Goodreads helps you keep track of books you want to read.

Start by marking “The Anatomy of Bibliomania” as Want to Read:

Other editions

Enlarge cover

Rate this book

Clear rating

1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

Open Preview

The Anatomy of Bibliomania

Holbrook Jackson

4.04 · Rating details · 135 ratings · 4 reviews

An unmitigated delight for any bibliophile, Holbrook Jackson's musings on the joys of reading combine his irrepressible wit with the wisdom of famous readers from all corners of the world. These three volumes, now back in print, are a leisurely, luxuriant confabulation on "the usefulness, purpose, and pleasures that proceed from books."

In The Anatomy of Bibliomania, Jacks An unmitigated delight for any bibliophile, Holbrook Jackson's musings on the joys of reading combine his irrepressible wit with the wisdom of famous readers from all corners of the world. These three volumes, now back in print, are a leisurely, luxuriant confabulation on "the usefulness, purpose, and pleasures that proceed from books."

In The Anatomy of Bibliomania, Jackson inspects the allure of books, their curative and restorative properties, and the passion for them that leads to bibliomania ("a genial mania, less harmful than the sanity of the sane"). His sparkling commentary addresses why we read, where we read (on journeys, at mealtimes, on the toilet—this has "a long but mostly unrecorded history"—in bed, and in prison) and what happens to us when we read. He touches on bindings, bookworms, libraries, and the sport of book hunting, as well as the behavior of borrowers, embezzlers, thieves, and collectors. Francis Bacon, Anatole France, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Leigh Hunt, Marcel Proust, Ralph Waldo Emerson, William Shakespeare, and scores of other luminaries chime in on books and their love for them.

Violent reactions to books, whether from jealous wives, political hacks, or righteous church leaders, indicate books' power over readers and their ability to inspire change. The Fear of Books interweaves Jackson's thoughts with the words of others to consider the trials and tribulations—burning, pulping, shredding, and censoring—to which books have been subjected throughout history and the fears that lead to such behavior.

In The Reading of Books, Jackson focuses on the relationship between author and reader, describing reading as "the art of extracting essences from books for our own, not the author's benefit." Reading should be "a courtship ending in a collaboration"—a creative process in which readers not only share the writers' aesthetic experiences but also distill them into something more personal.

As Jackson says, reading is not a duty, and if it is not a pleasure it is a waste of time. Entertaining as well as instructive, his "books on books" provide inveterate readers with all things needful: vindication, inspiration, cogitation, and delectation.

"Mr. Jackson's cross-lights and unexpected illuminations are fascinating . . . among all his good things from other writers, his own good things should not be overlooked." — The Times Literary Supplement

"The Reading of Books is a library in itself and will be a constant source of pleasure to all who give themselves the satisfaction of owning a copy." —E. M. Sowerby, Christian Science Monitor ...more

Get A Copy

Or buy for

Paperback, 672 pages

Published October 23rd 2001 by University of Illinois Press (first published 1930)

More Details... edit details

Friend Reviews

To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up.

Reader Q&A

To ask other readers questions about The Anatomy of Bibliomania, please sign up.

Be the first to ask a question about The Anatomy of Bibliomania

Lists with This Book

The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester

Best Non-Fiction Books About Books and Reading

778 books — 433 voters

The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr.

The LionheART Guide to Formatting by Karen Perkins

The LionheART Guide to Editing Fiction by Karen Perkins

Essential Books on Writing

113 books — 50 voters

More lists with this book...

Community Reviews

Showing 1-30

4.04 ·

Rating details

· 135 ratings · 4 reviews

Filter

Sort order

Feb 23, 2011 Al rated it it was amazing

Shelves: odds-and-ends, favorites

I read this work over a period of several months. If you love books, collect them, hold them, smell them, etc... you will love this work. Jackson wrote it in the style of Burton's Anatomy of Meloncholy, and it was HUGELY entertaining. It also made me realize that my love of books directly competes with my love for Christ...not good.

