BOOKS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 18 April 1941, Page 3

BOOKS

A PASSION FOR COLLECTING. Books! He loved them. He delighted to handle them. He was happy to add to the number he already possessed. He went everywhere in search of them. He spent money on them whenever an opportunity came his way. A half-brother of Bishop Heber of Calcutta, he was Richard Heber, known as a bibliomaniac--one who has a passion for collecting books. Born in 1773. he inherited much property. and was so rich that he could indulge his love of book-collecting as few people have ever been able to. With the end of the European strife to which Waterloo was the climax, this remarkable man went touring the Continent in search of valuable books. He filled all the shelves in one room in a house in Paris. Then he filled all the rooms in the house. No one lived in it. He kept it simply as a store for his treasures. Then he filled other houses.

He had houses in London crammed with books. He bought them by the dozen and score and hundred. He accumulated old English literature. He bought old Latin and Greek and French and Spanish masterpieces, all rare or fine copies. He had his treasures stored in Antwerp and Brussels and Ghent besides Paris and London. No one ever knew how many books he had —and no more did he. When he died his will was found among a stack of papers, and to everyone’s surprise the books were not mentioned. The only thing to do with those which were known to be his was to sell them Whether he had 150.000 or 250.000 war uncertain, but the catalogue for the auction sale which lasted 200 days between 1834 and 1836 ran to over 2000 pages, and we know that in London alone 117,613 books were sold. Nearly £60.000 was realised, but many people said the combined libraries were worth at least a quarter of a million.