Bibliomania (book)

Bibliomania; or Book Madness was first published in 1809 by the Reverend Thomas Frognall Dibdin (1776–1847). Written in the form of fictional dialogues from bibliophiles, it purports to outline a malady called bibliomania.

Dibdin was trained and practiced as an Anglican clergyman. The founder of the Roxburghe Club of book lovers, unofficial librarian of the Spencer collection, and a flawed but prolific bibliographer, Dibdin was perhaps the genesis behind the bibliophilic neurosis that afflicted the British upper classes in the Romantic period. His Bibliomania; or Book Madness was first published in 1809, as a series of dialogues which together comprised a kind of dramatized mock pathology, lavishly illustrated and, in the second edition, embellished with extensive footnotes on bibliography and the history of book collecting. The "symptoms" exhibited by the various characters in Dibdin's eccentric book, common enough amongst the affluent collectors of his acquaintance, included an obsession with uncut copies, fine paper or vellum pages, unique copies, first editions, black letter books, illustrated copies, association copies, and condemned or suppressed works. Bibliomania's imaginary conversations made a gentle mockery of Dibdin's aristocratic patrons and fellow collectors.^[1]