The Pain of a Bibliophile

At the moment, I am reading Hwang Bo-Reum's Every Day I Read, trs. Shanna Tan (2025)—a "warm and reflective collection of essays about reading, language and life." (Some Amazon reviews here.) The essays are all very short. And, although they strike me as quite uneven in quality, I like reading essays in general, and I have been particularly enjoying this (to me) outsider perspective on a topic I am deeply-familiar with.

For fairly-obvious reasons, I was amused by this passage in Chapter 45 (178–79):

  When I first learnt that the famed Japanese bibliophile Takashi Tachibana had a 'Cat Building' that housed more than 200,000 books, I was in awe. I can't afford a building, but I would love a spacious reading room lined with bookcases. Wouldn't it be awesome if I could find any book I wanted in my own home?
  But after reading several books written by bibliophiles, I realised that maybe that isn't the life for me. I love buying books, but bibliophiles take book-buying to the extreme.
  In The Pain of a Bibliophile (what a title!), it’s said that around half or maybe more of bibliophiles buy books every day, and because of that, they barely have space to walk in their own house. It takes about 10,000 books to open a secondhand bookshop, and Japanese author Takeshi Okazaki keeps about 20,000 or 30,000 books at home. One of the bibliophiles interviewed in the book estimated owning about 30,000 books, but when the actual count turned out to be 130,000, they chuckled shamefacedly.
  Despite owning a whole lot more books, the author claims that 500 is the ideal number of books to have at home. A true-blue bibliophile should have a sizeable collection, yet have the flexibility to adjust it according to one's changing preferences. The author quotes a literary scholar saying, More isn't better. I imagined a room filled with several hundred of my favourite books displayed neatly, with their spines visible. From then on, I stopped having the ridiculous idea to fill every inch of my house with books.

Wanting to know more about The Pain of a Bibliophile, I turned to the endnotes, and was disappointed to find the following (on p .221):

1 Translated from the Korean edition: 아즈마 가나코, (역) 박승희, 궁극의 미니멀라이프 (즐거운상상, 2016).

I haven't the remotest idea how to read Korean. I can't even break these lines of symbols into words, let alone work out which bit was the title and how to key this title into a search engine. I don’t know why the publisher didn't gloss each Korean title using something like the official "Revised Romanization" method. (Using this method, Hwang's Every Day I Read or 매일 읽겠습니다 can be Romanised as Maeil ikgetseumnida.) Better still would have been to give the name of the original work that was translated. If they had done this, it would have saved me a lot of wasted time, trying to identify The Pain of a Bibliophile—which, as Hwang says—has such a tantalising title.

* * * * *

Since I had no idea how to transcribe the Korean title, I used Hwang's translated title. I asked Google to identify a "Korean book, the title of which translates literally as 'the pain of the bibliophile'." Google search referred me to Hwang's previous book:

Based on the search results, it appears you may be referring to Welcome to the Hyunam-dong Bookshop by Hwang Bo-Reum, a popular Korean "healing fiction" novel that heavily features themes of bibliophilia, comforting reads, and self-discovery through literature.

Since Google search failed, I tried Google AI, which informed me that

The Korean book you are referring to is likely 애서가의 고통 (Aeseogaui Gotong), which is the Korean translation of the German book "Die Leiden des Bibliophilen" (literally "The Sufferings of the Bibliophile") by Wolfgang Hermann.

Google AI provided other useful facts about Hermann's Die Leiden des Bibliophilen; namely:

It explores the obsessive habits and inherent struggles of those who love books too much, such as:
  The overwhelming physical weight of a growing collection.
  The anxiety of having a "To Be Read" (TBR) pile that never shrinks.
  The psychological burden of finding shelf space and the "pain" of potentially losing or damaging a beloved book

Particularly astute readers may have already realised that this is complete hogwash, but I innocently searched for English translations of this work and, when that got me nowhere, for information about the author. This is when I discovered (on Wikipedia) that Wolfgang Hermann was "a German librarian and member of the Nazi Party, whose blacklist provided the template for the Nazi book burnings in May 1933."

Returning to Google AI's (entirely hallucinated) account of this book, I am not sure what "psychological burden" Herr Herrmann might have suffered as a result of "potentially losing or damaging a beloved book"; nor do I know whether this librarian cheered on the Nazi book-burning only to alleviate anxieties he experienced over the mass of good books he would be unable to read or shelve.

Still, it did strike me as unlikely that Herr Hermann would have would have penned a book on Die Leiden des Bibliophilen. And, since he died at the end of WW2, I doubted that Herr Hermann would have had much time to write a book on the subject of his bibliophilic sorrows. Since it was even less likely that he had anything to say about late twentieth-century Japanese book collectors, Tachibana's 'Cat Building' etc., I belatedly concluded that this was a pretty wild AI hallucination.

* * * * *

After a number of less-entertaining hallucinations—I got caught up in side-quests based on Hwang's reference to Tachibana Takashi and his four-story Cat Building.

Eventually, I gave in and went to the trouble of photographing the endnote, uploading the photo to my computer, screen capping the entry, and using Google Translate to transcribe and translate it.

As a result of doing this, I can now offer [1] the above pictures of "La maison du chat noir chez TACHIBANA" ["Tachibana's Black Cat House"] (exterior, interior, and plan) and [2] a translation and gloss, below, of Hwang's endnote):

Translated from the Korean edition: Kanako Azuma, (Translator) Seung-hee Park, Ultimate Minimal Life (Jeulgeoun Sangsang, 2016).

  궁극의 미니멀라이프 [Gunggeuk-ui Minimallaipeu]
  아즈마 가나코 [Kanako Azuma]
  박승희 [Seung-hee Park]
  즐거운상상 [Jeulgeoun Sangsang]

Further Googling revealed that Gunggeuk-ui Minimallaipeu is a translation of Kanako Azuma's Motanai Kurashi: Oheya Mo Kokoro Mo Sukkirisuru [A minimalist lifestyle: A clearer space and a more refreshed mind] (2006), which has not been translated into English. (And is no longer available in Japanese—although the old Amazon listing survives here.)

* * * * *

The first part of Azuma's book title—To live without waste—refers to a Japanese practice (Mottainai), which is rooted in Buddhist ideas that everything has a spirit (Tsukumogami). The phrase—which might be playfully translated as "the way without waste"—combines Kura (暮: to live/spend time) with Mottai (勿体: the dignity, essence, or proper form of an object) and Nai (無し: without, no, or not).

There is a lot to admire about the Mottainai Kurashi philosophy, which is based on a deep respect for both nature and objects, particularly older objects that are believed to acquire a soul and become self-aware after long periods of use. Although it is rooted in Edo-period frugality, Mottainai Kurashi has inspired a contemporary neo-Scandinavian, eco-friendly minimalism (i.e., minimizing the purchase of unnecessary items), which has recently inspired a multitude of books on Japanese minimalism.

