Bibliomania (book)

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.

Bibliomania's imaginary conversations made a gentle mockery of Dibdin's aristocratic patrons and fellow collectors.

[1] The mock-heroic Bibliomania; or Book Madness,“excit[ed] a general curiosity in rare and precious volumes” upon its appearance (272).

The 1809 Bibliomania is a slim mock treatise of about 80 pages purporting to diagnose and to cure the "book-disease" (even as it gives every evidence of having succumbed to the disease itself), so that it fits into the genre of literary satire.

The 1811 Bibliomania, on the other hand, has not only swelled to almost 800 pages, but has turned into a peculiar generic hybrid Dibdin terms "bibliographical romance."

[4] Bibliomania was spreading as private collectors sparred in auction houses like “Book-Knights”, no doubt spurred on by the book's growing popularity.

One such famous duel, said to be directly influenced by the book Bibliomania, was witnessed by Dibdin in 1812 at the Roxburghe sale.

This auction lasted for forty-two consecutive days (excluding Sundays) as a trio of collectors vied for choice selections and one unique book, a Valdarfer Boccaccio, wanted even by the Emperor Napoleon himself.