41 “One of my high”: Pierpont Morgan Library, 13.
41–42 Fields: “There is a sacredness,” 3; “As I quote these lines,” 7; “There is no Leigh Hunt,” 15. Full text and critical commentary of “Sleep and Poetry,” in Miriam Allott, ed., Keats: The Complete Poems (New York: Longman, 1970), 69–85; the lines quoted by Mrs. Fields are on 354–58. For more on the lure of association copies, see Robert Alan Shaddy, “A World of Sentimental Attachments: The Cult of Collecting, 1890–1938,” Book Collector, Summer 1994, 186–200.
42–43 “What shall I do”: “Hobbies,” in Churchill, 300.
43 A century earlier: See Lamb. For more on Coleridge’s book habits, see George Whalley, “Samuel Taylor Coleridge,” Book Collector, Autumn 1961, 275–90: “He was interested first in what was written in a book; condition meant nothing; his instinct was not acquisitive. … Coleridge’s library was that of an affectionate and myriadminded scholar.”
44 “like a great mansion”: Goff, The Lessing J. Rosenwald, ix; “no collector or lover of books”: ibid., xii. See also Vision of a Collector; Frederick Goff, “The Rosenwald Library,” Book Collector, Spring 1956, 28–37; Dickinson, 274–75.
45 “Prozess Gegen … Later investigation”: Rosenwald, 30–33.
46 “If popularity be taken” and for publishing history of Das Narrenschiff: T. H. Jamieson in Brant, ix.
47 “I am the first foole”: Brant, 18; “for to haue plenty”: ibid., 20.
47 In a fanciful story: Anthony Burgess, “A Meeting in Valladolid,” in The Devil’s Mode (New York: Random House: 1989), 3–21.
48 “Be it known”: Cervantes, 28.
48 “The poet’s eye”: Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, 5.1.12–17.
49 “As you from crimes”: Shakespeare, The Tempest, epilogue, lines 19–20.
49 “My library”: ibid., 1.2. 109–10; “seize … possess … burn his books”: ibid., 3.2.89–95; “potent art”: ibid., 5.1.50; “drown … fathoms in the earth”: ibid., 5.1.55–57.
49 “Our copy isn’t”: Author’s interview with Julian Roberts.
50 “To the Great Variety of Readers”: Evans, 63.
51 Book madness: The following quotations are from Canetti: “She is the heaven-sent instrument,” 47; “Greatly daring,” 89; “When the flames reached,” 464.
51 Combustion is also: See Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451: 40th Anniversary Edition (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1993), with a new foreword by Bradbury.
52 “Everything turns”: Eco, 446; “It was the greatest library … hinder him any more”: ibid., 491.
52 The British author A. S. Byatt: Byatt, Possession (New York: Random House, 1990).
52 With the release: For theme of “falling books” in work of E. M. Forster, see Nicola Beauman, E. M. Forster: A Biography (New York: Knopf, 1994), 105, 116, 145–46.
53 “Moore was much flattered”: Julian Symons, 42–43.
53–54 Conversely, the late Ian Fleming: For more on Fleming, see “Commentary,” Book Collector, Winter 1964, 431–33; Percy Muir, “Ian Fleming: A Personal Memoir,” Book Collector, Spring 1965, 24–33.
54 “because special signed editions”: Blotner, 294.
54–55 “He had his friends”: Updike, 4–11.
54–55 “I am older … doesn’t anybody care?”: Benchley’s essay in Targ, Carousel, 31–36.
56 “It is impossible … betray their confidence”: West, 18–19.
57 “People will drive”: Author’s interview with James A. Michener.
57 “Milton was in his early forties”: Author’s interview with Reynolds Price. For more on Reynolds Price, see his memoir, A Whole New Life: An Illness and a Healing (New York: Atheneum, 1994).
2: “BALM FOR THE SOUL”
58 “The house of healing”: Lutz, The Oldest Library, 18.
59 “Pray tell me, Euthydemus”: Socrates, quoted in Xenophon, vol. 3, Part 1, 135–36.
60 “Come! no more line for line!”: Sandys, vol. 1, 54.
60 “The last great master”: Mumby, 14.
60 “You think that by buying … to their owner”: Lucian of Samosata, vol. 3, 265–67.
61 “because with purchased books”: Austin, Library of Jean Grolier, 3 (introduction by Colin Eisher).
61 “Of what use are books without number”: Canfora, 57.
61 “Bibliophiles, an idiotic class”: Carter, Taste and Technique, xii.