I suspect that some of those attracted to the idea of Japanese minimalism (and the prospect of achieving a "more refreshed mind" via "a clearer space") do not fully-understand the emphasis on avoiding the acquisition of unnecessary items, rather than merely disposing of unnecessary items.

Japanese folklore is full of warnings about thoughtlessly disposing of objects, since spirits (yokai) can "embody the frustration of being discarded, causing mischief or haunting owners who treated them poorly." I.e., you will not achieve a "more refreshed mind" by thoughtlessly disposing of objects—instead, you are likely to incur the wrath of a host of yokai. You have a responsibility to every object: to value, care for and mend objects—to appreciate what you have.

* * * * *

Although I have a deep respect for my many books, particularly older books, and I am in no danger of being haunted as a result of thoughtlessly discarding any of them, I have no illusions that I am practicing Mottainai Kurashi. Perhaps for this reason, I was particularly amused to discover that Kanako has written many books on the subject of minimalism (is not the proliferation of her books … problematic?) as I was by the fact that Hwang bookends her reference to Motanai Kurashi: Oheya Mo Kokoro Mo Sukkirisuru with an explanation that she "pushed out ten boxes of books" from her library in two days after deciding to "trim [her] collection to 500 books." It seems that all three of us have something yet to learn about the Mottainai Kurashi philosophy.

Finally, I have to say that I was immensely disappointed to learn that The Pain of a Bibliophile was a pean to minimalism. And I was incredulous to discover that no book with this title has ever been published. (No such title appears on WorldCat.) In fact, I was so disappointed and incredulous that I am tempted to remedy this state of affairs by writing my own book under this title.

No sooner did I have this thought that Google AI leapt forth, like Achillies in battle, to suggest an outline for this putative title. Not to be outdone, ChatGPT responded by penning this description of the imagined book:

Patrick Spedding's The Pain of a Bibliophile (2026) reads like a wry, affectionate exploration of a reader's most relatable struggles—those peculiar tensions that arise from loving books a little too much. Framed as both cultural observation and personal reflection, the book examines the paradox at the heart of bibliophilia: that the very source of joy can also be a source of constant, if often humorous, distress.

The author begins with the most visible burden—space. Shelves overflow, then multiply, until books migrate into teetering stacks across floors, chairs, and hidden corners. This physical sprawl becomes a symbol of a deeper excess: the ever-growing "to-be-read" pile, which looms not as a promise, but as a quiet, persistent anxiety. Each new acquisition, however thrilling, adds to an unspoken awareness that no lifetime may be long enough.

From there, the narrative turns to the financial habits of devoted readers, capturing the near-compulsive pull of bookstores and the curious ability to justify "just one more" purchase. This is paired with a contrasting fragility: the acute heartbreak of physical damage—a cracked spine or stained page—treated with a seriousness that borders on the ceremonial.

Time, too, emerges as an adversary. The bibliophile, the book suggests, is perpetually outpaced by their own ambitions, forced to choose between unread volumes while often juggling several at once. This indecision becomes its own quiet torment, as starting a new book can feel like a small betrayal of the others waiting.

Interwoven throughout are moments of loss and longing: the misplaced tome, the narrowly missed rare find, the book that got away. Social life presents its own complications, as bibliophiles struggle to explain their habits—or quietly opt out of gatherings in favour of the written world.

Yet the book ultimately resists framing these experiences as true suffering. Instead, it presents them as inseparable from the pleasure itself. The weight of a book, the scent of its pages, the satisfaction of ownership and discovery—all are part of a deeply sensory and emotional relationship. In this light, the "pain" of a bibliophile is revealed not as a flaw, but as a testament to the depth of their devotion.

If I had the inclination, I could probably have an AI write this book, and publish it, so other AIs could read and review it—and write blog posts about it (**)—but I have a host of bookish yokai to care for, so I will content myself with the above AI-bait (which is, I hope, enough to have The Pain of a Bibliophile added to my list of recent publications).

(**) My version of the dead internet theory—which Wikipedia still labels as "a conspiracy theory." I wonder if PolyMarket is taking bets on how soon this label will be removed.

Book Shop, Place of Worship

I was browsing for bookshops in Blackburn (Melbourne), when I spotted this:

(you have to imagine the "record scratch" sound-effect here): Did I read that right?!

Sweet! For comparison, here is the nearest "real" bookshop

So, what is a "Place of Worship"? Well, it turns out that it is not a Christian church, Jewish synagogue, Buddhist temple, Hindu mandir or Shinto shrine, each of which have their own symbols on Google Maps, nor (according to the post here) is it a Sikh gurdwara, Jain temple, Japanese Buddhist temple, or—in all liklihood—a pagan temple. It seems that this symbol…

…first appeared on Google Maps at the same time that the star-and-crescent symbol dissapeared, to (checks notes) "promote inclusivity" and to "avoid favouring one religion over another." I am guessing that this is also reason why there is no street number for this Place of Worship, and that Google Maps has deleted all post-2008 street-view data for one end of this street.

All of which is a shame, since I'd like to see any Book Shop that could accurately be described as a Place of Worship, and I have nothing but respect for any faith that so well captures my own sentiments in relation to book shops and book shopping. I'll have to resist the urge to visit this location to see the book shop for myself, in case I end up in a Nineteen Eighty-Four / Total Recall-type situation after Google remotely deletes the relevant data from my head.

On Buying More Books Than You Can Read

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."

Judge Rochfort exlibris bookplate, ca. 1760

A biblioclast cut this early eighteenth century Judge Rochfort exlibris bookplate from a copy of James Foster, Sermons on the following subjects, viz. …, 3rd ed. (1736) [ESTC: n24146 (recording 15 copies); here]. I know this because, the bookplate was, and still is, fixed to the back of the titlepage, as you can see:

Bookplates are usually attached to front (fixed) endpaper, not to the title leaf; most likely, there was already a bookplate on the front endpaper, when Rochfort went to add his plate, so it was placed on the verso of the title leaf instead (more on this below).

There is a copy of this edition of Foster's Sermons on ECCO, but not freely available online (yet—probably), but there are copies of the first edition of 1733 (here) and the fourth edition of 1745 (here) for anyone interested in Rochfort’s reading or book-buying preferences. Below is the full title page, taken from the University of Cambridge Library copy on ECCO:

Although I have been unable to find a reference to any other Judge Rochfort bookplates in library catalogues online—or on ESTC under “Copy Specific Notes”—there is actually another book from Judge Rochfort’s library available at present on ABE (here):

The title of this book is not well represented in this ABE catalogue listing, but it is a copy of Jeremy Taylor, Eniautos. A course of sermons for all the Sundays of the year, 2nd ed. (1655) [Wing T330; ESTC: r10569 (recording 40 copies); here]. As you can see, this copy of Rochfort’s bookplate is printed in red, which is very unusual I believe.

