Bibliomania, the passion of the book-miser, which impels to the gathering and hoarding of books without regard to their literary value or practical utility; or, in its nobler aspect, in Andrew Lang's phrase, the 'love of books for their own sake, for their paper, print, binding, and for their associations, as distinct from the love of literature.' The word in English is modern, having been introduced from France about 1750; but the thing must be in some form as ancient as the existence of printed or written documents. In this, as in other passions of the like kind, the freaks of individual fancy are endless: while one man disdains everything save the 'tallest' copy of a rare work in the finest condition, another takes pity on the dingiest waif of the back-street bookstall. Fashion, too, exercises a great influence on the form in which bibliomancy displays itself: it is no longer the prevailing hobby to collect Elzevir and Foulis editions, but he is a special favourite of the gods who possesses a set of the parts of Pickwick in the original green paper covers, or of early Thackerays in their original yellow. Competition between collectors leads to the most extravagant prices being paid in the book auction. At the present time Bernard Quaritch, bookseller and bibliophile, has the credit of having paid the largest sum yet recorded as the price of a single volume—£4950 for No. 1650 at the Syston Park sale, December 1884—Psalmorum Codex, (folio, Mogunt. Fust and Schöffer, 1459). This quite throws into the shade the £2260 for the first dated Decameron (published at Venice by Valdarfer in 1471), which astonished the buyers at the Roxburgh sale in 1812. At the Syston sale also the so-called Mazarin Bible (one of the twenty-five copies known to have belonged to Cardinal Mazarin), which is the first printed Bible, printed by Gutenberg and Fust about 1450, fetched £3900. In 1827 a copy sold for £504. At the sale of the Earl of Jersey's Oesterley Park library in 1885, the only perfect copy of Malory's King Arthur, printed by Caxton, was sold to a Chicago merchant for £1950; Caxton's Histories of Troye brought £1820; and Caxton's Encydos brought £2350.
See Dibdin, Bibliomania (1811); Hill Burton, The Book Hunter (new ed. 1882); Percy Fitzgerald, The Book Fancier (1886); Andrew Lang, Books and Bookmen (1887); Philomnester, Junior (i.e. Gustave Brunet), La Bibliomanie en 1883. See also BIBLIOGRAPHY; and for famous bindings, BOOKBINDING.