61 “All literature, all philosophy”: Cicero, quoted in Watts, 21–25. Cicero’s letters to Atticus requesting book purchases: Carcopino, vol. 2, 469. For more on publishing and bookselling in Rome, see full chapter in Carcopino, vol. 2, “Atticus as Publisher,” 412–529.
62 Cleopatra of Egypt: See Lucy Hughes-Hallett, Cleopatra (New York: Harper & Row, 1990).
63 “to collect, if he could”: Parsons, Alexandrian Library, 98.
63 “all the sovereigns”: Canfora, 20.
63 Agents were sent out: Platthy writes in Sources on the Earliest Greek Libraries, “There were libraries in many small cities in ancient Greece, [and] there was almost no significant city without a library or archive” (2). He further documents how the tyrant Pisistratus established the first library devoted to the liberal arts in Athens in the fifth century B.C. (17). For a detailed explanation of library locations, organization, book manufacture, and bookselling in ancient times, see J. W. Thompson, Ancient Libraries.
64 “They are not written in Syriac”: Canfora, 28.
64 “populous land of Egypt”: ibid., 28.
64 Just how keenly contested: For more on Pergamum, see ibid., chap. 9, “The Rival Library.”
65 “At length, but not before the books”: Edwards, Memoirs of Libraries, 18.
66 For centuries: For chronology involving Alexandrian Library (335 B.C. to A.D. 639), see Canfora, vii–ix.
67 “Kai su, teknon”: Howatson, 103.
67–68 “Caesar, for the nonce … of the great collection”: Parsons, Alexandrian Library, 284–85.
68 Within two years: Antony seizes 200,000 “distinct volumes” from Pergamum in “Antony,” Plutarch, 1137.
68 Though the great rivalry: The story of the Roman patrician’s “living library” is retold by Horatio Rogers, 20.
68 “Twenty-two acknowledged concubines”: Gibbon, vol. 1, 312.
69 Quintilian was so pleased: Mumby, 21.
69 “You have sold my discourse”: ibid., 19.
69 “He composes an oration”: Curwen, 11.
69 “I have conquered the great city”: Canfora, 83.
69 “You have taken possession of them”: ibid., 83.
69 “As for the books you mention”: ibid., 98.
70 “The study of letters has perished”: Deuel, 4.
71 “It was the hand of Cassiodorus”: Putnam, vol. 1, 21.
71 “While the gaze of Boethius”: Sandys, vol. 1, 255.
71 “throughout that period”: Isaac Taylor, 72.
71 “Take the first one”: Sandys, vol. 2, 4.
72 “For every illustrious name”: Deuel, 7.
72 “Please, if you love me”: Martz, 7.
73 “Your letters I sought”: Deuel, 13.
74 “Ah, the prayers”: ibid., 9.
74 “Be reasonable”: Bergin, 56.
75 “Boccaccio stepped … to sell to women.”: Sandys, vol. 2, 13.
75 For more on Bracciolini and Niccoli, see Gordan.
76 “So then, O man of study”: Symonds, vol. 2, 97–98.
76 “both of the luminaries”: Sandys, vol. 2, 15.
76 “for the last seven centuries”: ibid., vol 2, 19–20.
77 “I verily believe”: Symonds, vol. 2, 98–99.
78 “and in a single month … in the same way”: Lowry, 50.
79 “written with the pen”: Sandys, vol. 2, 96.
79 “stuffed with books”: ibid., 7.
79 richissimo: ibid., 8.
80 “vulgarizing intellectual life”: ibid., 26.
80 Walk through book district
: ibid., 36–37.
81 “I shall buy my Hebrew books”: Putnam, vol. 1, 436.
81 “real possibility that special orders”: Lowry, 280.
81 “All subsequent achievements”: Symonds, vol. 1, 18–19.
3: “RULE BRITANNIA”
84 “Ye are the tree”: de Bury, vol. 2, 23.
85 “affairs became prosperous … dirt and sand”: ibid., 68–80.
85 “Are you not ashamed”: Merryweather, 115.
85 “What leveret … loan for a time”: de Bury, vol. 2, 70–74.
86 “He was a man … above the commonplace”: ibid., vol. 3, 26. For de Bury’s bequest to Oxford, see vol. 2, 136–40.
86 “in our different … labour over books”: ibid., 79.
86 By all accounts: For more on Humfrey as collector, see Roberto Weiss, “Humfrey, Duke of Gloucester,” Book Collector, Summer 1964, 161–70. For more on history of Bodleian Library, see Macray and Rogers.
