Philip Connell

Bibliomania: Book Collecting, Cultural Politics, and the Rise of Literary Heritage in Romantic Britain

Thesefeverish and burning nights he passed among his books. He ran through the store rooms, he ran through the galleries of his library with ecstasy and delight. Then he stopped, his hair in disorder, his eyesfixed and sparkling. His hands, warm and damp, trembled on touching the wood of the shelves.... He scarcely ate, he no longer slept, but he dreamed whole days and nights of hisfixed idea: books. He dreamed of all that a royal library should have of the divine, the sublime, and the beautiful, and he dreamed of makingfor himself as big a library as that of the King. Howfreely he breathed, how proud and strong hefelt, when he cast his eye into the immense galleries where the view was lost in books! Gustave Flaubert, Bibliomanie