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THE
ENEMIES OF BOOKS
BY
WILLIAM BLADES
_Revised and Enlarged by the Author_
SECOND EDITION
LONDON
ELLIOT STOCK, 62 PATERNOSTER ROW
1888
{TOC and TO Illustrations needs cleaned up!}
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
FIRE.
Libraries destroyed by Fire.--Alexandrian. St. Paul's
destruction of MSS., Value of.--Christian books destroyed
by Heathens.--Heathen books destroyed by Christians.--Hebrew books
burnt at Cremona.--Arabic books at Grenada.--Monastic libraries.--
Colton library.--Birmingham riots.--Dr. Priestley's library.--
Lord Mansfield's books.--Cowper.--Strasbourg library bombarded.--
Offor Collection burnt.--Dutch Church library damaged.--
Iibrary of Corporation of London.
CHAPTER II.
WATER.
Heer Hudde's library lost at sea.--Pinelli's library captured
by Corsairs.-MSS. destroyed by Afohammed 11-Books damaged by rain.-
Woffenbuttel.- Vapour andMould. -Brown stains.--Dr. Dibdin.-Hot
water .pipes.-Asbestos fire.-Glass doors to bookcases.
CHAPTER III.
GAS AND HEAT.
Effects of Gas on leather.--Necessitates re-binding.--Bookbinders.--Electric
light.--British Museum.-Treatment of books.- Legend of Friars and their books.
CHAPTER IV.
DUST AND NEGLECT.
Books should have gilt tops.-Old libraries were neglected.--
Instance of a College library.- Clothes brushed in it.-Abuses
in French libraries.-Derome's account of them.--Boccaccio's story
of library at the Convent of Mount Cassin.
CHAPTER V.
IGNORANCE AND BIGOTRY.
Destruction of Books at the Reformation.- Mazarin library.--
Caxton used to light the fire.--Library at French Protestant Church,
St. Martin's-le- Grand.- Books stolen.- Story of books from
Thonock Hall.-Boke of St. Albans.--Recollet Monks of Antwerp.
--Shakespearian "find."--Black-letter books used in
W.C.-Gesta Romanorum.--Lansdowne collection.--Warburton.--Tradesman and rare
book.-Parish Register.-Story of Bigotry by M. Muller.--Clergymen destroy
books.-Patent Office sell books for waste.
CHAPTER VI.
THE BOOKWORM.
Doraston.-Not so destructive as of yore.--Worm won't eat
parchment.-Pierre Petit's .poem.--Hooke's account and image.-Its
natural history neglected.- Various sorts-Attempts to breed
Bookworms.- Greek worm.--Havoc made by worms.--Bodleian and
Dr. Bandinel.--"Dermestes."--Worm won't eat modern paper.--
America comparatively free.--Worm-hole at Philadelphia.
CHAPTER VII.
OTHER VERMIN.
Black-beetle in American libraries. germanica.--Bug Bible.
-.Lepisma.--Codfish.-Skeletons of Rats in Abbey library,
Westminster.-Niptus hololeucos.--Tomicus Typographicus.-House
flies injure books.
CHAPTER VIII.
BOOKBINDERS.
A good binding gives pleasure.--Deadly effects of the "plough"
as used by binders.-Not confined to bye-gone times.
-Instances of injury.-De Rome, a good binder but a great
cropper.--Books "hacked."--Bad lettering.
-Treasures in book-covers.--Books washed, sized, and mended.--"Cases"
often Preferable to re-binding.
CHAPTER IX.
COLLECTORS.
Bagford the biblioclast.--Illustrations torn from MSS.-Title-pages torn
from books.--. Rubens, his engraved titles.--Colophons torn out of books.--
Lincoln Cathedral--Dr. Dibdin's Nosegay.--Theurdanck. -Fragments of MSS.-Some
libraries almost useless.--Pepysian.--Teylerian.- Sir Thomas Phillipps.
CHAPTER X.
SERVANTS AND CHILDREN.
Library invaded for the purpose of dusting.--Spring clean.
---Dust to be got rid of.--Ways of doing so.-Carefulness praised.--
Bad nature of certain books--Metal clasps and rivets.--
How to dust.- Children often injure books.--Examples.--Story of
boys in a country library
POSTSCRIPTUM.
Anecdote of book-sale in Derbyshire.
CONCLUSION.
The care that should be taken of books.--Enjoyment derived from them.
ILLUSTRATIONS.
SERVANT USING A "CAXTON" TO LIGHT THE FIRE-----_Frontispiece_,
PIRATES THROWING LIBRARY OVER-BOARD--------- page 19
FRIARS AND THEIR ASS-LOAD-----35
BRUSHING CLOTHES IN A COLLEGE LIBRARY--------45
BOOKWORMS-----73
RATS DESTROYING BOOKS 99
HOUSEHOLD FLY-DAMAGE 102
BOYS RAMPANT IN LIBRARY 141
THE ENEMIES OF BOOKS.
CHAPTER I.
FIRE.
THERE are many of the forces of Nature which tend to injure Books;
but among them all not one has been half so destructive
as Fire. It would be tedious to write out a bare list only
of the numerous libraries and bibliographical treasures which,
in one way or another, have been seized by the Fire-king as his own.
Chance conflagrations, fanatic incendiarism, judicial bonfires,
and even household stoves have, time after time, thinned the treasures
as well as the rubbish of past ages, until, probably, not one
thousandth part of the books that have been are still extant.
This destruction cannot, however, be reckoned as all loss;
for had not the "cleansing fires" removed mountains of rubbish from
our midst, strong destructive measures would have become a necessity
from sheer want of space in which to store so many volumes.
Before the invention of Printing, books were comparatively scarce;
and, knowing as we do, how very difficult it is, even after
the steam-press has been working for half a century, to make
a collection of half a million books, we are forced to receive
with great incredulity the accounts in old writers of the wonderful
extent of ancient libraries.
The historian Gibbon, very incredulous in many things,
accepts without questioning the fables told upon this subject.
No doubt the libraries of MSS. collected generation after generation
by the Egyptian Ptolemies became, in the course of time, the most extensive
ever then known; and were famous throughout the world for the costliness
of their ornamentation, and importance of their untold contents.
Two of these were at Alexandria, the larger of which was in the quarter
called Bruchium. These volumes, like all manuscripts of those early ages,
were written on sheets of parchment, having a wooden roller at each
end so that the reader needed only to unroll a portion at a time.
During Caesar's Alexandrian War, B.C. 48, the larger collection
was consumed by fire and again burnt by the Saracens in A.D. 640.
An immense loss was inflicted upon mankind thereby; but when we are
told of 700,000, or even 500,000 of such volumes being destroyed we
instinctively feel that such numbers must be a great exaggeration.