Although there is no image of it online, this armorial bookplate features in J. H. Slater’s, “Alphabetical List of Noted Book-Plates” in his Book Plates and Their Value (London: Henry Grant, 1898), 203 (online here):

According to Slater, there are actually two Judge Rochfort bookplates, mine being “distinctly ‘Jacobean’ with elaborate mantling”—although he dates is to “about 1760” (long after the Jacobean period)—but both feature the crest and motto: “Probitas est optima politia” [honesty is the best policy].

Slater, who is styled J. Herbert Slater in the books of his I have on my shelves, was particularly well informed, so I am inclined to accept his date for the bookplate. As I noted above, the unusual positioning of the bookplate suggests that Rochfort was not the first owner of his 1736 copy of Foster’s Sermons—any more than he was the first owner of his 1655 copy of Taylor’s Eniautos on ABE.

* * * * *

As for who was Rochfort—like St John Broderick, the other stray Anglo-Irish bookplate I bought in the late 80s (and blogged about here)—he is: Judge Rochfort, of Streamstown, Co. Westmeath, Ireland; High Sheriff of Westmeath in 1736.

Judge Rochfort was related to the much-better-known Rochforts of Gaulstown (Gaulstown is only about 25kms by road from Streamstown), but the link between the two families is somewhat distant, and the families may even have been at odds.

The Gaulstown Rochforts “were close friends of [Jonathan] Swift’s, and both George and John figure frequently in Swift’s letters and poems. John seems to have been a particular favorite: He was named by Stella one of her executors; and he was selected a member of the Lunacy Commission appointed, in 1742, to in quire into the state of Swift's mind” (Katherine Hornbeak, “Swift’s Letter to a Very Young Lady on Her Marriage,” Huntington Library Quarterly, Vol. 7, No. 2 (February 1944): 183).

Swift was a regular visitor to the Rochfort family at Gaulstown House—a very famous estate, which you will find information about here) and here). “It is said that it was when Dean Swift looked across the expanse of Lough Ennell one day and saw the tiny human figures on the opposite shore of the lake that he conceived the idea of the Lilliputians featured in Gulliver’s Travels” (here).

“A number of Rochforts family served in the Irish House of Commons for constituencies in Westmeath” (here); Robert Rochfort (1652–1727), of the Rochforts of Gaulstown, “had a highly distinguished career, being Speaker of the Irish House of Commons and Chief Baron of the Irish Exchequer. Robert’s grandson, also named Robert, was created 1st Earl of Belvedere in 1756. Their principal residences were Gaulstown House and, later, Belvedere House in Westmeath, of which only the latter still exists.”

Belvedere House is about 10kms from Gaulstown, but still only 25kms from Judge Rochfort in Streamstown—assuming that Judge Rochfort actually resided in Streamstown, which is by no means certain. The population of Streamstown is tiny, even today, although it is rapidly rising (increasing from 378 in 2016 to 519 in 2022; see here), and, as Arthur Sherbo notes, various members of the Rochfort family that Swift numbered among his friends were “resident in Dublin” at the time (Arthur Sherbo, “From the Westminster Magazine: Swift, Goldsmith, Garrick, et al.” Studies in Bibliography, Vol. 41 (1988), 276; here).

* * * * *

Returning to Judge Rochfort: Judge (here) was the son of Charles, son and heir of Charles Rochfort Esq. of Streamstown (ca. 1636–92; here and here), eldest son and heir of Lt.-Col. “Prime Iron” James Rochfort (ca. 1600–1652), who was court martialed and executed for killing his Major (in a duel) in Cromwell’s Army (here and here)—Lodge’s The Peerage of Ireland, vol. 3 (Dublin, 1754), 374–76 (here) provides the connections between all the otherwise disconnected references provided above.

Judge married Jane Donnellan (here), and had three daughters: Jane (here), Rebecca, who married (on 17 November 1779) Thomas Edwards, Esq. “an eminent surgeon” (here), and an un-named third daughter mentioned here.

Judge’s daughter Jane Rochfort married Rowland Rochfort (here)—a distant cousin—and had two daughters (only Harriet mentioned here, but two daughters mentioned here).

Rowland was the great, great, grandson of Lt.-Col. “Prime Iron” James Rochfort, and great grandson of Robert Rochfort (1652–1727; here; Prime Iron’s youngest son)—and wife Lady Hannah Hancock (d. 1733; here)—the friend of Swift.

Judge and his immediate family—indeed, most of the Streamstown Rochforts—have “no dates”—that I can find anyway—Robert, his ancestors, and descendants (i.e., the Gaulstown Rochforts), do. Lt.-Col. James Rochfort (d. 1652) was the father of Robert Rochfort (1652–1727), who was the father of the Rt. Hon. George Rochfort (1682–1730), who was the father of Arthur Moore Rochfort (1711–1774), M.P. for Westmeath, who was the father of Rowland Rochfort. Rowland’s father, Arthur, was the brother of Robert Rochfort, 1st Earl of Belvidere (1708–1774), aka “the wicked earl” (more on him below).

Meanwhile, the nearest dates that I can find for Judge’s immediate family are his grandfather (Charles, born ca. 1636), and the weddings of his daughters: Rebecca’s in 1779 and Jane’s (no date), but to Rowland, the brother of Lt.-Gen. George Rochfort (ca. 1739–1821).

* * * * *

I will end this ridiculously long post with a brief account of “the wicked earl” (based on the sources linked above, esp. here, here and here).

Apparently, Robert Rochfort, the 1st Earl of Belvidere, heard rumours that his young wife (Mary) had often visited—and had been having an “intrigue” with—his brother Arthur, the father of Rowland (Judge's son-in-law). According to a contemporary source: “[Arthur was] very well-bred and very well in his person and manner …[while] she is extremely handsome and has many personal accomplishments.”

As punishment, Robert had his wife locked up in the family house at Gaulstown, alone apart from her children and servants, for 31yrs. He also sued Arthur for “criminal conversation” for £2,000—a huge sum at the time; unable to pay, Arthur was thrown in a debtor’s prison where he eventually died.

Meanwhile, Mary was left so severely damaged by her long imprisonment “that she took to wandering the house and talking to portraits as if they were real people. When she was finally released after Robert’s death in 1774, Mary had become a deranged hag incapable of recognizing her own sons.”

