One would think that book collecting was a safe, harmless but absorbing hobby. Ocassionally, the love of books can become so obsessive that it distorts social and financial relationships.

Our image of the educated book collector dates from the 15th century.  At that time French aristrocrats began to collect and commission illiuminated manuscripts. 

Our first examples of compulsive book collecting come date the Reformation. By that time printing had become established, the range and number of books had increased and wealthy antiquarian collectors were emerging. In England Henry VIII was responsible for the dissolution of the monasteries. His son, Edward VI, continued the reforms by looting the university and monastic libraries. Thus began a scramble to save the books. 

Sir Robert Bruce Cotton gathered up richest private collection of manuscripts ever amassed. In size it  outranked the Royal library. In 1630 the crown confiscated his library because it was beleived that he was using in to support the Parliamentary cause. The collection is now in the British library where it is regarded as the best collection fo Anglo Saxon literature in the world.

The front cover of the Lindisfarne gospels from the Cotton collection. Source: Wikipedia

The first page from Beowulf. Source: Wikipedia 

In the late eighteenth century the physician John Ferriar introduced the phrase bibliomania to describe compulsive book collecting.

In the nineteenth century. Rev. W.F.Whitcher, a Methodist minister in Boston confessed to stealing and rebinding rare books which he passed off as rare “finds” from local booksellers.

Sir Thomas Phillips (2 July 1792 – 6 February 1972) had severe bibiliomania. He collected over 40,000 printed books and 60,000 manuscripts and probably built up the largest private collection of books ever. Sir Thomas gathered material when monastic libraries were broken up in the the French revolution.  Sir Thomas inheritted a fortune. He spent this on vellum manuscripts and borrowed heavily to buy further manuscripts.

Sir Thomas tried to give the collection to the nation. He held discussions with the Chancellor, Benjamin Disraeli who was also a bibliophile. When these discussions fell through Sir Thomas imposed tight conditions on the disposal of the collection. His stipulated in his will that the collection should remain intact at his home, Thirlestaine House, no bookseller or stranger should rearrange them and no Roman Catholic could view them. In 1885 a Court case declared these terms too restrictive. Over the next fifty years much of the collection was sold to national libraries in Europe. In 1946 the “residue” was sold to the London booksellers Phillip and Lionel Robinson for £100,000. Phillip and Lionel Robinson sold the last lot to the New York bookseller H.P.Kraus in 1977. 

Stephen Carrie Blumberg, the Book Bandit, was the most successful book thief of the 20th century.  In 1988 he was arrested for stealing more than 18,900 rare books from over 300 university and museum libraries in the United States and Canada.

In Febuary 2009 an antiquarian book dealer was convicted in an English court for stealing over 30 rare books from the private library of Sir Evelyn de Rothschild.  David Slade has been hired to cataloue the collection.  The motive appears to be financial gain rather than collection. Some of the books were sold at auction.  

There are a number of other abnormal behaviours associated with books.  Book-eating (usually taken to mean an avid reader) is known as bibliophagy. Compulsive book stealing is known as bibliokleptomania.  Book hoarding or burying is known as bibliotaphy.