The Library
1881
A passionate, witty defense of the book collector's peculiar obsession, written by Andrew Lang in 1881 as a love letter to the art of hunting for books. Lang opens with an 'Apology for the Book-Hunter,' bracingly arguing that the passion for collecting is no madness but a refined pleasure worth defending against snobbish critics who dismiss bibliophiles as mere 'bookworms.' He paints vivid scenes of the hunt: the thrill of uncovering a rare volume buried in chaotic book stalls, the satisfaction of a well-won bargain, the heartache of losing treasured collections. But this is no dry manual. Lang writes with genuine affection about why humans become attached to paper and ink, exploring how a book is both intellectual treasure and physical object, its margins and condition matters of genuine concern. He traces the tradition from de Bury to Dibdin, arguing that the desire to be 'one's own librarian' lives in every lover of literature. Whether you collect or merely cherish books, Lang's prose captures something true about the peculiar bond between reader and shelf, the way accumulation becomes a form of devotion.
Editions
X-Ray
“…There is the heat of Love, the pulsing rush of Longing, the lover’s whisper, irresistible”
— Andrew Lang
“Hateful to me as the gates of Hades is that man who hides one thing in his heart and speaks another.””
— Andrew Lang
“Let me not then die ingloriously and without a struggle, but let me first do some great thing that shall be told among men hereafter.””
— Andrew Lang
“Sing, O muse, of the rage of Achilles, son of Peleus, that brought countless ills upon the Achaeans.””
— Andrew Lang
“Like the generations of leaves, the lives of mortal men. Now the wind scatters the old leaves across the earth, now the living timber bursts with the new buds and spring comes round again. And so with men: as one generation comes to life, another dies away.””
— Andrew Lang
“We men are wretched things.””
— Andrew Lang
“Why so much grief for me? No man will hurl me down to Death, against my fate. And fate? No one alive has ever escaped it, neither brave man nor coward, I tell you - it’s born with us the day that we are born.””
— Andrew Lang
“Achilles glared at him and answered, "Fool, prate not to me about covenants. There can be no covenants between men and lions, wolves and lambs can never be of one mind, but hate each other out and out an through. Therefore there can be no understanding between you and me, nor may there be any covenants between us, till one or other shall fall””
— Andrew Lang
“...like that star of the waning summer who beyond all stars rises bathed in the ocean stream to glitter in brilliance.””
— Andrew Lang
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