Bibliophilia

Bibliophilia

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Bibliophilia

The Bookworm, 1850, by Carl Spitzweg.

Bibliophilia is the love of books. Accordingly a bibliophile loves books, but especially "for qualities of format." A bookworm loves books for their content, or otherwise loves reading in general. Bibliophilia is generally considered to be an incorrect, but some would say it is a new, recent, usage. The practice of loving or collecting books is dubbed bibliophilism, and the adjective form of the term is bibliophilic. Also, a bibliophile may be a book collector.

Profile
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History
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Profile

The classic bibliophile is one who loves to read, admire and collect books, often nurturing a large and specialised collection. Bibliophiles do not necessarily want to possess the books they love; an alternative would be to admire them in old libraries. However, the bibliophile is usually an avid book collector, sometimes pursuing scholarship in the collection, sometimes putting form above content with an emphasis on old, rare, and expensive books, first editions, books with special or unusual bindings, autographed copies, etc.

Usage

Bibliophilia is not to be confused with bibliomania, an obsessive-compulsive disorder involving the collecting of books to the point where social relations or health are damaged, and in which the mere fact that an object is a book is sufficient for it to be collected or loved. Some use the term "bibliomania" interchangeably with "bibliophily" and in fact, the Library of Congress does not use the term "bibliophily," but rather refers its readers to either book collecting or bibliomania.^[1] The New York Public Library follows the same practice.^[2]

History

According to Arthur H. Minters the "private collecting of books was a fashion indulged in by many Romans, including Cicero and Atticus."^[3] The British Prime Minister Gladstone was known to have been a bibliophile. The term entered the English language in 1824, according to the Merriam-Webster's reference below. It is to be distinguished from the much older notion of a bookman (which dates back to 1583), which is one who loves books, and especially reading; more generally, a bookman is one who participates in writing, publishing, or selling books.