Dreamthorp; A Book of Essays Written in the Country by Alexander Smith Before I created my seven book-related blogs, I displayed and discussed my books on websites that I created on WebTV (later called MSN TV) from November 1999 to January 2007.  Here is my listing of Alexander Smith's book, Dreamthorp: A Book of Essays Written in the Country: It was thanks to A. S. W.  Rosenbach that I came across what A. Edward Newton and Christopher Morley had to say about Dreamthorp.   About twenty years ago, I started collecting the lectures of the Rosenbach Fellows in ..read more

The Elements of Style, William Strunk Jr's little book, is the little book that E. B. White made famous.  But that's not the only book of his.  Here are some of his other books.   Macaulay's and Carlyle's Essay on Samuel  Johnson edited by William Strunk, Jr. New York: Henry Holt, 1895. Macaulay's and Carlyle's Essays on Samuel Johnson edited by William Strunk, Jr. New York: Henry Holt, 1896 (second revised edition). Juliana edited by William Strunk, Jr. Boston: D. C. Heath 1904 The Importance of the Ghost in Hamlet by William Strunk, Jr. Reprinted from Studie ..read more

My Sentimental Library post in June was about other people's ownership signatures in my English language books.  My post this month is about the ownership signatures and other marks of provenance in my Samuel Johnson and James Boswell books.   Most of the former owners of my English language books were everyday Americans who bought the books because they needed them for school.   The former owners of my Samuel Johnson and James Boswell books, on the other hand, bought their books purely for pleasure.  I call them aficionados : people who like, know about ..read more

 My wife Linda chuckles whenever I can't find what I'm searching for in the refrigerator.  I'd search high and low, and then yell out, "I can't find it. Where is it?" My wife will reply, "It's right in front of you!" Sure enough, if I looked straight ahead, the tasty treat I'd  be searching for would be right in front of me. I'm a firm believer that what goes on in the kitchen should stay in the kitchen.  But there are only seventeen steps from the kitchen to my library.  And that fault in the kitchen, coupled with my not-so-recent fault of not remembering names, has ..read more

I was doing phrase searches on eBay while hunkered down in my library the other day.  And one of the results for "catalogue of the library of" was "Joseph Sabin/Catalogue of the Library of a Collector and Amateur..." I'm a Joseph Sabin fan, so the listing had my interest.  Not mentioning the name of the "collector and amateur" perked my interest even further, so I clicked on the auction, and liked what I saw.  Here's the title page of the book: The collector/amateur is not identified on the title page. And nowhere in the written portion of the eBay listing did the seller id ..read more

I'm hanging in there! I'm reading more books. I'm buying more books. I'm watching more movies. And I'm doing it all over again. I have only one problem about reading.  It makes me buy more books!  But I can live with that!  Last month I was reading the Books in Brief section of the March issue of The Florida Bibliophile, the newsletter of the Florida Bibliophile Society.  And I came across Peter Martin's book, The Dictionary Wars.  It was published by the Princeton University Press in 2019.  I wanted this book for several reasons: I collect ..read more

In November 2019 I won an eBay auction for an extensive archive of material about the Progressive Stage Society and its President Julius Hopp.  This unbound scrapbook collection of theater programs,  circulars, internal society memoranda, and newspaper clippings was formed by either Mr. Eugene Smith or by his wife, both of whom were members of the Society.  For brevity's sake, however, I will designate Eugene Smith as the preparer of this archive. The archive itself provides a history of the rise and fall of the Progressive Stage Society and its President, Julius Hopp.   ..read more

A bibliomaniac's journey through the highways and byways of book collecting is never straightforward. He forever strays off the beaten path, veering here and stopping there and finding even more books to collect.                     Jerry Morris, My Sentimental Library, February 2020 We should not have known very little about Jemmy Catnach and the world of popular nineteenth century broadsides had it not been for the pioneer researches of Charles Hindley in the byways of English Literature.  It is ironic that we should now know very ..read more

     January 2020 was a busy month for MoiBibliomaniac.  He was a guest on a TV show about books.  He prepared and presented a PowerPoint Presentation on his Books About Books Collection before the Florida Bibliophile Society.  He attended the Grand Opening of a bookstore in its new location.  He organized a road trip for Florida Bibliophile Society members to visit a book and paper conservation lab in Venice, Florida.  And as President of the Florida Bibliophile Society, he officially opened up a book collecting essay contest for students attending co ..read more

My Copies of the Early Editions of The Elements of Style  Top Row: 1919 1919 1920 1920 1920 1920  Bottom Row: 1934 1934 1934 1936 c1940s c1940s On any given day, there are over a thousand copies of The Elements of Style listed for sale on the web.  Most of these copies are Strunk/White Editions, which were first published in 1959.  Less than twenty of the  thousand copies for sale are copies of pre-1959 Strunk Editions.     On Wednesday, January 19, 2022, there were seven copies of pre-1959 editions, the early editions of The Elements of Style,&n ..read more