Bücher von Thomas Frognall Dibdin

Dibdin's Bibliomania is an anthem to the printed book, a warning to the unwary about the perils of obsessive book-collecting, and the confessions of a rabid book-collector. As a casual glance at the book will show, Dibdin's footnotes predominate over text, and it is in the footnotes that the interest lies. They invite questions as often as they answer them. What is the supposed similarity between 'Orator' Henley's library and Addison's memoranda for the Spectator? What cutting words did Edward Gibbon write about Thomas Hearne? Why should we not be surprised to find a book on American history by a Spanish admiral in the library of the President of the Royal Society? Who was Captain Cox who 'could talk as much without book, as any Innholder betwixt Brentford and Bagshot'? Was Polydore Vergil a plagiarist and John Bagford a biblioclast? What is bloterature? Sometimes Dibdin tells us, sometimes he assumes we know, and sometimes he chooses to tantalise us. The endnotes provide some of the answers and will, it is hoped, lead readers to discover new books and new writers, or, more often and more pleasurably, old books and old writers. This book is based upon Dibdin's first edition of 1809, to which have been added an introduction and eighty-five pages of valuable endnotes, mostly concerned with biographical details of the printers, librarians, bookbinders, writers, book-collectors and Bibliomaniacs to whom Dibdin refers. An appendix contains John Ferriar's Bibliomania, the poem which prompted Dibdin's work. There are also a substantial bibliography and index.This book will be invaluable to bibliographers, librarians, cultural historians and all those interested in books and book people. It gives a valuable insights into antiquarianism in general and book-collecting in particular. Dibdin's book ranges widely, from Juliana Barnes, Wynkyn de Worde, Michael Maittaire and the St Albans Schoolmaster, to Thomas Hope, Edward Rowe Mores, William Hunter and Horace Walpole. Many of his footnotes (which take up far more of the book than the text) contain details of the important book sales of the eighteenth and early nineteenth century to tantalise the reader: Caxton's Boke of Chivalrie selling for 11 shillings in 1756; Grenville's 1800 edition of Homer selling for an astounding £99 15s in 1804.Peter Danckwerts studied Book Publishing at Oxford Polytechnic, Bibliography & Textual Criticism at the University of Leeds, Mathematics with the Open University, and Medieval Studies at Birkbeck College, University of London. He is currently preparing an edition of Byron's English Bards and Scotch Reviewers for Tiger of the Stripe.

Thomas Frognall Dibdin (1776-1847) was employed as librarian for life by the bibliophile aristocrat George Spencer (1758-1834), who amassed at Althorp the greatest private library in Europe. Published in 1822, these two volumes include additions to Bibliotheca Spenceriana (also reissued in this series) and detailed descriptions of the interiors of Althorp.

Thomas Frognall Dibdin (1776-1847) was employed as librarian for life by the bibliophile aristocrat George Spencer (1758-1834), who amassed at Althorp the greatest private library in Europe. Published in 1822, these two volumes include additions to Bibliotheca Spenceriana (also reissued in this series) and detailed descriptions of the interiors of Althorp.

First published in 1817, this three-volume work by Thomas Frognall Dibdin (1776-1847) is an enthusiastic and well-illustrated exploration of bibliographical history from illuminated manuscripts to contemporary book auctions. Volume 1 presents a detailed survey of illuminated manuscripts and early printed books, with many illustrations throughout.

Published in 1814-15, this is a catalogue of the oldest and rarest books in the greatest private library in Europe. Each is described in detail, often with reproductions of woodcuts and engravings. The work reveals one man's commitment to collecting the earliest examples of this revolutionary invention.

In 1809, Thomas Frognall Dibdin (1776-1847) published the first edition of Bibliomania, focussing on the contemporary craze for book collecting. Introduced in English at the end of the eighteenth century, the term 'bibliomania' - or 'book-madness' - gained popularity with the publication of Dibdin's book, in which bibliophiles conduct dialogues on the nature and history of book collecting, and the symptoms of and possible remedies for this 'fatal disease'. Published in 1832 under the pseudonym Mercurius Rusticus, Bibliophobia is a short pamphlet, which presents itself as a letter to the author of Bibliomania. The narrator, a book-lover himself, goes on a 'bibliopolistic pilgrimage', only to find out that 'bibliomania is no more', and that 'books are only the shadow of what they were'. From book-lovers to collectors, and from booksellers to libraries, the narrator carries out his entertaining yet melancholic investigation all the way to the Bodleian Library.

'A passion for possessing books, not so much to be instructed by them, as to gratify the eye by looking on them': thus is described 'bibliomania' by one of the characters of Thomas Frognall Dibdin (1776-1847), in this humorous novel first published in 1809. Introduced in English at the end of the eighteenth century, the term 'bibliomania' - or 'book-madness' - gained popularity with the publication of Dibdin's eponymous work. Using the entirely revised 1811 edition, this reissue brings back to life Dibdin's bibliomaniac characters and their playful dialogues on the nature and history of book collecting, and, most importantly, on the dangers of the 'fatal disease' that is bibliomania, its strange manifestations - such as the 'vellum', 'first edition', and 'unique copies' symptoms - and its possible cure. The author of numerous bibliographical works, Dibdin provides erudite comments and clarifications to his characters' dialogues in a parallel narrative of footnotes.

Described by the author as 'a storehouse of biographical and bibliographical anecdote', this two-volume autobiography, published in 1836, recounts the life and work of the renowned English bibliographer Thomas Frognall Dibdin (1776-1847). Dibdin focuses especially on his formative years, his publications and his love of books and libraries.