The early 19th century definitions of bibliomania, as well as the criticisms of same, arose in part from the perception that aristocrats and learned men were focusing not on what was important (i.e.,"the wisdom of the ages"), but rather the vessels by which such wisdom was transmitted. This all has a whiff of class animosity about it. The early decades of the 19th century saw an enormous amount of money poured into book auctions (such as the infamous Roxburgh auction of 1812), which prompted the following from Leigh Hunt, the famed British essayist and critic: We are not in the habit, with Frognall [see yesterday's post], of leaping up to kiss every "'enticing"' edition in vellum and every "'sweetly-toned...yellow morocco binding." Since Hunt spent many years of his adult life in poverty, we must leave it to the psychologists and sociologists to figure out how much of this carping was simply envy, since Hunt himself admitted to "a penchant for good and suitable, and even rich and splendid bindings," as Ina Ferris has pointed out.
Because book production processes were increasingly automated during the course of the 19th century, resulting in increasingly "ugly" tomes (the result of printing on paper made from wood pulp rather than from rags, as well as from the use of cheap bindings and the like), all the affection that earlier collectors had for well-printed books of their own and earlier, more artisanal eras came to be the almost exclusive focus of collecting in the later decades of the 19th century (i.e., there was very little collecting of contemporary books, a few notable exceptions--well illustrated books on husbandry, for example--notwithstanding). One sees this in the results for a wide range of 19th century book auctions:
The shoddy production practices of the period led not only to a revival of the fine press movement at the end of the 19th century (see our posts for 3-6 May 2009), but also led to attempts to turn mechanical book processes themselves to the production of finer quality books. This would, in effect, democratize bibliomania, since people with fewer financial resources than the old moneyed aristocracy would now be able to collect books that would (in the words of Alberto Manguel)
establish an intimate, physical relationship in which all the senses have a part: the eyes drawing the words from the page, the ears echoing the sounds being read, the nose inhaling the familiar scent of paper, glue, ink, cardboard or leather, the touch caressing the rough or soft page, the smooth or hard bindings.
This is a topic we will examine in more detail in tomorrow's post....
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