A Gentle Madness: Bibliophiles, Bibliomanes, and the Eternal Passion for Books by Nicholas Basbanes

Author:Nicholas Basbanes [Basbanes, Nicholas]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780979949166
Publisher: Fine Books Press
Published: 2012-05-28T07:00:00+00:00

The decision to dispose of his modern first editions came after Holtzman made his first trip to Israel in 1973, when he decided to pursue a “new direction” that could make him “a great international collector.” In 1980, he sold most of his contemporary literature to Peter Howard. “I decided to get rid of everything except the major-major and the major-minor writer,” he said, explaining why he held on to the William Faulkner and Nathanael West material.

When we spoke, his book room was filled with close to four thousand books written by Israeli authors. “By the way, I decide who is an Israeli author and who is not,” he said. “There is no reliable bibliography. What I am doing here will be the standard bibliography when it is complete. There are books here in Hebrew and Arabic. The key point is the date, May 15, 1948.” He selected a volume of short stories by Nathan Shaham, the title of which translates as Crops and Metal, and opened it to the copyright page. The year 1948 appears under the words “State of Israel.” Holtzman said he learned from the author that the book was published in the spring of that year. “I have not been able to determine yet whether any books came out the week of May 15, so for now this is the first book of literature published in the State of Israel. If it had been published in Jerusalem before that date, it would say Palestine.”

When the collection is finally presented to Israel, Holtzman said he planned to install each book himself. “There will be nothing else like this anyplace else.” And once that project is in place, there remained still the matter of the Russian literature collection that is strong in Boris Pasternak and Isaac Babel, and a collection of American Indian literature he was still assembling when we met.

“You have to be acquisitive to be a collector. But at some point along the line the acquisitiveness is the first thing that goes. You’ll find that every single person at a certain age is not as frantic about releasing a book, or placing a collection, or even selling some parts of their library,” Holtzman said. “I never had the equipment to become an architect, but I collected architects, and I came as close to being one as possible. There is an analogy there with my book collecting, I think, because even though I am not a writer, my attachment to writing and my love of writing is as close as a person can get to being a writer. As you see, living vicariously is just part of my makeup.”

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