George, the 2nd Earl of Belvedere, who freed his mother from imprisonment, demolished the Gaulstown House (where she had been imprisoned) and built a smaller house in the grounds for her. But Mary refused to stay; instead, she set sail for France, where she became a nun and lived the rest of her life as a hermit.

Given Robert’s character, if Judge allowed his daughter to marry Rowland, during the life of the wicked earl it seems very unlikely that he was at all close to Robert or the Gaulstown Rochforts—but perhaps this occurred after Robert bled to death, alone (and probably unrepentant), with his head caved in, on the grounds of his estate.

[Corrected: 15 June 2026]

St John Broderick of the Middle Temple, 1703

This “Early Armorial” Restoration exlibris bookplate (Ginn, slide 14; see below) was created for St John Broderick of the Middle Temple, later The Honourable St John Brodrick (ca. 1685–1728), son of Alan, Baron Brodrick (ca. 1655–1728)—who outlived his son by only six months (Wikipedia pages here and here).

The short Wikipedia entry on St John Broderick characterises him as “an Anglo-Irish politician who sat in the Irish House of Commons from 1709 to 1728 and in the British House of Commons from 1721 to 1727”; since he was a parliamentarian, a few more details appear in Romney Sedgwick’s The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1715–1754 (1970; online here).

Combining details from Wikipedia, Sedgwick and C. M. Tenison’s “Cork M.P’s, 1559–1800,” Journal of the Cork Historical and Archaeological Society, vol. 1, 2nd ser. (1895): 177 (here), the details of his life can be summarized as follows:

St. John Brodrick of Ballyanane, alias Midleton, was the eldest son, by his first wife, of Alan Brodrick, M.P., who was afterwards created Viscount Midleton. He was educated at Eton, 1698, and King’s College Cambridge, 1700, and was admitted to the Middle Temple, 1700; barrister-at-law, Ireland; Recorder of Cork, in succession to his father, 1708.

Brodrick was M.P. Castlemartyr, 1709–13 (then “of Cork”); Cork City, 1713–14 (then “of the Middle Temple”); Cork County, 1715–27; and 1727 (then Right Hon. St. John Brodrick) till his death in 1728. Brodrick was M.P. also for Beeralstown, county Devon, 1721–27; a Privy Councillor, 1724.

He married Anne, daughter of Michael Hill, of Hillsborough. She died 1752, leaving five daughters, of whom Anne married James Jeffreys, and Mary married Sir J. R. Freke, M.P. (q.v.). He died s.p. and s.p.m., 21st February, 1728.

A “Sketch Pedigree exemplifying the Brodrick M.P’s” is in Tenison here and a “Pedigree of Broderick” (that includes St. John and his daughters) can be found here

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I found only a few references to this 1703 bookplate. It seems that Broderick owned a copy of Donne's Poems (London, 1633), now at Texas Tech University, Lubbock (here, but no photograph).

There appear to be no modern photograph or scan of St John Broderick’s bookplate online, but Egerton Castle reproduced a copy of this bookplate in his English Book-plates: Ancient and Modern (1893), 60 (above; text here); and this image was used by both Linda K. Ginn, for her 2017 lecture on “Digital Bookplates: Old Technology and New Applications” [University Libraries Workshops and Presentations, 6 (pdf online here]) and Paul Magrath in his 2021 post for the ICLR [Incorporated Council of Law Reporting for England and Wales] on “(L)ex Libris — the art of the legal bookplate” (here).

Regarding the Brodrick family motto: “a cuspide corona” can be translated as “from a spear, a crown” (i.e., one receives honour [a crown] for military exploits [a spear]). This motto can also be seen on the 1754 engraving above, taken from John Lodge, The Peerage of Ireland, vol. 3 (Dublin, 1754), pl. 29 (here).

* * * * *

I have no record, and no clear memory of when I acquired this bookplate—but I think I have had it and a one other anglo-Irish bookplate (which I blogged about here) for decades, probably since the late 80s. I have a pretty strong aversion to supporting “breakers”—biblioclasts who disassemble books for engravings, or sammelbands and nonce-volumes for individual works, especially plays—so I can only assume that I bought the collection of bookplates [1] not from the beaker themselves (to avoid encouraging this sort of thing) and [2] out of a desire to protect bookplates themselves.

As you can see, I have managed to protect this one so far. But it occurred to me recently, when I was going through my ephemera, that it might be even better to post images and information about some of my ephemera here. Destruction is only a bushfire away after all and the bookplates are both very attractive—as the appearance of this one in Egerton Castle’s English Book-plates suggests.

What A Library Should Be Like, 1924

Richard Le Gallienne's “What A Library Should Be Like: Some Suggestions For Those To Whom Books and Their Heritage Are Precious” appeared in House and Garden in December 1924 (here). Le Gallienne (1866–1947) was a prolific author and poet, contributor to The Yellow Book, and one-time lover of Oscar Wilde, who married three times, living in the US before settling in Menton (near Nice), France.

It appears that Le Gallienne had a very nice library later in life. According to Wikipedia:

During the Second World War he was prevented from returning to his Menton home and lived in Monaco for the rest of the war. His house in Menton was occupied by German troops and his library was nearly sent back to Germany as bounty. Le Gallienne appealed to a German officer in Monaco, who allowed him to return to Menton to collect his books.

Although this bibliophic advice was written by a practice-what-you-preach aesthete, it seems not to have been reprinted in almost a century, and so I have transcribed it below. The full reference is: Richard Le Gallienne, “What A Library Should Be Like,” House and Garden, vol. 46 (December 1924): 58, 110, 112.

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WHAT A LIBRARY SHOULD BE LIKE.

Some Suggestions For Those To Whom Books and Their Heritage Are Precious

JUST as there are gardens without souls, the loveless offspring of seedsmen's catalogs and newly acquired bank accounts, so is it with libraries. Neither have any more vital relation to their owners than an ice box, as little reflect their tastes, and are almost as seldom their personal concern.
  In English country houses the word library is often merely a euphemism for a combination of gunroom and smoking room. Guns, fishing rods, and pipe racks, with a copy of the Sporting Calendar, and a few old magazines, comprise its literature. We have all met such "libraries" in novels, and have wondered how the name chanced to be given to rooms where anything is to be found except a book or a reader.
  But there are libraries which do contain books in many and expensive "sets" that, in spite of them, still more drearily belie the description. These are even less often visited by friendly humanity, and their serried rows of uniform, morocco-bound volumes, frigidly enclosed behind glass doors, gleam lonely and uninviting as cabinets of minerals in a museum. Such libraries, we have been told, are bought by the yard like wall papers, irrespective of their literary contents, and have even less character than the other furnishings of the house, of which they form a regulation part. Obviously, these are not the libraries with which we have here to do.
  By a library we mean, of course, a cherished collection of books, and the room in which those books are sympathetically housed, a room that has taken on an unmistakable bookish character from their presence.

