Bibliophilia

Bibliophilia

Bibliophilia is the love of books. Accordingly a bibliophile loves books, but especially "for qualities of format." A "bookworm" loves books for their content, or otherwise loves reading in general. Bibliophilia is generally considered to be an incorrect, but some would say it is a new, recent, usage. The practice of loving or collecting books is dubbed bibliophilism, and the adjective form of the term is bibliophilic. Also, a bibliophile may be a book collector.

Profile

The classic bibliophile is one who loves to read, admire and collect books, often nurturing a large and specialised collection. Bibliophiles do not necessarily want to possess the books they love; an alternative would be to admire them in old libraries. However, the bibliophile is usually an avid book collector, sometimes pursuing scholarship in the collection, sometimes putting form above content with an emphasis on old, rare, and expensive books, first editions, books with special or unusual bindings, autographed copies, etc.Fact|date=June 2008

Usage

Bibliophilia is not to be confused with bibliomania, an obsessive-compulsive disorder involving the collecting of books to the point where social relations or health are damaged, and in which the mere fact that an object is a book is sufficient for it to be collected or loved. Some use the term "bibliomania" interchangeably with "bibliophily" and in fact, the Library of Congress does not use the term "bibliophily," but rather refers its readers to either book collecting or bibliomania. [ [http://www.loc.gov/index.html Library of Congress] ]
The New York Public Library follows the same practice. [ [http://catnyp.nypl.org/search/a?a New York Public library search] ]

History

According to Arthur H. Minters the "private collecting of books was a fashion indulged in by many Romans, including Cicero and Atticus." [cite book
title=Collecting Books for Fun and Profit
last=Minters
first=Arthur H.
location=New York
publisher=Arco Publishing Inc.
year=1979
isbn=0-668-04598-1,
] The British Prime Minister Gladstone was known to have been a bibliophile. The term entered the English language in 1824, according to the Merriam-Webster's reference below. It is to be distinguished from the much older notion of a bookman (which dates back to 1583), which is one who loves books, and especially reading; more generally, a bookman is one who participates in writing, publishing, or selling books.Fact|date=June 2008

Notes

References

Futher Reading

Basbanes, Nicholas A. (1995) "A Gentle Madness: Bibliophiles, Bibliomanes, and the Eternal Passion for Books". Henry Holt and Company, Inc.

ee also

*Antiquarian
*Antiquarian book trade in the United States
*Bibliomania
*Book collecting
*Club of Odd Volumes
*Grolier Club
*Infornography - the phenomenon of addiction to information
*-philia (for other technical terms of obsession)
*Read or Die — an anime involving a world obsessed with books

External links

* [http://members.forbes.com/fyi/2005/1212/162.html Forbes article on bibliomania by Finn-Olaf Jones, December 12, 2005]


Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Поможем написать курсовую

Look at other dictionaries:

  • bibliophilia — noun The love of books. See Also: bibliophile …   Wiktionary

  • Book collecting — Some inexpensive collectible books 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 individual collector.… …   Wikipedia

  • Library of Sir Thomas Browne — No single document gives better evidence of the erudition of Sir Thomas Browne, physician, philosopher and encyclopedist than the 1711 Sales Auction Catalogue of the Library of Sir Thomas Browne . It also provides an insight into the… …   Wikipedia

  • Seattle Central Library — The Seattle Central Library is the flagship library of the Seattle Public Library system. The 11 story (185 feet or 56 meters high) glass and steel building in downtown Seattle, Washington was opened to the public on Sunday, May 23, 2004. Rem… …   Wikipedia

  • List of hobbies — This is a list of hobbies.Amateur Science related* Amateur astronomy * Amateur chemistry * Amateur microscopy * Amateur telescope making * Electronics * Fireworks * Genealogy * Lasers * Mass Observation * Physics demos or experiments * Robots(See …   Wikipedia

  • Bookbreaking — is the longstanding practice of removing pages (especially those containing maps or illustrations) from books, especially from rare books. Bookbreaking is most often motivated by a market situation in which the maps or illustrations in a book… …   Wikipedia

  • Office for Metropolitan Architecture — OMA Practice information Key architects Rem Koolhaas Partners Ellen van Loon, Reinier de Graaf, Shohei Shigematsu, Iyad Alsaka, David Gianotten, Victor van der Chijs Principal office Rotterdam Founded …   Wikipedia

  • Comic book collecting — is a hobby that treats comic books and related items as collectibles or artwork to be sought after and preserved. Though considerably more recent than the collecting of postage stamps (philately) or books (bibliophilia), it has a major following… …   Wikipedia

  • BlöödHag — is a death metal band from the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. They play very short songs of which the lyrics consist of biographical and bibliographical information, observations and abstractions of Science Fiction, Fantasy and… …   Wikipedia

  • Bibliothèque de l'Arsenal — The Bibliothèque de l Arsenal ( Library of the Arsenal ) in Paris is one of the branches of the Bibliothèque nationale de France.HistoryThe collections of the library originated with the private library of Marc René, 3rd marquis d Argenson (1722… …   Wikipedia

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”