The Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac
Eugene Field, CrossReach Publications
(Independently published, Sept. 18, 2017)
Our promises: 1. Our goal is to bring you high quality Christian publications at reasonable and affordable prices. Therefore all of our works are complete and unabridged unless specifically stated otherwise, which means that unlike some other independent publications you get what you see and pay for. No unplesant surprises. 2. We endeavour to bring you updated editions of classic works. Therefore this work is not a scan, but is a completely digitized version of the original. 3. Unlike, many other independently published works, our publications are easy to read. Therefore you won't find illegible, faded, poor quality photocopies here. Neither will you find poorly done OCR versions of those faded scans either, with illegible "words" that contain all kinds of strange characters like ÂŁ, %, &, etc. Our publications have all been looked over and corrected by the human eye. 4. We can't promise perfection, but we're sure gonna try! The determination to found a story or a series of sketches on the delights, adventures, and misadventures connected with bibliomania did not come impulsively to my brother. For many years, in short during the greater part of nearly a quarter of a century of journalistic work, he had celebrated in prose and verse, and always in his happiest and most delightful vein, the pleasures of book-hunting. Himself an indefatigable collector of books, the possessor of a library as valuable as it was interesting, a library containing volumes obtained only at the cost of great personal sacrifice, he was in the most active sympathy with the disease called bibliomania, and knew, as few comparatively poor men have known, the half-pathetic, half-humorous side of that incurable mental infirmity. The newspaper column, to which he contributed almost daily for twelve years, comprehended many sly digs and gentle scoffings at those of his unhappy fellow citizens who became notorious, through his instrumentality, in their devotion to old book-shelves and auction sales. And all the time none was more assiduous than this same good-natured cynic in running down a musty prize, no matter what its cost or what the attending difficulties. âI save others, myself I cannot save,â was his humorous cry. âBut if, O Lord, it pleaseth Thee To keep me in temptationâs way, I humbly ask that I may be Most notably beset to-day; Let my temptation be a book, Which I shall purchase, hold and keep, Whereon, when other men shall look, Theyâll wail to know I got it cheap.â And again, in âThe Bibliomaniacâs Bride,â nothing breathes better the spirit of the incurable patient than this: âProse for me when I wished for prose, Verse when to verse inclined,â Forever bringing sweet repose To body, heart and mind. Oh, I should bind this priceless prize In bindings full and fine, And keep her where no human eyes Should see her charms, but mine!â In âDear Old Londonâ the poet wailed that âa splendid Horace cheap for cashâ laughed at his poverty, and in âDibdinâs Ghostâ he revelled in the delights that await the bibliomaniac in the future state, where there is no admission to the women folk who, âwanting victuals, make a fuss if we buy books insteadâ; while in âFlail, Trask and Bislandâ is the very essence of bibliomania, the unquenchable thirst for possession. And yet, despite these self-accusations, bibliophily rather than bibliomania would be the word to characterize his conscientious purpose. If he purchased quaint and rare books it was to own them to the full extent, inwardly as well as outwardly. The mania for books kept him continually buying; the love of books supervened to make them a part of himself and his life.