What's the Name of That Book??? discussion
SOLVED: Adult Fiction
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SOLVED. Classic ghost story about book collector who does possible soul selling deal with Beelzebub in order to keep a certain book. [s]
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[deleted user]
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Nov 28, 2010 04:26AM
This story was in a compilation I borrowed from my school library mid 70's. A miserly bibliophile manages to get his hands on a rare copy of a book, possibly a grimoire, that he has been coveting for ever. When he takes the book home he is visited by Beelzebub who as far as I can remember, is for some reason, after the book himself. The name Beelzebub is definitely mentioned in this story. It was the first time I had heard the name. The story is set either in Edwardian or Victorian times. Other stories included were The Red Room, The Judge's House, The Monkey's Paw and W.S. The cover I think was hardback and black. The book was very thick and contained a lot of stories. I have been trying to find the title of this story for longer than I care to remember. Are there any fans of classic ghost stories out there who can help put me out of my misery. It isn't any of the following titles; Revelations in Black by Carl Jacobi, ‘Canon Alberic’s Scrapbook’, ‘The Diary of Mr Poynter’ nor ‘The Tractate Middoth’ by M R James. In the story I am looking for, the book collector acquires his ‘treasure’ for rather less than it is worth. Unlike Dennistoun in ‘Canon Alberic’s Scrapbook’ he keeps quiet about it’s true value ..though I'm pretty certain he gets his ‘comeuppance’ I just can’t remember what. It’s possible that he has to sell his soul to Beelzebub in order to keep the book. I think he actually considers this, such is his obsession. The character is a cross between Dicken's Scrooge and Fagin, except he lives only for books. I always imagine him as trawling the secondhand bookshops of Victorian London’s ‘Paternoster Row’ for rare books, always shunning the company of others so that he can be alone with his ‘treasures’
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Really sorry for not getting back.I did manage to find this story. It was in a collection called Ghosts by John Edgells and the story is called Bookworm.
Mod
This query had four separate threads - I deleted the most recent one - now there are three. Turns out it was actually solved in 2012 but because there were so many threads about, it seemed like some of them hadn't been solved.
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
So let's label this thread SOLVED but not shelve anything since the book was already shelved.
Apologies ...wasn't deliberate. Just trying to be helpful as the post came up in a similarly annoyed tone in a google results page when I was searching for something else. I don't find GR particularly user friendly which was why I deleted my account previously. Sorry to have bothered you, will look for a more tolerant book search site!
