Henry David Thoreau - The Bibliophile Society

Bibliophilia or bibliophilism is the love of books. A bibliophile or bookworm is an individual who loves and frequently reads and/or collects books.

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The classic bibliophile is one who loves to read, admire and collect books, often amassing a large and specialized collection. Bibliophiles usually possess books they love or that hold special value as well as old editions with unusual bindings, autographed, or illustrated copies. "Bibliophile" is an appropriate term for a minority of those who are

book collectors Book collecting is the collecting of books, including seeking, locating, acquiring, organizing, cataloging, displaying, storing, and maintaining whatever books are of interest to a given collector. The love of books is ''bibliophilia'', and someo ...

Usage of the term

Bibliophilia is not to be confused with

bibliomania Bibliomania can be a symptom of obsessive–compulsive disorder which involves the collecting or even hoarding of books to the point where social relations or health are damaged. Bibliomania is not to be confused with bibliophilia, which is the ...

, a potential symptom of obsessive–compulsive disorder involving the collecting of books to the extent that interpersonal relations or health may be negatively affected, and in which the mere fact that a physical object is a book is sufficient for it to be collected or beloved. Some use the term "bibliomania" interchangeably with "bibliophily", and in fact, the

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The libra ...

does not use the term "bibliophily," but rather refers to its readers as either book collectors or bibliomaniacs.

History

According to Arthur H. Minters, the "private collecting of books was a fashion indulged in by many Romans, including

Cicero Marcus Tullius Cicero ( ; ; 3 January 106 BC – 7 December 43 BC) was a Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar, philosopher, and academic skeptic, who tried to uphold optimate principles during the political crises that led to the esta ...

and Atticus". The term ''bibliophile'' entered the

English language English is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, with its earliest forms spoken by the inhabitants of early medieval England. It is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to the ...

in 1820. A bibliophile is to be distinguished from the much older notion of a bookman (which dates back to 1583), who is one who loves books, and especially

reading Reading is the process of taking in the sense or meaning of letters, symbols, etc., especially by sight or touch. For educators and researchers, reading is a multifaceted process involving such areas as word recognition, orthography (spell ...

; more generally, a bookman is one who participates in writing, publishing, or selling books. Lord Spencer and the

Marquess of Blandford A marquess (; french: marquis ), es, marqués, pt, marquês. is a nobleman of high hereditary rank in various European peerages and in those of some of their former colonies. The German language equivalent is Markgraf (margrave). A woman wi ...

were noted bibliophiles. "The Roxburghe sale quickly became a foundational myth for the burgeoning secondhand book trade, and remains so to this day"; this sale is memorable due to the competition between "Lord Spencer and the marquis of Blandford hichdrove he price of a probable first edition of Boccaccio's ''Decameron'' up to the astonishing and unprecedented sum of £2,260". J. P. Morgan was also a noted bibliophile. In 1884, he paid $24,750 ($772,130.92, adjusted for inflation for 2021) for a 1459 edition of the Mainz Psalter.

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Usage of the term

History

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