OUR library may be in the house or outside it, in a garden or in a woodland, by a stream among the rocks. It may be high up in a city garret, or it may be the warm heart of a palace. If one has a garden, there is no happier place for our library. "A library in a garden!" exclaims Mr. Edmund Gosse in one of his essays, "The phrase seems to contain the whole felicity of man!"
  The association of trees and books is, indeed, as old as the very derivations of the words "book" and "library," which are almost identical. Is not the word "book" derived from the Anglo-Saxon and German words for the beech tree (boce and buche) because the ancient Saxons and Germans did their first writing on beechen boards! And similarly the Latin word "liber" meant the inner bark of a tree used for writing on, before it meant "book," and gave us "library." When we reflect that the paper on which our books are printed is made from wood pulp, it will be seen that we arc still, in a sense, writing on the bark of trees, and the thought is worth playing with for a fanciful moment. The leaves of our books and the leaves on our garden trees should, therefore, feel at home together, being both made of the same mysterious substance, and when we bring our books into the garden it is but bringing them back to their green birthplace. And anyone who has built a library in a garden knows how at home indeed they are there. How the peace of both embrace and supplement each other, and, as we sit with our library door open on quiet summer afternoons, or on early mornings with the delicate sunlight playing tenderly like visible music on the nut-brown bindings, "while to and fro the room go the soft airs," the very stillness rarifies our minds, and the thoughts behind the words we read seem to steal out of themselves from the page, with the dews of their first utterance yet bright upon them. The low whisperings of the trees and the quiet talk of the books seem one, in a rare equilibrium of the soul. Yes! Mr. Gosse was right. A library in a garden! The phrase does contain the whole felicity of man!

YET it does not exhaust it. There are many other modes of felicity for a man who really loves his books whose library is the organic growth of years of collecting together those books and those only which sensitively express himself, and surround him like his own soul, his memories and his dreams, externalised in a companionable embodiment. Such a book lover will often indulge himself in imagining the many various libraries he might create for himself, like so many bookish castles in Spain. Sometimes he may dream of the libraries of great book lovers of the past. For example, if he is an omnivorous bibliomaniac, and never can have enough books about him, he may recall with envy the huge collection of Richard Heber, that "fiercest and strongest of all the bibliomaniacs," to whom Sir Walter Scott dedicated the sixth canto of Marmion. Heber is credited with owning at least 150,000 volumes, and for those as crazy as he the romantic thing about his "library" was that it was not all in one place. Eight houses were needed to hold it, all in different places, some in England, and some in ancient cities of Europe. Never was such a book glutton, a "hellus librorum." But think of the romantic adventure of pilgrimaging from one of his eight libraries to the other, the perpetual novelty of visiting and re-visiting his various Castles in Spain.



  However, I doubt whether the reader is with me in this rhapsody. Probably his dream of a library is something more sensible and static, and I dare say Montaigne's library in his old Gascon tower would be more to his taste. Indeed, who has not dreamed of that, and, well as it is known to us, it will be pertinent, and indeed practical, to quote something of his description: "'Tis in the third Story of a Tower of which the Ground-Room is my Chapel, the second Story an Apartment with a withdrawing Room and Closet, where I often lie to be more retired. Above it is a great Wardrobe, which formerly was the most useless part of the House. In that library I pass away most of the Days of my Life, and most of the Hours of the Day. In the Night I am never there. There is within it a Cabinet handsome and neat enough, with a very convenient Fire-place for the Winter, and Windows that afford a great deal of light, and very pleasant Prospects. … The Figure of my Study is round, and has no more flat Wall than what is taken up by my Table and Chairs; so that the remaining parts of the Circle present me a View of all my Books at once, set upon five Degrees of Shelves-round about me. It has three noble and free Prospects, and is sixteen Paces Diameter." Montaigne continues that only from fear of that "Trouble that frights me from all [page 111] Business," he had refrained from building on either side, "a Gallery of an hundred Paces long and twelve broad," because "every Place of Retirement requires a Walk." If we add those galleries for him in our imagination, can one conceive a library more after one's own heart! Here once more in another form is Mr. Gosse's "whole felicity of man." Perhaps some reader of this essay may have the whim—and the money—to reconstruct this old library in Montaigne's tower, not forgetting to complete it with the galleries.
  Wherever our library be situated, in a garden, in an ancestral tower, in some quaint old town with gables and belfries, or in a modern American city, the first condition of its being a real library, with the true library atmosphere, where the books can really breathe and live for us, instead of being merely stored, is that the room should not be stiff and formal. It should not be a square room, or a room we can see all at once. The one defect, to my mind, in Montaigne's library, though he himself esteemed it an advantage, was that he could see all his books at once.



  In this respect a library should be like a garden. The garden we can see all at once is not a garden but merely an horticultural exhibit. It has no surprises. And a library, similarly, should have room for surprises. It should be rambling in shape, or made to appear so. The [page 112] letter T, or better still, the letter I, with broad top and bottom, is a good ground plan. It should have two stone fireplaces, so disposed that one can only be seen at a time, roomy and hospitable, with deep angles, and there should be many alcoves, and nooks and corners, some with low windows and wide window seats. It should either be a room with low ceilings, and massive rafters of black oak, or it should be high, with galleries and winding stairways, and hidden some where in the galleries again should be other nooks, some with windows of richly dyed cathedral glass. One or two tiny rooms, with old tapestries for portieres, might be devised, suggesting secrecy and arcane mysteries; and everything, indeed, should be done to tempt the presiding genius of libraries, the nymph Quits, to make her abode there. Here and there should be bowls of roses, early violets, or drowsy wallflowers, and in some secluded corner the still statue of a goddess should come upon us with a white surprise. An old painting or two of some great dead scholar should be enshrined in hushed recesses, Erasmus, say, or Robert Burton of "The Anatomy of Melancholy"; and whatever other such objects of the sister arts are there should be un exciting, but with a quiet thrill in them, full of "whispers and of shadows."



