Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Probably on his landing too


I've been rereading Howards End is on the Landing by Susan Hill, and thought it was amusing that the author of Howards End himself had this to say about his personal library (from Two Cheers For Democracy by E.M. Forster):

I have never been a collector, and as for the first edition craze, I place it next door to stamp collecting - I can say no less. It is non-adult and exposes the book-lover to all sorts of nonsense at the hands of the book-dealer. One should never tempt book-dealers. I am myself a lover of the interiors of books, of the words in them - an uncut book is about as inspiriting as a corked up bottle of wine - and much as I enjoy good print and good binding and old volumes they remain subsidiary to the words: words, the wine of life. This view of mine is, I am convinced, the correct one, but even correctness has had its disadvantages and I am bound to admit that my library, so far as I have created it, is rather a muddle. Here's one sort of book, there's another, and there is not enough of any sort of book to strike a dominant note. Books about India and by Indians, modern poetry, ancient history, American novels, travel books, books on the state of the world, and on the world-state, books on individual liberty, art-albums, Dante and book about him - they tend to swamp each other, not to mention the usual pond of pamphlets which has to be drained off periodically. The absence of the collector's instinct in me, the absence of deliberate choice, have combined with a commendable variety of interests to evolve a library which will not make any definite impression upon visitors. (1949)

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