Title

A gentle madness : bibliophiles, bibliomanes, and the eternal passion for books

Description

Notes and underlinings: Basbane's family, acknowledgment of collectors, librarians, booksellers. Stephen Blumberg stole from 268 libraries, worth $20 million. Stole to keep, not sell. Gentlest of infirmities, bibliomania. Oral histories, parts 1 and 2, Huntington Library, Folger, Library of Congress, Lilly Library. Gutenberg's Bible. LOC, Rosenwald, dealers. Bought lot 553 Jews and a 2 yr. old boy had Dr. A.S. Rosenbach purchase, sent to American Jewish Historical Society, sealed for 50 years, Book-Fool. Shakespeare 52, died 1616. $2.1 million 1989 first four folios of Shakespeare's dramas. Book madness, Don Quixote, Peter Kien, Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury., Name of the Rose, Umberto Eco. E.M Forester, falling books in 5 of his works. Ian Fleming, Charles Darwin, Marie Curie on radium, Alexander Graham Bell on the telephone, Ivan Petrovich Pavlov, 1,000 books. Book Collector. Faulkner, Cerf, Knopf--"only sign books for my friends." James A. Michener; Reynolds Price, John Milton. Robert Hoe, 15,00 volumes. Grolier Club. J. Pierpont Morgan. Henry E. Huntington. "ownership of a fine library is the surest and swiftest way to immortality."Huntington Library= library of libraries or collection of collections. Grenville Kane collection of George Washington, at least one item for each of year of GW's adult life. Martin Shoyen, incunabula. Rosenbach sold materials to Henry C. and Emily Jordan Folger for the Folger Library. American Golden Age of Book Collecting ended with Crash of 1929. Carrie Estelle Betzold Doheny, Edward Laurence Doheny Memorial Library. Collectors: Haven O'More, claimed to have 3 Ph.D.s--no record. Information on "amateur collectors" and their collections. Stephen Blumberg stole 23,600 books from 268 libraries in 45 states, two Canadian provinces and the District of Columbia. Partner Kenneth J. Rhodes turned him in. Describes preparing books to steal, and ways of getting into secure areas; the trial; thought he was rescuing books. Book concludes with an over extended collector, Raymond Epstein, selling off his collection.

Subject

"Book collecting."

"Bibliomania."

Creator

Basbanes, Nicholas A

Source

Brian Lamb Booknotes Collection

Gift of Brian Lamb, 2011.

http://magik.gmu.edu/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?BBID=559830

Publisher

H. Holt and Co.

George Mason University. Libraries. Special Collections & Archives

Date

1995

Program air date: October 15, 1995.

Rights

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Relation

Original Booknotes interview

Booknotes Oral History interview

Format

1st ed.

Language

eng

Identifier

559830

805036539