The Enemies of Books

by William Blade (London 1888)

Another day at the gym, more time spent finding quotes, pictures and books about books. Here's an excerpt I found entertaining from an out of copyright book published in 1888 about the enemies of books. Apparently these include zealous housewives bent on spring cleaning and those most uncivilized of creatures, boy children.

For your reading pleasure:



What boys can do may be gathered from the following true story, sent me by a correspondent who was the immediate sufferer: --
One summer day he met in town an acquaintance who for many years had been abroad; and finding his appetite for old books as keen as ever, invited him home to have a mental feed upon ``fifteeners'' and other bibliographical dainties, preliminary to the coarser pleasures enjoyed at the dinner-table. The ``home'' was an old mansion in the outskirts of London, whose very architecture was suggestive of black-letter and sheep-skin. The weather, alas! was rainy, and, as they approached the house, loud peals of laughter reached their ears. The children were keeping a birthday with a few young friends. The damp forbad all outdoor play, and, having been left too much to their own devices, they had invaded the library. It was just after the Battle of Balaclava, and the heroism of the combatants on that hard-fought field was in everybody's mouth. So the mischievous young imps divided themselves into two opposing camps -- Britons and Russians. The Russian division was just inside the door, behind ramparts formed of old folios and quartos taken from the bottom shelves and piled to the height of about four feet. It was a wall of old fathers, fifteenth century chronicles, county histories, Chaucer, Lydgate, and such like. Some few yards off were the Britishers, provided with heaps of small books as missiles, with which they kept up a skirmishing cannonade against the foe. Imagine the tableau! Two elderly gentlemen enter hurriedly, paterfamilias receiving, quite unintentionally, the first edition of ``Paradise Lost'' in the pit of his stomach, his friend narrowly escaping a closer personal acquaintance with a quarto of Hamlet than he had ever had before. Finale: great outburst of wrath, and rapid retreat of the combatants, many wounded (volumes) being left on the field.

Blades, William . The Enemies of Books
Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia Library