David Curry

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David Curry

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A Gentle Madness: Bibliophiles, Bibliomanes, and the Eternal Passion for Books

by Nicholas A. Basbanes

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David Curry said: " Although I admired and enjoyed Nicholas A. Basbanes鈥� AMONG THE GENTLY MAD, a 2003 offering about book collectors and book collecting, I finished it suspecting that Basbanes may have used up his best material in A GENTLE MADNESS, a 1995 book on the sa Although I admired and enjoyed Nicholas A. Basbanes鈥� AMONG THE GENTLY MAD, a 2003 offering about book collectors and book collecting, I finished it suspecting that Basbanes may have used up his best material in A GENTLE MADNESS, a 1995 book on the same subject. I have now read the earlier book, and I was right.

At 533 pages, plus addenda, this exhaustively researched work is a veritable treasure trove of fascinating information. We learn, for instance, that the first italic, after the consequential invention of the movable type printing press, was modeled on the handwriting of Petrarch. Maybe you knew that. I didn鈥檛, and it enables me to reflect and appreciate that still today most italic has a distinctly cursive aspect.

In a book replete with indelible quotations, from antiquity through the present, Basbanes can hold his own with a finely crafted sentience. He opens his second chapter with this: 鈥淚f it is true that language is the miracle of our species, then it follows that writing is the witness.鈥�

The Boston Athenaeum, a private reading society established in 1807, acquired George Washington鈥檚 private library but was until recently perhaps more well known for a single notorious book in its collection. NARRATIVE OF THE LIFE OF JAMES ALLEN, ALIAS BURBY FROVE contains, as Basbanes writes, 鈥渢he memoirs of a dangerous highwayman finally brought to justice after he was caught robbing a stagecoach. As he lay dying in prison, Allen asked that the reflections he wrote while incarcerated be bound with his own hide and given t o John Fenno, the Atheneum member who had brought about Allen鈥檚 capture. Printed in 1937 鈥� and bound as directed 鈥� the grim volume was withdrawn from general display several years ago because it detracted too much from everything else in the otherwise sedate neo-Palladian building. 鈥楾he fact is that the book has no literary merit whatsoever,鈥� Lannon (John Lannon, the Athenaeum鈥檚 current head of acquisitions) said. 鈥業t was always the binding that made it interesting.鈥� 鈥�

Much of the buying of hand-written books, incunabula (books printed before 1500) and other early books was done by or for persons of considerable wealth, one of the most notable U.S. collectors being J. Pierpont Morgan, whose library in New York City, open to the public, remains a destination for major collectors worldwide. Here in my own city, Chicago, which unfortunately does not currently have a strong reputation as a secondary book market, one early collector was real estate entrepreneur Walter Loomis Newberry, who, as Basbane quotes Lawrence W. Towner, bought land in Chicago 鈥渂y the acre and sold it by the front foot.鈥� The Newberry Library, which opened its doors in 1893, is still open to the public today. (Significant Chicago book collections were destroyed by the fire that swept the city in 1871.)

Composer Jerome Kern was a book collector. The1929 sale of his library at auction, which included a first edition of Jane Austen鈥檚 Sense and Sensibility and an inscribed book by Robert Burns, was a major event that brought in more than $1.7 million. 鈥淲hen the first session was held on January 7, Kern鈥檚 operetta, Show Boat, was playing to full houses on Broadway, but the most sought-after seats around town that night were at Anderson鈥檚 Galleries.鈥�

Chicago restaurateur Lou Szathmary, owner of the legendary restaurant The Bakery, collected cookbooks and cooking-related paraphernalia, including items associated with American presidents. A family recipe for beef stew in his collection bears the signature of Dwight Eisenhower. Szathmary contemplated writing a book about presidential culinary habits and calling it The First Stomach.

Fred J.Board of Stamford, Connecticut, who worked for 30 years in marketing and acquisitions for the Borden Company, privately built a collection that included 鈥渂ooks shaped like circles, books printed on purple paper, one held together with steel bolts, another made of concrete. He has a book that moos like a cow, another that pulls open like an accordion.鈥� Of his collection of books by largely unknown writer Frank Stockton, he says, 鈥淚 have every damned thing the guy ever wrote except one obscure little pamphlet called Northern Voice Towards Dissolution of the Union that I鈥檓 never going to find. It took me five years to buy the Cracker Jack company (for the Borden Company), and I鈥檝e spent fifty years on Frank Stockton, and I haven鈥檛 completed him yet.鈥� Board has a hard time getting quotes from dealers when he tries to sell books. 鈥淥ne of them did write back a few years ago and said,鈥滻 don鈥檛 deal much in nutty books.鈥�

David Karpeles, a Santa Barbara real estate investor, has a collection that includes a draft copy of the Bill of Rights, which guarantees every American 鈥渓ife, liberty, and property.鈥� Karpeles told Basbanes: 鈥淲ell, as I鈥檓 sure you know, the issue of slave ownership came up, and the whole idea of property became pretty sticky, so they changed 鈥檖roperty鈥� to 鈥榯he pursuit of happiness.鈥� You can see history right there on that piece of paper.鈥�

The seemingly endless intrigue and lure that drive collectors are well captured by one of the epigraphs Basbanes chose for his book. It鈥檚 from Cadillac Jack by Larry McMurtry: 鈥淎nything can be anywhere.鈥� ...more "

Sep 18, 2023 03:49PM · see review