Saturday, March 24, 2012

A Mania for Cloth Bound Collectibles


Title page from Volume I of an Earl's Edition
of the works of Benjamin Disraeli  
When I was eight years old and the family hired movers to help us relocate, my father’s personal library was catalogued and found to number over 5,000 volumes. I inherited a portion of these in 1989, and donated some to Casa Loma, whose library shelves—believe it or not—were filled with wooden replicas. (I discovered this while mounting an exhibit of 20th century wedding gowns at the famous location.) I have carefully stored many of the remaining books, displaying and enjoying them by rotation. 

Recently, feeling the press of post-holiday excess and frightened by an episode of Hoarders, I attempted a purge of my 19th century book collection, but instead, I ended up adding to my library of second, third, and special edition classics. As I reacquainted myself with these cloth-bound beauties—running my fingers through deckled, slightly yellowed pages, and lifting the occasional translucent sheet to gaze at hand-colored illustrations—I fell in love all over again. The marbled endpapers of one volume alone reawakened my passion for such literary treasures.
Alison Hoover Bartlett, author of The Man Who Loved Books Too Much, (a fabulous read) believes “the allure of any book is in large part sensual.” Indeed, the thingness of books has appealed to collectors long before digital technology threatened to make bound paper obsolete.In a dedicated search for first editions, collectors and bibliomaniacs often overlook later edition classics, but these are often the very books with the most decorative covers, as publishers were often more willing to cover the extra cost of decorative bindings once a particular title had become a sure thing. 
The purge will have to wait. I love books too much not to bring them along with me into my sixties. 



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