  As for the bookshelves, they should be open, none of your forbidding glass doors, with locks and keys, behind which the books seem cold and distant as the coffined dead. Yet here and there an old Chippendale bookcase for rarities and delicate bindings, might blend its old world elegance and quaint lozenged panes, companionably among the open shelves. As for bindings, the old books will, of course, wear their old weathered coats of ribbed time-brown leather, or time-yellowed vellum. On these the morning sun and the evening lamplight fall most lovingly; and modern books, too, are best left in their original cloth which also soon take on a certain mellowness, as their different colors add variety to the whole informal, haphazard harmony. Nor should any uniformity in the heights of the volumes be aimed at. Nothing is so monotonous and un-suggestive to the eye, and so destructive of that gregariousness of all sorts and conditions of writers that counts for so much in the companionability of a library. "Sets" we must have, but these can be so disposed amid the general pattern as to give it firmness, without destroying its wayward charm.
  There is no need to speak of wall papers, for no wall space will be visible, as the library will be furnished from ceiling to floor with the most satisfactory mural decorations yet invented, namely—books; and, as to general furniture, such as tables and chairs, all that need be said is that they should be solid, simple, comfortable, and distinguished, Elizabethan and Jacobean, for preference, breathing austerity and reverie. And there should be Renaissance cabinet and writing desks with secret drawers. Which reminds me that one of those tiny hidden rooms above referred to should be accessible only by a sliding panel, the spring of which should be known only to the master of the library. And the library, too, should be provided with what one might call a postern, masked by shelves opening inward at a touch, and communicating with a private staircase, by which the master could escape intrusion at a moment's notice; for in a sense a library should be a fortress, a fortress of the soul, ready to repel attack by all enemies of quietude and dreams.
  For the essence of a library is solitude—solitude in the society of the choicest spirits of Time and Eternity. No idle creatures of a day should have entrance there.

RICHARD LE GALLIENNE

[UPDATED 9 August 2021]

Collecting 18C Books: A Workshop

On Sunday, I will be running a workshop—a BSANZ contribution to Rare Book Week—under the title “Hand-press period books from the 18th century: A workshop for collectors” (details here).

My intention is to speak mostly about opportunities for collectors, and on evaluating books, rather than [1] why you might be interested in collecting books in the first place and [2] what particular aspect of eighteenth century life and culture might be of interest to you.

Looking at the list of topics I had intended to cover, it is clear I was being wildly optimistic when I made this proposal. And so, I have decided to post here some of the links and information that I will only be able to skim over in the Workshop—concerning the basics of collecting, bibliographies, and provenance—hopefully, it will be of use for both the participants and those who were interested in the subject, but are unable attend.

If there is anything obvious I have missed, or which might be useful to participants, I will either add that information here after the workshop, or post about it separately and add a link to that post below.

* * * * *

Some useful links:

Vialibri (search engine for antiquarian books).
18C books on eBay (UK) here.
18C books on eBay (US) here.

ESTC.
Google Books.

Some of my posts on collecting 17C and 18C texts: Collecting Eighteenth Century Literature, Catterall and Cowley in Sydney, 1835, Bibliomania, The Evidence Accumulates, Limitless opportunities for collecting Haywood?, Little Victories and Frankenbook; Or, What Goes Around, Comes Around.

* * * * *

Basics of Collecting: as John Carter states (here) “Probably few collectors are so methodical as to put themselves through any formal education for what is, after all, a fairly sophisticated pursuit.” Instead, most collectors rely on self-education, trial and error.

Anyone prepared to self-educate will find resources online to help: you can start with Wikipedia (entry on "Book Collecting," here), or just Google three words: book, collecting, guide. If you do either of these things, you are likely to find a lot that will be of only marginal use, since relatively few book collectors focus on eighteenth century books.

Most sites and videos work on the assumption you will want to collect modern first editions—like this one or this one, at “oldscrolls” no less, which launch straight into the subject of dust jacket condition and identifying first editions based on the line of numbers that appear on the back of a title-page.

The most useful site is probably ABE Basic Guide to Book Collecting, which covers a wider range of collecting, even if its pages on Illuminated Manuscripts and Incunabula (books printed before 1500) are just as far from the mark as those on collecting Lewis Carroll and Ian Fleming. It does, however, have sections on paper types, binding styles, book formats, reference books, books on book collecting, and the care of books etc.

(Among the most useful items in ABE's list of reference books is Carter’s ABC for Book Collectors, which ABE want you to buy, but which is available free, online, here—a direct link to the DPF is here.)

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Becoming expert in your area: most collectors specialise to a greater or lesser extent, simply because few of us have the time or financial resources not to specialise. Even if I had the money needed to collect comprehensively within a well-mapped genre (say, the gothic novel), the time needed to do so with any care and deliberation, would be greater than I have.

Even if you won the lottery, and were to simply delegate the responsibility to someone else to assemble the most complete and perfect collection of the items listed in Montagu Summers’ A Gothic Bibliography (1948; online here), I am not sure what pleasure you would gain in assembling the collection, or even whether—properly speaking—you really would be the “collector” in such a situation.

Discovering where our passion lies, in collecting, is a large part of the fun of collecting, and it is also part of the self-education I mentioned. And although, as I said at the start, I am not about to direct or dictate to someone else what they may or may not want to collect, I can offer some advice about how to proceed once it becomes clear where your interests are.

Whether a collector focuses on an individual author, or a subject, they will likely want to know what works that authors wrote, or what works were printed on that subject in the period. If you do not already know if anyone has already compiled a list of these books (a bibliography), you will find almost two thousand of these lists here. This is the American Libraries Association list of “standard bibliographies” for “Rare Materials Cataloging”—a bibliography of bibliographies, with references to a bewildering range of topics, many on eighteenth-century subjects.

Although the list is very far from complete (the entry for Australia--Bibliography lists Jonathan Wantrup's Australian rare books, 1788-1900 and Monash's supplement to Ferguson's Bibliography of Australia, but not Ferguson's Bibliography itself), it is a good place to start.

One of the most common forms of collecting is author-focused, and partly as a result, bibliographies have been compiled for a great many writers of the period. A good place to start looking for author bibliographies, is T. H. Howard-Hill’s Bibliography of British Literary Bibliographies, 2nd ed. (1988). The author bibliographies in Howard-Hill’s Bibliography of British Literary Bibliographies are a mix of enumerative and descriptive bibliographies.

(A descriptive bibliography—unlike an enumerative bibliography—describes each item in detail, rather than simply enumerate them. An example of an enumerative bibliography is the one by Summers mentioned above; an example on a descriptive bibliography, is Teerink's A bibliography of the writings of Jonathan Swift, which is online here. For a brief overview of Bibliography, see the Wikipedia page here; for an explanation of what a descriptive bibliographies usually describe, and how, see here and here.)

For a recent guide on how to find out more about both authors and subjects—a reminder that collecting is “a fairly sophisticated pursuit” that requires the collector to become an expert in their chosen topic—see Peggy Keeran and Jennifer Bowers, Literary Research and the British Eighteenth Century (2013), a Preview of which is available here.

