Book madness: a story of book collectors in America

Abstract

"The fascinating history of American bookishness as told through the sale of Charles Lamb's library in 1848-- Charles Lamb's library-a heap of sixty scruffy old books singed with smoke, soaked with gin, sprinkled with crumbs, stripped of illustrations, and bescribbled by the essayist and his literary friends-caused a sensation when it was sold in New York in 1848. The transatlantic book world watched as the relics of a man revered as the patron saint of book collectors were dispersed. Following those books through the stories of the bibliophiles who shaped intellectual life in America-booksellers, publishers, journalists, editors, bibliographers, librarians, actors, antiquarians, philanthropists, politicians, poets, clergymen-Denise Gigante brings to life a lost world of letters at a time when Americans were busy assembling the country's major public, university, and society libraries"-- Publisher's description.