Bibliophilia

[Miles Messervy]

Dear fellow loungers,

Among elegant pleasures and pursuits, I'd like to add that of living among books -- the sensuous and intellectual rewards of a cherished tome, where the refreshment of the mind, bathed in ideas, meet the calm appreciation of the beauties of form.

In this sense, a very enthusiastic praise of mine goes to the many volumes of the French Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, all those small volumes of the finest stock, leather-bound, gold-trimmed, the type of a Baroque opulence (thanks to the elegant ligatures), and absolutely brimming with erudite notes, variations, appendixes and commentary...

Heaven, no less.

[Luca]

There is indeed an interesting distinction to be made between liking the content and information contaiend in books (lerning) and liking books per-se (blibliophilia); though often both qualities can be exhibited by the same person.

In my experience blibliophiles will often buy books much more quickly than they can possibly read them.

I've never counted myself as a true blibliophile but I notice that, with the passage of time, I find old and rare books with fine bindings and a patina of age increasingly hard to pass by.

[Berwick]

I too love old books. I have just taken a copy of Corbett's "Francis Drake and the Tudor Navy" to my local book binder for a rebind. I try to find books I want to read with bindings I want to look at. If necessary I will find a book I want to read and turn it into a book that is also good to look at on the shelf.

I sometimes find a book with a nice binding on an obscure topic which gets me interested in the obscure topic!

[NJS]

I would not collect books except to read them but I do have a small collection from the late Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch's own library (complete with splendid engraved bookplates), and some of them are poetry books in which he lightly marked in pencil down the margin the poems and excerpts which he selected for the Oxford Book of English Verse and I treasure those books for that reason. I also once held Sir Isaac Newton's own, annotated copy of Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica - which made me feel very insignificant.

NJS

[Miles Messervy]

I wouldn't dream of not reading them, myself -- but as someone said, the buying of books, at certain level, is the clearest proof of one's faith in one's own longevity (or words to that effect).

As a told a fellow lounger in private, there is such satisfaction to be found in a beautifully designed volume, containing a beloved text, full of notes and scholar additions to the main opus (thus, the "Pléiade" being my platonic ideal, as it fully encompasses all these characteristics).

[NJS]

There was (maybe still is) a curiosity shop (selling a mixture of jumble, junk and some fine antiques) towards Lee from Blackheath Village, with the shocking name of Shoot The Aged (in mockery of the charity Help The Aged) and, over the years, I bought some nice things in there; ranging from an oak chest to a bentwood rocking chair. They also sold books and, on one occasion, just as I was leaving, one caught my eye A History of The Rod. Looking briefly inside, I noted that it was a first edition (1869); written by a clergyman: The Rev. William Cooper BA. I reckoned that it would make a fine addition to my sporting titles, since country parsons are just the type to find the time to turn out a well- researched book on a tranquil country sport.

However, when I got home and gave the book my closer inspection, it turned out that I had just bought the definitive authority on le vice anglais. Well, it was more than that, but it included that and is also, despite a few missing plates, probably worth much more than I paid for it.

NJS

[couch]

. . . and one can only imagine the fate of those missing plates.

[NJS]

. . . and one can only imagine the fate of those missing plates.

Probably split between smoking room walls and some den of iniquity in Swinburne's 'Vale of the Evangelist'

NJS