* * * * *

Condition, Provenance and The history of your books: as Wikipedia notes, "the value of a book ultimately depends on its physical condition." Since the condition deteriorates with use, collectors have long favored books which most closely approximate "as new" condition, with the fewest physical manifestations of use.

In a modern book, this will usually mean a copy of a book with no manifestation of its history: a book, as issued in its original binding (no matter how fragile or ephemeral); with no bookplate, ownership inscriptions or annotations; a dust wrapper that has not been "clipped," without price stickers or bookseller's labels. In short, a tabula rasa: a blank slate.

Few books survive in such an un-used state, and as every year passes, fewer still will remain in that condition, so it is not surprising that—if demand is undiminished—the shrinking supply of pristine copies will continue to rise in value. Since such time-capsule books have long been the most sought after, book sellers and collectors have spent much of the last two centuries attempting to remove any trace of use from the books they have collected—and thereby removed any evidence of provenance of these books.

Two factors are changing this dynamic for eighteenth-century books: firstly, the widespread availability of a vast number of books from the eighteenth century has diminished the need for (use-value of) these books. Library administrators are reluctant to spend a lot of money to build or support large collections of eighteenth century books, when identical copies of the same books are widely available online.

Of course, in the hand-press period, most copies are not—strictly speaking—identical, but that is an argument that only likely to sway bibliographers. But the consequence of the ready availability of good reproductions eighteenth-century books online, there has been an increasing focus among librarians on what is unique about a specific copy of an eighteenth-century book, rather than what is the same about it: i.e., its imperfections, not its perfections.

The second factor changing the singular focus on pristine copies is that there has been an increasing interest among scholars—book historians—concerning the historical ownership and use of books: for these scholars, evidence of ownership and use are highly valuable: annotations, comment, modifications, styles of rebinding, all reveal the ways in which books have been used, kept, valued. As a result, a scholar may now be just as likely to value a book for its imperfection as its perfections.

What this suggests is that a modern collector of eighteenth-century books should take into account what may be uniquely valuable about even a well-used book before either buying or dismissing it. It also suggests that they ought to preserve as much of that history as possible—and this extends to any information whatsoever, concerning the history of a book.

So, for example, a Gothic novel with a bookplate indicating that it once belonged to Montague Summers, should not have that bookplate removed; but—likewise—a Gothic novel that is bought from the sale of Montague's books, which does not have a bookplate, should have this information recorded and preserved too.

Anyone interested in how to investigate provenance, should consult David Pearson's Provenance research in book history: a handbook, "Major New Edition" (2019)—details here.

Harrap, The Myths Series, 1907–17

Between 1907 and 1917, George G. Harrap published a series of a dozen books, later titled "The Myths Series"—a series imitated by Gresham, who published at least ten volumes under the title "Myth and Legend in Literature and Art" between 1912 and 1924. (For my post on the Gresham series, see here.)

Just as with the Gresham series, I have, and have had, a number of the Harrap volumes over the years, often wondered how many titles there were in the full series and, when I went looking for an answer to this question, found very little on the subject; and so I have decided to collect here some of the information I found.

A 1919 reprint of no.2 in the series (see below) explains, in an advertisement, that "Each volume" is in "Demy 8vo, about 400 pages, with from 32 to 64 Plates and Full Index"; the price for "Cloth extra, 12s. 6d. net"; readers are also informed that a “Special Prospectus of this Important Series will be sent to any address.” Sadly, I have not found a copy of this Prospectus, but I found other printings of this advertisement online (here, for example).

The twelve volumes in the series are:

1. Hélène A. Guerber, The Myths of Greece and Rome (1907). [1909]
2. Hélène A. Guerber, Myths of the Norsemen from the Eddas and Sagas (1908). [1909; 1919]
3. Hélène A. Guerber, Myths and Legends of the Middle Ages (September 1909). [1909; 1911]
4. Maud Isabel Ebbutt, Hero-Myths and Legends of the British Race (1910). [1918]
5. T. W. Rolleston, Myths and Legends of the Celtic Race (1912, 2nd ed. rev.) [1929]
6. F. Hadland Davis, The Myths and Legends of Japan (1912). [1928]
7. Lewis Spence, The Myths of Mexico and Peru (1913). [1913]
8. Lewis Spence, The Myths of the North American Indians (1914). [1914]
9. Lewis Spence, Myths and Legends of Ancient Egypt (1915). [1925]
10. Sister Nivedita and A. Coomaraswamy, Myths of the Hindus and Buddhists (1913). [1913]
11. Lewis Spence, The Myths and Legends of Babylonia and Assyria (1916). [1920]
12. Woislav M. Petrovitch, Hero Tales and Legends of the Serbians (1917). [1921]

Harrap issued a number of similar works under related series titles. By 1909, there were nineteen volumes appeared in the "Told Through the Ages" series (advertised in no.2); in 1919 there were eleven volumes in the "Folk-Lore and Fairy Tales" series (advertised here). Four volumes more clearly related to the "Myths series" are:

13. Thomas Bulfinch, The Golden Age of Myth and Legend (1915).
14. Hélène A. Guerber, The Book of the Epic (1916).
15. Lewis Spence, Legends and Romances of Spain (1920).
16. E. T. C. Werner, Myths and Legends of China (1920).

Although they are uniformly gaudy, the Harrap volumes were not issued in a consistent series-style bindings. And not only do the bindings differ quite a bit from each other in style, each volume was offered in a variety of bindings. This is probably because they were marketed as Christmas gift books. An advertisement in The Publishers' Circular (5 October 1907): 381, explains "Our bindings are even more attractive than last year," being "The most handsome and attractive Gift-books of the 1907 Season." We get more details in The Bookman (December 1912), Christmas Supplement, p.141, which advertises no.6 as available in the following bindings: “Gilt-top, 7s. 6d. net; or Velvet Persian Yapp, 10s. 6d. net; also in choice bindings, Boxed, Full Morocco, 21s. net; Half Vellum, 15s. net; Half Morocco, 15s. net.”

In price order, these various bindings are

(a) cloth, gilt-top ("cloth extra") [in a dustwrapper]: 7s 6d
(b) full soft cowhide ("Velvet Persian Yapp"): 10s 6d
(c) "Half Morocco": 15s
(d) "Half Vellum": 15s
(e) "Full Morocco": 21s

Although I cannot find an advertisement for it, it appears likely that (narrow) quarter Morocco was also available, since my copy of no.14 is bound thus. So, we can probably add:

(f) quarter leather: [price?]

