors, driving them to auction houses and continental book fairs in search of treasures that will never be read, only possessed. This 1809 work is simultaneously a confession, a celebration, and a warning: Dibdin chronicles the disease's symptoms, traces its history through notable sufferers, and prescribes, with questionable sincerity, a remedy. What makes this peculiar volume endlessly entertaining is its structure. The footnotes overwhelm the text, and it is here that Dibdin truly thrives, offering asides about library thieves, plagiarists, eccentric collectors, and the obscure biographical details that only a true antiquarian would know. Who was Captain Cox, who 'could talk as much without book, as any Innholder betwixt Brentford and Bagshot'? What cutting words did Edward Gibbon write about Thomas Hearne? Dibdin tantalizes, answers rarely, and leaves the reader hungry for more. It is a window into the book world of the 18th and early 19th centuries, populated by bibliomaniacs, binders, and biblioclasts, each with their own peculiar madness. For anyone who has ever trembled at a first edition or lost sleep over a missing imprint, this is your ancestral diagnosis.