87 “It is incredible what a treasure”: Merryweather, 75. For more on the destruction of the monasteries, see Cram. The systematic plunder of cultural treasure is by no means an isolated occurrence; for more on a recent episode, see Lynn H. Nicholas, The Rape of Europa (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1994), a detailed study of the elaborate Nazi program to steal artworks, jewels, coins, tapestries, furniture, and books from occupied nations. For more on the lingering aftermath of that policy, see Michael Specter, “For Russians, Literary Loot Turns Awkward,” New York Times, October 31, 1994, C13. The article details how at the end of World War II, victorious Soviet troops took ten million books out of Germany and distributed them among dozens of Russian libraries. The Nazis are believed to have destroyed nearly two hundred million Russian books during the war, prompting some officials to consider the act a form of justifiable retaliation. Others felt that the books, which included a Gutenberg Bible, should be returned. “This is Germany’s culture, not ours,” Yevgeny I. Kuzmin, director of the department of libraries for the Russian Ministry of Culture, said. “They have an absolute right to their own books. World War II ended fifty years ago, and the Cold War ended almost ten years ago. We have to decide are we going to spend the rest of time remembering that once the Germans were our enemies or are we ready to start thinking about what we can accomplish as friends?”
88 “Except for such altar books”: Esdaile, 22; “laboryouse journey,” ibid., 23.
88 “superstitious monasteries”: Modernized version of Bale quotation in Edwards, Memoirs of Libraries, 360; sixteenth-century version in Merryweather, 22–23.
89 For more on King George III and his library: Willson, Beckles; Paintin. For more on the British Library, see Edwards; Esdaile; Barker et al.; Miller.
90 For more on Robert Cotton’s imperial pressmarks, see C. G. C. Tite, “Early Catalogues of the Cottonian Library,” British Library Bulletin, Autumn 1980, 144–57.
90 Nearby is Sir Gawain: For more on Cotton’s associations with writers, see Sharpe, 34; Barker et al., 46.
91 “He seems to have persuaded”: Sharpe, 59.
91 Dee buries his books: Aubrey, 95. For more on Dee as collector, see Roberts and Watson.
92 For more on Lord Hunsdon, see S. Schoenbaum, William Shakespeare: A Documentary Life (New York: Oxford University Press, 1975), 135–36, 145–46; Sharpe, 200–2.
93 “It is pleasant to fancy”: Geoffrey Bullough, Narrative and Dramatic Sources of Shakespeare (London and New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul and Columbia University Press, 1960), vol. 3, 372.
93 “Dee is shadowed”: Yates, 77–78; “defended in Prospero”: ibid., 160.
93 “lent to his Majesty”: ibid., 78–79.
94 “pestilent tractate”: Quoted in Edwards, Memoirs of Libraries, 427.
94 “outworn in a few months”: ibid., 428
94 “Tell the Lord Privy Seal”: Edwards, Lives of the Founders, 124.
94 “loss of such a character”: Dibdin, 26.
94–95 The books remained: The extract of the Parliamentary Committee of Inquiry regarding the fire at Ashburnham House and damage to Cottonian library is from Edwards, Memoirs of Libraries, 431–34.
96 For a full account of George Thomason’s collecting and quotations from broadsides, see Falconer Madan, “Notes on the Thomason Collection of Civil War Tracts,” Bibliographica, vol. 3, 291–308.
98 For more on Thomas Hollis III, see Bond, Thomas Hollis of Lincoln’s Inn.
99 “the most valuable set”: Barker et al., 65.
99 “His achievement”: Madan, 292.
100 For more on codicils to Pepys’s will and a description of the library, see Sidgwick, and “The Pepysian” in Hartshorne, 217–29. See also Hobson, 212–21.
100 All Richard Luckett quotations are from the author’s interview.
103 “with great pains”: Latham, 634.
105 “I doubt I shall ever”: ibid., 1023.
106 “epidemical … cost and industry”: Lawler, xx.
106 “learned idiot”: Steele and Addison, 880–81 (April 13, 1710).
106 On March 12, 1688: For more on the recovered fragment of Metamorphoses, see W. Granger Blair, “A Caxton Work Breaks Price Record for MSS,” New York Times, June 28, 1966, 49.
107 In 1715: For more on Wanley, see Wright and Wright, vol. 1, xi–lxxxiii (introduction). For more on Harley, see C. E. Wright, “Edward Harley, Earl of Oxford,” Book Collector, Summer 1962, 158–74.
108 Osborne buys Harley’s books: Marston, 48.
109 Even though Thomas Frognall Dibdin: For more on Osborne and Paradise Lost, see Bate, 225.
109 Pope: See The Dunciad, edited by James Sutherland, 2d. ed. (London: Metheun, 1953), 303–4.
109 “I have been in business”: Marston, 50.
109 “If I have set a high value”: Dibdin, Bibliomania, 348.
