 First edition cover of A Gentle Madness | |
| Author | Nicholas A. Basbanes |
|---|---|
| Subject | Book collecting |
| Publisher | Henry Holt |
Publication date | August 1, 1995 |
| Pages | 584 |
| ISBN | 0-8050-3653-9 |
A Gentle Madness: Bibliophiles, Bibliomanes, and the Eternal Passion for Books is a 1995 nonfiction book of book collecting case studies by Nicholas A. Basbanes. It was a 1995 National Book Critics Circle Award finalist.
The first section of the book features famous book collectors from Antiquities to the modern day. Past collectors mentioned include the likes of Alexander the Great, Petrarch, and Catherine the Great. Modern collectors include people like Aaron Lansky and Charles L. Blockson. [1]
A Gentle Madness also covered Stephen Blumberg, who had stolen over $10 million worth of books from libraries. [1]
The title is derived from a quote by Benjamin Thomas regarding his grandfather Isaiah Thomas, founder of the American Antiquarian Society, who was stricken with "the gentlest of infirmities, bibliomania." [1]
Basbanes was motivated to write the book after his wife, Constance, encouraged him to do more research on book collecting after he wrote an article for the Boston University's Bostonia alumni magazine in 1989 regarding notable Boston book collections. The book was subsequently dedicated to Constance. He began writing the book part-time while working as an editor for the book section of the Telegram & Gazette , until he was fired in 1991 due to cost cutting measures. [1]
Most of the research was conducted at Harvard University's Widener Library. However, Basbanes also traveled to several metropolitan cities, such as London and Paris, to attend auctions and interview collectors. He also went to Iowa for book thief Stephen Blumberg's trial. As a result, Basbanes had to spend profusely to maintain his research, using up savings and taking advances on book royalties. [1]
Basbanes had initially contracted with publisher Random House to release the book. However, due to corporate downsizing at the company in 1992, his editor was fired and his book's release was dropped despite being advertised. [1]
The book was released fall of 1995 by Henry Holt and Company with an initial printing of 7,500, which sold out in three days [1]
The "definitive edition" was published, in print and digital, in 2012. [2]
Upon its release, reviews were mostly positive and most critics recommended the book for those who were interested in the medium of books or its collection.
Kirkus Reviews wrote that A Gentle Madness' numerous anecdotes manages to capture the spirit of acquiring books, although it "never really gets to the bottom of bibliomania." Furthermore, they wrote that the book is a "Must reading for any book collector, and a nice addition to even modest personal libraries." [3] Philip Kopper for The New York Times praised its vast compilation of colorful collecting characters. However, he noted that the book is also overblown and repetitive in places, noting Basbane's propensity for superlatives and the book's comprehensive but not definitive account of the subject. [4] Michael Dirda of The Washington Post called it a "ingratiating and altogether enjoyable book", praising the book's "wonderful gallery of modern eccentrics" despite its occasional lapses in literary history. [5]
In 1995, it was selected as a General Nonfiction finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. [6]
In 2010, Allison Hoover Bartlett writing for the Wall Street Journal named it one of the most influential works about book collecting published in the twentieth century. [7]
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.
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 someone who loves to read, admire, and a person who collects books is often called a bibliophile but can also be known as an bibliolater, meaning being overly devoted to books, or a bookman which is another term for a person who has a love of books.
Bibliophilia or bibliophilism is the love of books, and a bibliophile or bookworm is an individual who loves and frequently reads books.
The Roxburghe Club is an exclusive bibliophilic and publishing society based in the United Kingdom.
Stephen Carrie Blumberg is best known as a bibliomane who lived in Ottumwa, Iowa. After being arrested for stealing more than 23,600 books worth US$5.3 million in 1990, he became known as the Book Bandit and was recognized as the most successful book thief in the history of the United States.
Kirkus Reviews is an American book review magazine founded in 1933 by Virginia Kirkus (1893–1980). The magazine is headquartered in New York City. Kirkus Reviews confers the annual Kirkus Prize to authors of fiction, nonfiction, young readers' literature.
