Rare Book Monthly
Book Catalogue Reviews - July - 2006 Issue
Bibliography, Bookbinding and Reference from Forest Books
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Item 201 is a bibliography that doesn't sound dull, though it sounds a bit strange. It is British Bee Books. A Bibliography of 1500-1976. This truly is a bibliography of books about bees, those things that buzz and sting, published by the International Bee Research Association in 1979. It records 830 books on the topic. £45. For more conventional pets, there is Four Centuries of Cat Books. A Bibliography 1570-1970. Forest Books describes Claire Necker's work as "the only bibliography of cat books." Item 333. £45.
Item 134 is one of the all-time classics about book collecting: Bibliomania; or Book Madness; A Bibliographical Romance. This is a later (1876) edition of this classic by the passionate early 19th century book collector Thomas Frognall Dibdin. He described the "disease" well from which so many have suffered. £95. However, for those less serious about the sickness of "bibliomania," there is an 1810 satire of Dibdin's book, Bibliosophia; or Book Wisdom. Containing some Account of the Pride, Pleasure, and Privileges, of that Glorious Vocation, Book Collecting. By an Aspirant. The "aspirant" is unnamed, but the work has been attributed to Rev. James Beresford. Item 31. £145.
Francis Mary Richardson Currer was the first major female English book collector, described by Dibdin as "head of all female book collectors in Europe." Miss Currer had inherited her great-grandfather's collection, to which she added her own selections until the library contained 15,000 volumes. In 1833, C. J. Stewart compiled item 427, A Catalogue of the Library Collected by Miss Richardson Currer at Eshton Hall, Yorktown. Most of her library was auctioned off by Sotheby's in 1862. £1,675.
Forest Books may be found online at www.forestbooks.co.uk, telephone +44 1949-842360.