109 “lion in harness”: Bate, 224.
109–10 “unnecessary delay … ignorance and obscurity”: Marston, 50–52. This anecdote was first reported by John Hawkins in 1785 in his Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. In 1791 James Boswell quoted Samuel Johnson directly on the matter in his great biography: “Sir, he was impertinent to me, and I beat him. But it was not in his shop; it was in my own chamber.” (Roger Ingpen, ed., The Life of Samuel Johnson, vol. 1, Boston: Charles E. Lauriat Co., 1921, 84.) Bate suggests that Johnson was working on the Harleian Miscellany, not on a translation, when the “knock-down” incident occurred. Accounts of precisely how many Harley library catalogue volumes Johnson worked on vary as well. See also Kaminski.
110 Munby estimates Heber’s holdings at 150,000 books: See “Father and Son,” in Essays and Papers, 233; de Ricci (p. 102) suggests 200,000 to 300,000.
110–111 “can comfortably do without three”: Fletcher, 337.
111 “His name occurs”: de Ricci, 102.
111 “awakening bibliomania”: Munby, “Father and Son,” 225.
111 All letters between Richard Heber and his father: ibid., 226–34.
113 “Thy volumes”: Fletcher, 339.
113 “Poor man!”: Fitzgerald, 230.
113 “I looked round me”: Dibdin, Reminiscences of a Literary Life, vol. 1, 436–37.
113 Heber’s relationship with protégé Hartshorne: Arnold Hunt, “A Study in Bibliomania: Charles Henry Hartshorne and Richard Heber,” Part I, in Book Collector, Spring 1993, 25–44; Part II, Summer 1993, 185– 212. Miss Richardson Currer: Anne Lyon Haight, “Are Women the Natural Enemies of Books?” in Bennett, 107; de Ricci, 141–43.
114 “The market was absolutely glutted”: de Ricci, 102.
115–116 “probably stirred up … the grand era of Bibliomania”: Dibdin, Bibliographical Decameron, vol. 3, 49–69. For more on Napoleon, see J. W. Thompson, “Napoleon as a Booklover,” in his Byways in Bookland, 53–73.
116 The Fortsas sale: Quotations from The Fortsas Catalogue, translations, and factual information are from Blades, “Bibliographical Hoaxing.” A facsimile edition catalogue was published in 1970 in a limited edition of 250 copies by Le
ssing J. Rosenwald for the Philobiblon Club of Philadelphia.
120 “I wish to have one copy”: Barker, Portrait of an Obsession, xvi.
120 “In amassing my collection … French Revolution”: de Ricci, 119–20.
121 “vain, selfish, dogmatic … conception and execution”: Munby, quoted in Barker, Portrait of an Obsession, 266.
121–122 “Altho’ I greatly sympathize”: ibid., 259.
122 “pleased no one in life”: ibid., 263. See also “The Will and Testament of Thomas Phillipps,” Phillipps Studies, vol. 2, 106–15.
123 “residue” of the Phillipps collection: Munby, Phillipps Studies, vol. 5, 104. Note: This concluding volume in Munby’s series is titled The Dispersal of the Phillipps Library and offers considerable detail on where material went.
123 William A. Jackson, Harvard’s Houghton librarian: ibid., 102–3.
124 “many thousands”: ibid., 110–11.
124 $10 million for what remained: Lew David Feldman, interviewed by Gerald Gottlieb, Dec. 18, 1973. Quoted with permission. Transcript available at Oral History Research Office, Butler Library, Columbia University.
124 “I am confident”: Kraus, 226.
124 “It is still like Christmas”: Bibliotheca Phillippica, 5.
125 “disaster of dispersion”: Guppy, 4. See also Hobson, 268–79.
126 “The library will be entitled”: in Guppy, 6–7.
126 On April 14, 1988, Manchester University sold sixty-seven “duplicate” books from the Spencer Collection and twenty-three from another. Nicolas Barker, at that time deputy keeper of rare books at the British Library, argued in “The Rape of the Rylands” that the number of books, though comparatively small, was an “outrage” and “betrayal” nonetheless (Book Collector, Summer 1988, 169–84).
4: “AMERICA, AMERICANS, AMERICANA”
127 As he lay dying: For more on John Harvard, see Shelley. For more on Yale, see Herman W. Liebert and Marjorie G. Wynne, “The General Collection of Rare Books and Manuscripts,” in Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, 7–26.
128 “Books were scarce”: Marjorie Wynne, 7.
128 “It was inevitable”: Lehmann-Haupt, Wroth, and Silver, 5. See also Wroth, Colonial Printer.
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