flag 6 likes · Like · see review

Aug 29, 2009 Elizabeth rated it liked it

Shelves: 2009

This book was the bane of my existence for the five days I spent reading it. I may have felt somewhat differently if I had taken longer to digest its 650 pages, but on the whole I found Jackson's meandering style in desperate need of an editorial hand. In his preface to the reader, he loftily suggests his book's aim, like the Anatomy of Melancholy from whom he cribs his title, is to enumerate and reflect upon all of the aspects of books and reading. There is little doubt he manages to do so in t This book was the bane of my existence for the five days I spent reading it. I may have felt somewhat differently if I had taken longer to digest its 650 pages, but on the whole I found Jackson's meandering style in desperate need of an editorial hand. In his preface to the reader, he loftily suggests his book's aim, like the Anatomy of Melancholy from whom he cribs his title, is to enumerate and reflect upon all of the aspects of books and reading. There is little doubt he manages to do so in the lengthy prose of his work, but he does so by piling source upon quote upon source with no thesis or purpose behind them. The result, at least for my academic use, is that Jackson has composed what amounts to a review essay of basically every thought a person might have had regarding books and reading through the end of the nineteenth century. This is obviously useful territory for me, and I admired Jackson's willingness to include opinions he did not share within his intricate enumerations. However, the overall bias of his prose is clear throughout: books for Jackson are meant to be used, and using them entails reading them. He goes on at great length to this effect, in several chapters, highlighting differences between bibliophiles (who love books for reading) and bibliomanes (who only care for the object). I would have been more eager to accept his contributions had he not written about them at such repetitive length, and in such a way that skimming could easily have resulted in my missing something relevant to my own interests. I have to admit I very much enjoyed some sections of the book -- particularly his insights on books as weapons (literally their use to hit people over the head) as well as the history of reading and the toilet (which didn't go to graphic lengths, but was still suggestive of a potentially interesting field of study). I'm glad I have this behind me and under my belt, but unless you are writing a dissertation on books and/or reading, I can't recommend it unless you are looking for a big fat book to hit someone over the head with. ...more

flag 4 likes · Like · see review

Oct 01, 2018 Bryan Szabo rated it really liked it

Not a book for the casual lover of books. Not even a book for the utterly devoted reader. This is a book for those who are devoted, not to the words on the page and their meaning but, rather, to the bindings on the shelves, to the long history of priceless volumes passing from the hands of one devoted collector to another. There are many interesting stories to be told about these collectors, and Jackson has collected all of them--like a true bibliophile, he collects stories with only the smalles Not a book for the casual lover of books. Not even a book for the utterly devoted reader. This is a book for those who are devoted, not to the words on the page and their meaning but, rather, to the bindings on the shelves, to the long history of priceless volumes passing from the hands of one devoted collector to another. There are many interesting stories to be told about these collectors, and Jackson has collected all of them--like a true bibliophile, he collects stories with only the smallest measure of discernment. He arrays anecdotes and quotes (Latin and French as often as English) up and down the page, which makes the reading more than a little tedious at times. Still, he must be commended for the breadth of his reading. There is NO study (that I know of at least) of this subject that is so wide-ranging and thorough. It remains the de facto reference for those writing or reading about book love in all its forms.

A moment, though, for a lament. The kind of book collector that Jackson describes in this book is nearly extinct--at least in the form in which Jackson describes him. Since the kinds of books (bound in moroccan, tooled in gold, some with the scribblings of famous authors in the margins, others with names like Elzevir and Manutius on the title page) that most excite Jackson's bibliophiles have all but disappeared from the open market, the kind of mania that drives the collector to the bookstalls and the back corner of dusty shops is almost never satisfied with the object of its mad desire. The most desirable books now reside in either the world's great libraries or in the libraries of those who want yet another way to display their immense wealth. Even when Jackson wrote this book nearly a century ago, this process was nearly complete. He complains, as men have complained in every century, about the scarcity of treasures and about the immense cost of collectable volumes. Unless it is inherited or stolen (the latter being one of the finer chapters in this book), a library of the kind that Jackson describes here is all but entirely out of reach of the book lover of modest means. We book lovers can admire from afar, but never can we run our hands over the pages and bindings of these volumes. Our love is unconsummated--but only marginally less sweet for being so.

For those of us without the deepest of pockets, we must content ourselves with an everyman's library. The 20th century gave us the mass-produced book, and, though they look not so glorious on the shelf as a row of Manutians bound in red calf, they fill a home with words and let us live in close proximity to the greatest minds of this and of past ages. We can love these books every bit as much as Jackson's bibliophiles loved theirs. No small number of the bibliophiles in this book were lovers of the printed word. They loved not just books, but literature as well, loving what books say and how they say it, how they speak to us across the centuries of the essentially unchanged human experience. These are those who, in short, read their books and own them TO read them. To collect books for any other reason seems, to this reviewer, a kind of madness. ...more

flag Like · see review