The following quotation from A. Edward Newton's "The Decay of the Bookshop"—which first appeared in
The Atlantic (January 1920): 48 (
here), and was reprinted in Newton's
A Magnificent Farce (1921), 78 (
here)—has a long and interesting history:
And so it is that, not being a scholar or altogether indigent, I do not much use any library except my own. I early formed the habit of buying books, and, thank God, I have never lost it. Authors living and dead—dead, for the most part—afford me my greatest enjoyment, and it is my pleasure to buy more books than I can read. Who was it who said, ‘I hold the buying of more books than one can peradventure read, as nothing less than the soul’s reaching towards infinity; which is the only thing that raises us above the beasts that perish’? Whoever it was, I agree with him ….
Too many of us who are liberal, not to say lavish, in our household expenses, seem to regard the purchase of books as an almost not-to-be-permitted extravagance. We buy piano-players and talking machines, and we mortgage our houses to get an automobile, but when it comes to a book, we exhaust every resource before parting with our money.
The answer to Newton's rhetorical question ("Who was it who said?") seems to have been William Hobart Royce (1878–1963), an American writer and bookseller who wrote under the name "Penmore"; specifically, Newton had in mind the following quotation (from 1916)
I do hold the buying of more books than one could peradventure read, as nothing less than the soul’s reaching toward infinity; which is the only thing that raises us above the beasts that perish — Penmore.
Newton's 1920 paraphrase of Penmore-Royce was expanded by Holbrook Jackson (in
The Anatomy of Bibliomania (1930), 225) as follows:
Even when reading is impossible, the presence of books acquired by passionate devotion to them produces such an ecstasy that the buying of more books than one can peradventure read is nothing less than the soul reaching towards infinity, and that this passion is the only thing that raises us above the beasts that perish, an argument which some have used in defence of the giddy raptures invoked by wine.
Here, Newton's words are indicated by italics. (Throughout Jackson’s
Anatomy of Bibliomania, quotations are printed in italic, instead of within quotation marks.) More than fifty years later, a version of the Jackson's quotation appeared in Otto Bettmann, in
The Delights of reading: quotes, notes [and] anecdotes (1987), 49 [
here]. Bettmann paraphrased Jackson, but attributed the entire paraphrase to Newton:
Even when reading is impossible, the presence of books acquired produces such an ecstasy that the buying of more books than one can read is nothing less than the soul reaching towards infinity… we cherish books even if unread, their mere presence exudes comfort, their ready access, reassurance.
A. Edward Newton
The passage following the ellipsis in the above quotation ("… we cherish books even if unread […]") appears to have been added Bettmann; certainly, it is not anywhere in either Newton (1920 or 1921) or Jackson (1930). Bettmann's embellished "quotation" is everywhere on the internet.
* * * * *
A 2008 blog post by Steve Dodson (
here) unraveled the Newton-Jackson connection, and the lack of a source for the passage following the ellipsis. In a 2017 comment on this blog post, Dan Goldman identified "Penmore" as Newton's source, which he found in the
Monthly Bulletin of the Pasadena Public Library "for October of 1915 or 1916." (
This source is viewable only as a "Snippet" to me in Australia.)
Since nearly a decade has passed since Goldman searched for the quotation, I thought I might now be able to find an earlier appearance, and therefore find the full context for the quote.
What I discovered is that the quote only appears as a "pull-quote" (a brief, attention-catching quotation used as a graphic feature): there is no "full context." I also cannot locate a primary source for the quote—but the earliest precisely-datable instance of its use that I was able to find appears to be in
Educational Foundations: A Monthly Magazine of Pedagogy, vol. 27, no. 5 (January 1916), 279 [
here]. The Penmore-Royce pull-quote is used as an advertisement, in the third of five advertisements for a "Book Buyer's League" that are scattered across this volume (September 1915–June 1916); the fifth advertisement (
here) explains:
NOTE — Our friends are asked to remember that the publishers of Educational Foundations have exceptional facilities for filling orders for all magazines and books. The Book Buyer's League is now offering 10 per cent discount on all monthly statements to its members. Membership in the League costs but $2.00 a year and includes a subscription to this magazine.
The first bookish pull-quote (which appears on p. 275) is followed by "See Book Buyer's League announcement, this issue"; the second pull-quote (279) is followed by "Join the Book Buyer's League"; and the third pull-quote reads, in full:
I do hold the buying of more books than one could peradventure read, as nothing less than the soul's reaching toward infinity; which is the only thing that raises us above the beasts that perish — Penmore.
The Book Buyer's League is at your service.
Although I found references to "The Book Buyer's League" dating back to 1902 (
Life, Vol 39, no. 1008 (20 February 1902), [np]
here), I did not find an earlier example of this Penmore-Royce pull-quote.
The Monthly Bulletin of the Pasadena Public Library example given by Goldman appears in a group of quotations, and the other examples I was able to find from 1916 were in the form of quotations too (such as this one
here and this one
here).
* * * * *
In 2026, it seems that it is still not possible to identify a source for Bettmann's peroration "we cherish books even if unread, their mere presence exudes comfort, their ready access, reassurance." Along with Newton's "it is my pleasure to buy more books than I can read"— Bettmann's "we cherish books even if unread" is a key source for the Wikipedia entry on
Tsundoku, which is a pre-WW1 era Japanese word, meaning something like "to pile up [books] with intent to read" (
1995) or "piling up books and leaving them unread around your house" (
2015).
While I did not find the source for Bettmann's peroration, I did find the following 1905 quote on cherishing books:
There are books we like, and books we love; books we honour, and books we cherish; books we admire upon the shelves, and books we thrust beneath our pillow when we go to sleep.
This is part of a monologue by Henry Woolford, a character in Guy Berton's novel,
Art Thou The Man? (New York: Dodd, Mead and Co., 1905), 202 (
here), which echoes Francis Bacon's famous adage, from his essay "On Studies" (1598)
Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested: that is, some books are to be read only in parts; others to be read, but not curiously; and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention.
The Woolford monologue is lengthy, but I liked this part of it, so I will close off this post by quoting it in full:
"I've wondered often why some books are favourite books," he said. "Of course, I know why they are, and yet there is a pleasant mystery about it all. There are many books here, and many more down in the library—great books, nearly all of them— books of the masters, histories of the great ones, symbols of thoughts that have lived through the ages undenied. And yet they have no equality in our affections. We pass by one with a glance, and seize upon another. There are books we like, and books we love; books we honour, and books we cherish; books we admire upon the shelves, and books we thrust beneath our pillow when we go to sleep. Some one has said that we have ancestors of the intellect as well as ancestors of the body, and a lineage of the spirit as clearly marked as a family tree. Here are my other ancestors—here in my favourite books. I've kept them here because I could not bear to have them banished in the library downstairs. They have watched me at my work, they have kept wakeful through the long, long nights, and they have been close when I slept. And they have been tyrants, too, for they have kept me awake oftener than they have talked me to sleep. Pleasant, precious comrades, these."
