The Bibliomania or Book-Madness
Thomas Frognall Dibdin
A new annotated edition of this extraordinary classic of bibliophilia, bibliophobia, bibliosophia, bibliography and Bibliomania. A must for all book-collectors, bibliophiles, librarians, bibliographers and, of course, bibliomaniacs. The casual reader will also find much to entertain him.
The text of this edition is based on that of the first edition of 1809 which is shorter and livelier than the later editions. The book gives a fascinating insight into antiquarianism and book-collecting over several centuries. Dibdin refers to many eighteenth-century book sales and notes the prices which some of the books achieved. Copious notes and an index are provided.
'a usefully annotated edition' – Financial Times
'If the editor has allowed himself to become as Dibdinesque as his subject, then it is all part of the fun of a work where references and citations run back and forth like so many ink rollers on a printing press.' – Rare Book Review
Enemies of Books
William Blades
The wittiest commentary on book-collecting and the care of books ever written, Blades’s Enemies of Books enummerates the enemies as: Fire; Water; Gas and Heat; Dust and Neglect; Ignorance and Bigotry; The Bookworm; Other Vermin; Bookbinders; Collectors; Servants and Children. This new and corrected edition adds an article on Librarians as Enemies of Books, an Introduction, a biography of Blades, and many helpful notes.
William Blades (1824-1890) was a printer and bibliographer. His Life of Caxton revolutionised our understanding of the first English printer.
The Love of Books
Being the Philobiblon of Richard de Bury
Translated by E. C. Thomas
The wittiest commentary on book-collecting and the care of books ever written, Blades’s Enemies of Books enummerates the enemies as: Fire; Water; Gas and Heat; Dust and Neglect; Ignorance and Bigotry; The Bookworm; Other Vermin; Bookbinders; Collectors; Servants and Children. This new and corrected edition adds an article on Librarians as Enemies of Books, an Introduction, a biography of Blades, and many helpful notes.
William Blades (1824-1890) was a printer and bibliographer. His Life of Caxton revolutionised our understanding of the first English printer.
Publication 2009
The original and Growth of Printing
together with
The Vindication of Richard Atkyns
Richard Atkyns
Atkyns (1615-1677) fought a bitter battle with the Stationers' Company to assert his right, granted in a royal patent, to print law books. As part of his campaign, he published a broadside in about 1660 entitled The Original and Growth of Printing. This he enlarged and reissued as a quarto volume in 1664, which is the basis of the first part of the present text. The book is interesting as an early example of English printing history and for the (mistaken) claim that printing was introduced to England in 1468, a claim bolstered by the existence of a copy of Rufinus's Exposicio sancti Jeronimo printed in Oxford, apparently in 1468. It also has a strange charm as an impassioned piece of polemic and unrestrained flattery.
Atkyns, having inherited a considerable fortune, managed to squander much of it and was swindled out of more. He fought valiantly for the royalist cause during the English Civil War and his property was sequestrated by Parliament. His Vindication, published in 1669, and forming the second part of the present volume, contains vivid descriptions of his military service and also traces the history of his financial and marital problems, and his fight with the Stationers.
This book will be of interest to all students of either printing history or the English Civil War.