The Enemies of Books
July 9, 2010
It was quite sad to come to the end of Rare Books School, so comforting to end with an old friend – William Blades’ The enemies of books (1880). One of my favourite recommended texts from Historical and Analytical Bibliography, its chapter on collectors featured in Julian Rota‘s excellent seminar on collectors and collections.
The other “enemies” Blades identified were:
fire ; water (from which the illustration above) ; gas and heat ; dust and neglect ; ignorance and bigotry ; the bookworm ; other vermin ; bookbinders ; servants and children
In any case, it was great to end with a reminder of Blades’ conclusion:
IT is a great pity that there should be so many distinct enemies at work for the destruction of literature, and that they should so often be allowed to work out their sad end. Looked at rightly, the possession of any old book is a sacred trust, which a conscientious owner or guardian would as soon think of ignoring as a parent would of neglecting his child. An old book, whatever its subject or internal merits, is truly a portion of the national history; we may imitate it and print it in fac-simile, but we can never exactly reproduce it; and as an historical document it should be carefully preserved.
I do not envy any man that absence of sentiment which makes some people careless of the memorials of their ancestors, and whose blood can be warmed up only by talking of horses or the price of hops. To them solitude means ennui, and anybody’s company is preferable to their own. What an immense amount of calm enjoyment and mental renovation do such men miss. Even a millionaire will ease his toils, lengthen his life, and add a hundred per cent. to his daily pleasures if he becomes a bibliophile; while to the man of business with a taste for books, who through the day has struggled in the battle of life with all its irritating rebuffs and anxieties, what a blessed season of pleasurable repose opens upon him as he enters his sanctum, where every article wafts to him a welcome, and every book is a personal friend!
I’m not quite sure why he wasn’t there already, other than a lack of confidence, perhaps, in my own judgment in including something so humorous (to modern readers) but Blades is definitely being reinstated on my reading list for INSTG012 Historical Bibliography this Autumn.
