Bibliomania; or Book-Madness A Bibliographical Romance — Reading Companion

A Romance of Footnotes

The most striking structural feature of Bibliomania is the way footnotes overwhelm the main text. In the excerpt, a single footnote (numbered 347) extends for several paragraphs, describing the domestic arrangements of a Mr. Hastings—his hounds, hawks, oyster-eating habits, and the cold chine of beef kept in a disused chapel pulpit. This digression has no direct bearing on book-collecting, yet it occupies more space than the surrounding narrative. Dibdin uses the footnote as a parallel text, a space for antiquarian gossip and quotation that competes with the main argument. Readers must navigate between the central discourse on bibliomania and these sprawling marginalia, which often contain the most vivid imagery. The effect is a textual experience that enacts the very distraction and accumulation it describes.

Recurring Images of Hoarding and Decay

Throughout the excerpts, a pattern of imagery emerges around objects stored in inappropriate places: books kept in chests that later hold surplices, a pulpit used as a larder, a closet for wine that never comes out except in single glasses. These details, drawn from the footnotes, reinforce the theme of misplacement and transformation. The hunter's hall is filled with fox-skins, pole-cats, and pheasant eggs alongside a Bible and the Book of Martyrs. The juxtaposition of sacred and profane, of learning and physical appetite, recurs in descriptions of libraries where books are mixed with hunting gear or food. Dibdin's collectors do not merely acquire books; they incorporate them into a disordered domestic landscape where utility and reverence blur. This visual motif of cluttered, hybrid spaces gives the work a distinctive texture, suggesting that bibliomania is less about knowledge than about the physical presence of objects.

Movement Between Dialogue and Catalog

The text shifts abruptly between narrative modes. The opening sections appear to be a dialogue or romance, but the excerpts also include catalog-like entries: a description of a monument and chest in a chapel, with an inscription from 1646, followed by a note on a vintner named Ward who owned a manuscript chartulary. These passages read like entries in a bibliographic register, complete with shelfmarks and provenance details. The movement from fictional scene to documentary record is jarring, yet it mirrors the collector's habit of moving between the world of books and the world of things. Dibdin does not smooth over these transitions; instead, he lets the catalog intrude on the narrative, as if the romance itself is a frame for a more serious bibliographical purpose. This structural instability is central to the work's identity as a 'romance' that is also a reference work.

The Collector's Voice in the Margins

Dibdin's own voice emerges most clearly in the footnotes and asides, where he comments on the sources he quotes. In the excerpt, he adds a remark about Hastings's neighbor, the Earl of Shaftesbury, noting they had 'no cordial agreement.' This aside is typical: the authorial persona is that of a connoisseur who cannot resist a gossipy detail. The footnotes also contain evaluative language—'a tasteful and elegantly printed little volume'—that reveals Dibdin's own bibliophilic preferences. The work thus becomes a performance of the bibliomaniac's mindset: the author cannot simply narrate; he must annotate, judge, and digress. Readers are invited to share in this obsession, to follow the threads of reference and anecdote that lead away from the main text. The editorial note in the e-text, which preserves original spelling errors and inconsistencies, further emphasizes the materiality of the book as an object of study.

Because the excerpts represent only a fraction of this long work, readers should expect the full text to contain many more such digressions and catalog entries. The romance frame may provide a loose narrative, but the book's true coherence lies in its accumulation of detail. Approach Bibliomania as a work to be browsed rather than read straight through; the footnotes reward those who pause over them. The e-text's preservation of original errors and variant spellings adds another layer of historical texture, reminding us that this is a book about books, made by a collector for collectors.

There’s something tender about Dibdin’s old obsession with owning books—not just reading them, but holding them. It reminds me of wandering through Literary Hearthstones of Dixie, where the houses themselves feel like quiet collectors, keeping stories warm within their walls. Literary Hearthstones of Dixie — Story, Setting & Ideas carries that same longing, though softer, more like a memory of home than a feverish pursuit.