When is a Book More Than a Book?

Collecting books is a peculiar pastime. Why engage in so abstruse and potentially costly an activity when you can own reading copies at very modest expense?

Questing for and acquiring books are only a part of my bibliomania. Many books have a tale to tell beyond what’s printed between their covers. The “back-story”—and tracking down the back-story—for my books are an essential part of the thrill of the chase for me … and compelling reasons to be interested in books as artifacts.

I will explore this idea through a number of examples taken from my collection of Sherlockian materials, showing that book collecting is more than “a gentle madness,” as Nick Basbanes so aptly describes it.

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