Not long after the initial release of the volumes in this series, they were re-issued in a uniform, relatively plain, binding: at first a boring blue cloth (1911–12), then an even-more boring green cloth (1916–27). [UPDATE: these reprints were also issued in more attractive leather bindings. See final image below.] I have found pictures online of most of the initial binding styles, a few in cloth with dustwrappers; plus I also have a few pictures of multiple volumes in the more boring series bindings. The selection of images below is intended to cover a range of titles and bindings.















[UPDATE: 13 August 2021. A reader of this blog sent me, and has kindly allowed me to reproduce as the final image above, a photo of the full 12 volume series in Half Morocco (a bit unevenly rubbed). These are reprint volumes, dating from 1913 to 1922 (i.e., bound ca. 1922), are a decade later than the plain blue cloth, which date from 1911–12 (i.e., ca. 1912), but earlier than than the plain green cloth set, which date from 1916–27 (i.e., ca. 1927).]

Gresham, Myth and Legend series, 1912–24

Between 1912 and 1924 (or, possibly, 1930), Gresham published a beautiful series of books under the title "Myth and Legend in Literature and Art."

I have, and have had, a number of these Gresham volumes over the years, and have often idly wondered how many titles there were in the full series. When I recently went looking for an answer to this question, I found it harder than I expected to locate anything on the extent of the series; and so I have decided to collect some of the information I found here.

The Gresham series (and I specify the Gresham series to distinguish it from “The Myths Series” published by Harrap from 1907 to 1917) appears to have grown by fits and starts, but this appearance is deceptive. There was a regular progression in the publication of volumes in the series (as detailed below), but it was issued in two distinctive bindings: the first six volumes were issued in matching art nouveau bindings (1912–13); the series was later extended to eight volumes, which were issued (and re-issued) in a matching art deco bindings (1915–17); later still, the series was extended to ten volumes, in the same style of deco bindings (1923–24).

In 1930, another two volumes appeared; these volumes were not issued in series-matching cloth, although they are somewhat close in style, and they only appear in some of the publisher's (seemingly later) lists of volumes in the series. So, for instance, Myths from Myths from Melanesia and Indonesia (no.12) contained a list of "Myth and Legend in Literature and Art" volumes, but it stops with no.10; however, a later edition of Myths of China and Japan (no.9) includes nos. 11 and 12.

Although almost all volumes I have seen are undated, the sequence of volumes—as published and as listed in advertisements—is:

1. Charles Squire, Celtic Myth and Legend: Poetry and Romance ([1912]) [here].
2. A. R. Hope Moncrieff, Classic Myth and Legend ([1912]).
3. Donald A. Mackenzie, Teutonic Myth and Legend (1912) [here].
4. A. R. Hope Moncrieff, Romance and Legend of Chivalry ([1913]) [here].
5. Donald A. Mackenzie, Egyptian Myth and Legend ([1913]) [here].
6. Donald A. Mackenzie, Indian Myth and Legend (1913) [here].
7. Donald A. Mackenzie, Myths of Babylonia and Assyria ([1915]) [here].
8. Donald A. Mackenzie, Myths of Crete and pre-Hellenic Europe ([1917]) [here].
9. Donald A. Mackenzie, Myths of China and Japan ([1923]) [here].
10. Donald A. Mackenzie, Myths of Pre-Columbian America ([1924]) [here].
11. Donald A. Mackenzie, Myths and Traditions of the South Sea Islands ([1930]) [here].
12. Donald A. Mackenzie, Myths from Myths from Melanesia and Indonesia ([1930]) [here].

Below are some photos of these volumes in the earlier art nouveau bindings, and the later art deco bindings. Note, the volumes in these pictures are in no particular order and, in the case if the deco bindings, are not of all volumes; however, they should be sufficient to help readers differentiate the bindings and get an idea of the style of each.

Bibliomania, The Evidence Accumulates

Fortunately, “bibliomania is not a psychological disorder recognized by the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders". However, according to Mark D. Griffiths, “taxonomic collecting” (“attempt[ing] to own an example of every type of a series of items produced”) and “the multiple purchasing of the same book” are probably either “fetishistic” or a symptom of an obsessive-compulsive disorder. While Griffiths notes that there is “very little academic research on the topic”—research reviewed in his article—he concludes that “book collecting can be compulsive.”

It is unlikely anyone who has jokingly described themselves as a bibliomaniac will disagree with this conclusion, just as it is unlikely that many of these same people are likely to agree with Freud that collecting is “a manifestation of anal-erotic impulses” or a “neurotic defence against pre-oedipal or oedipal traumas”—statements also quoted by Griffiths. In Civilisation and its Discontents (1930), 56–57, Freud argues, that “putting out fire by urinating” on it represents a “sexual act” and that controlling this desire is an achievement, a heterosexual masculine victory of culture-over-nature which is both “without a prototype” and “impossible” for women. Which tells you a great deal about Freud and his credibility, and very little about fire. And the capacity of women to urinate on it.

Returning to taxonomic collecting and purchasing multiple copies of the same book—if these are symptoms of bibliomania, then I am a bibliomaniac. In 1887, Augustine Birrell said, in relation to book collecting, that “until you have ten thousand volumes the less you say about your library the better.” But I am talking about bibliomania, not book-collecting, and by Griffiths’ definition, it is possible to be a bibliomaniac by repeatedly buying copies of only one book. Buying a dozen copies of Birrell’s Obiter Dicta, for instance, would be enough to make you a bibliomaniac.

Anyway, I was thinking about compulsive behaviour the other day when two more sets of Haywood’s Female Spectator arrived—these being my sixth and seventh set of the “Second” edition, i.e. Ab.60.5 the first London, duodecimo edition, which is not really the second London edition, and was not the first duodecimo edition. When I set out, without much premeditation, to collect Haywood taxonomically, I had not thought that I would end up with so many “duplicates” as well. Of course, very few hand-press books are genuine "duplicates" bibliographically-speaking (there are often slight differences, as I discuss here), and every book has its own history, more or less recoverable, which makes it unique (even volumes from the same set, as I discuss here).

Still, seven sets of the 1748 “Second” London edition does seem excessive, even to me. The vendor, whose outstanding collection on Hume ended up in a Japanese university, assured me that he had had a dozen copies of many of Hume's works before he parted with his collection. And David Levy assures me that his Hoyle collection also includes a significant number of “duplicates” of some items. Both collectors said I had nothing to be concerned about. But I am not sure I should be taking advice from people whose bibliomania is more advanced than my own.

Having gone online to self-diagnose, I found the Wikipedia entry on Bibliomania, and passed from that to the article by Griffiths, which I have been quoting from (“In Excess. Hooked and Booked. A brief look at bibliomania,” Psychology Today, 17 September 2013). Having read Griffiths’ essay, it appears that I now have to decide which diagnosis is worse, an obsessive-compulsive disorder or a paraphilia.