Sir Thomas Phillipps, 1st Baronet, was an English antiquary and book collector who amassed the largest collection of manuscript material in the 19th century. He was an illegitimate son of a textile manufacturer and inherited a substantial estate, which he spent almost entirely on vellum manuscripts and, when out of funds, borrowed heavily to buy manuscripts, thereby putting his family deep into debt. Phillipps recorded in an early catalogue that his collection was instigated by reading various accounts of the destruction of valuable manuscripts. Such was his devotion that he acquired some 40,000 printed books and 60,000 manuscripts, arguably the largest collection a single individual has created, and coined the term "vello-maniac" to describe his obsession, which is more commonly termed bibliomania.
Louise Taper is a historian and collector of Abraham Lincoln artifacts. She is the daughter-in-law of Mark Taper.
Obadiah Rich was an American diplomat, bibliophile and bibliographer specializing the history of Latin America. He was credited with making the field of Americana a recognized field of scholarship by the bibliographer Nicholas Trübner.
The Center for Faulkner Studies (CFS) is a research center located at Southeast Missouri State University. It is devoted to the study of the life and works of William Faulkner (1897–1962), the American author who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1950. The Center was established in 1989, after the university acquired the Louis Daniel Brodsky collection of Faulkner materials. The founding director of the CFS is Robert W. Hamblin, now Professor Emeritus of English at Southeast. He worked with Brodsky starting in 1979 to produce books, articles, lectures, and exhibits based on the materials in the collection. Dr. Christopher Rieger, Professor of English at Southeast, took Dr. Hamblin's place as the Center's director in 2013. Dr. Hamblin is now a volunteer consultant for the Center.
The Scheide Library once a private library, is now a permanent part of the Department of Rare Books and Special Collections of the Princeton University Library. It is housed in the Harvey S. Firestone Memorial Library on the campus of Princeton University.
Bouchercon is an annual convention of creators and devotees of mystery and detective fiction. It is named in honour of writer, reviewer, and editor Anthony Boucher; also the inspiration for the Anthony Awards, which have been issued at the convention since 1986. This page details Bouchercon XXVII and the 11th Anthony Awards ceremony.
John Mulholland was an American magician, author, publisher and intelligence agent.
The Swerve: How the World Became Modern is a book by Stephen Greenblatt and winner of the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction and 2011 National Book Award for Nonfiction.
Nicholas Andrew Basbanes is an American author who writes and lectures widely about authors, books and book culture. His subjects have included the "eternal passion for books" ; the history and future of libraries ; the "willful destruction of books" and the "determined effort to rescue them" ; "the power of the printed word to stir the world" ; the invention of paper and its effect on civilization and an exploration of Longfellow's life and art.
The Zamorano Eighty is a list of books intended to represent the most significant early volumes published on the history of California. It was compiled in 1945 by members of the Zamorano Club, a Los Angeles-based group of bibliophiles. Collecting first editions of every volume on the list has become the goal of a number of book collectors, though to date only four people have completed the task.
Bibliomania; or Book Madness was first published in 1809 by the Reverend Thomas Frognall Dibdin (1776–1847). Written in the form of fictional dialogues from bibliophiles, it purports to outline a malady called bibliomania.
The Library by Andrew Lang is a late 19th-century book published by McMillan & Co. as part of the “Art as Home” series. Continuing the tradition of de Bury’s The Philobiblon and Dibdin’s Bibliomania, The Library is a half-serious look at the craft of book-collecting for the amateur bibliophile.
Don Vincente, also known as Don Vicente and Fray Vicents, is a fictional character whose story was first published as an anonymous article in the French newspaper La Gazette des Tribunaux, in 1836. The legend was subsequently cited and reproduced as a true story in France and other countries through the 19th and early 20th centuries, while remaining virtually unknown in Spain. No historical evidence of Don Vincente or the criminal process against him has ever been found.
The Prozess gegen die Juden von Trient, or Trial against the Jews of Trent, was an unpublished manuscript describing the trial and execution of 18 Jews from Trent, Italy, for the murder of Simon of Trent in 1475. Commissioned in the 1470s, it came into the possession of a convent in Vienna in the 17th century and remained there until 1937, when it was purchased at auction by Lessing J. Rosenwald in order to avoid the document falling into the hands of the Nazis and being used to justify anti-semitism. After being sealed for 50 years, it was auctioned and now resides in Yeshiva University. The book consists of 614 folios and contains specific documents relating to the 1475 trial; it has been used as a source of scholarship in understanding the trial, despite difficulties in identifying the author and the variety of translation problems with the multiple languages used during the interrogation and trial itself, which are reflected in the Prozess.
