The Book-Hunter at Home
1919
There's a particular madness that afflicts certain readers: the need to possess, not merely to read. This 1919 meditation on that affliction remains one of the most honest accounts of what it means to be consumed by books. The narrator looks back on a lifetime of hunting through dusty shops, attending auctions, and corresponding with fellow collectors who understand the peculiar gravity of missing a desired volume. He speaks of the euphoria of finding a long-sought copy, the agony of watching it slip through his fingers to another bidder, and the quiet desperation that drives a person to cross cities for a single volume. Yet beneath the lamentation lies genuine warmth: for the discoveries that still surprise, for the fellow hunters who become friends, and for the books themselves, which endure while their collectors come and go. Those who have felt the pull of a first edition, who understand why some of us prefer the company of old books to new, will find in these pages a kindred spirit from another century.
Editions
X-Ray
“The greatest books of the world do not teach us; they help us to teach ourselves, a very different matter.””
— P. B. M. Allan
“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 of all the advantages which a library can offer.””
— P. B. M. Allan
“Yet although we may seek solitude among our books, how far removed are we from being really alone!””
— P. B. M. Allan
“To the thoughtless and those of shallow intellect solitude is inseparable from loneliness.””
— P. B. M. Allan
“Happy indeed are those days when the book-lover has been accorded the freedom of some ancient library. A delicious feeling of tranquillity pervades him as he selects some nook and settles himself to read.””
— P. B. M. Allan
“Well, well, if you make up your mind to have a thing and search eagerly enough for it, you are bound to obtain it in the long run.””
— P. B. M. Allan
“He who hesitates is lost, and this is doubly true of the book-collector.””
— P. B. M. Allan
![Night Watches [complete]](/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fd3b2n8gj62qnwr.cloudfront.net%2FCOVERS%2Fgutenberg_covers75k%2Febook-12161.png&w=3840&q=75)
