Bibliomania Reading

Gutenberg has a book entitled The Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac by Eugene Field.

Photo by Lin Kristensen, WC CC2.
Photo by Lin Kristensen, WC CC2.
In the introduction, the author’s brother writes:

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 chapter titles intrigue me.

MY FIRST LOVE
THE BIRTH OF A NEW PASSION
THE LUXURY OF READING IN BED
THE MANIA OF COLLECTING SEIZES ME
BALDNESS AND INTELLECTUALITY
MY ROMANCE WITH FIAMMETTA
THE DELIGHTS OF FENDER-FISHING
BALLADS AND THEIR MAKERS
BOOKSELLERS AND PRINTERS, OLD AND NEW
WHEN FANCHONETTE BEWITCHED ME
DIAGNOSIS OF THE BACILLUS LIBRORUM
THE PLEASURES OF EXTRA-ILLUSTRATION
ON THE ODORS WHICH MY BOOKS EXHALE
ELZEVIRS AND DIVERS OTHER MATTERS
A BOOK THAT BRINGS SOLACE AND CHEER
THE MALADY CALLED CATALOGITIS
THE NAPOLEONIC RENAISSANCE
MY WORKSHOP AND OTHERS
OUR DEBT TO MONKISH MEN

WC CC3 by Twice25
WC CC3 by Twice25
It appears that it will be a delightful read. For example, chapter 13, “On the Odors which My Books Exhale” begins:
Have you ever come out of the thick, smoky atmosphere of the town into the fragrant, gracious atmosphere of a library? If you have, you know how grateful the change is, and you will agree with me when I say that nothing else is so quieting to the nerves, so conducive to physical health, and so quick to restore a lively flow of the spirits.

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