This morning, the carer that looks after me every weekend told me a story. It is the kind of story that makes me feel something is very wrong with the world.
For the sake of not upsetting too many people, I won't say exactly which country my carer was talking about, although many of you reading this may well have seen something similar within your own culture.
Whether you’d find it as distressing as I have depends upon whether you are like me or not, and I am a self confessed bibliophile, and my shelves are groaning with numerous antiquarian volumes, which I feel I have rescued from the kind of fate that my story indicates.
What my carer explained was that he had visited a house in this nameless country, and had been impressed with the way in which it appeared to be filled with books. Almost every wall, often behind glass fronted cases were interesting looking books, clearly of antiquarian interest.
At this point, I will make my first small digression.
My favorite old book on my own shelves is a first edition (the only edition) of a book first published in 1676.
It is the kind of book that any university library would be proud to own, and my copy is in poor condition though complete with all of its fabulous engravings.
Included in these engravings is the first ever pictorial representation of what a Druid looked like, and although no-one really knows what they looked like, this engraving is interesting because every pictorial representation after this date of a Druid seems to have been based upon it.
So for example Stukesley, who first surveyed Avebury and attributed it to the Druids in the 18th century, produced images of what the Druids looked like, and these images seem to have been based almost exactly on these first representations of what the Druids looked like.
In fact, Gandalf the Grey in Lord Of The Rings could also have been based on this pictorial representation.
Additionally, the volume contains lineages of the Saxon Kings, and traces many of them back as far as Noah. It is anthropologically interesting, because when King Arthur is mentioned, very little is said about him, because of course so much of what we think we know about King Arthur is a Victorian romance, concocted many years after this book was first published.
I have many other battered old volumes, which in better condition would be valuable to collectors, but I am an inveterate rescuer of old books, especially those with beautiful engravings or images, and I have a sense of duty to prevent them from being broken up so that their illustrations can be framed, often making more money than a copy of the book in poor condition.
Another favorite of mine I always describe as The Rough Guide to London for 1801, a small pocket sized volume which would have been targeted at the Gentleman visiting London for the first time in the early 18th century. It lists all of the places of interest, all of the salons where music can be heard, and is an extraordinary insight into the early history of London.
My copy is worth much less because the external boards have become separated from the book, and besides, I would not be able to afford a copy in good condition.
My carers’ story was simply that the apparent library contents of this house proved on closer examination to be simply the first inch or so of interesting books, in effect to make the owners seem as if they were well read, but in effect demonstrating that they cared nothing for the fate of such volumes, if indeed they had been created by the destruction of original old books.
I was reminded of a poem written ny me perhaps 25 years ago, after my own personal collection of books from my earliest years to my mid 20s were destroyed in a fire, as they were being stored in the attic of the large house that had its roof completely destroyed as the consequence of an accidental fire.
Fortunately nobody was injured in the blaze, but the cost of replacing the roof was £250,000, giving some indication of the scale and historic importance of the house.
I was working at the house, and hence most of my personal property was in storage in this extensive roof space, and unfortunately although the building itself had been insured, staff property was not insured, and so I lost many precious volumes, and all of my University textbooks, from my Philosophy degree, in this unfortunate Winter fire.
And so perhaps the terrible nature of this story told to me this morning can be appreciated. The destruction of books is a terrible thing, and on occasions in the past when it has been undertaken as an act of vandalism, it has usually been associated with some terrible political calamity.
Reminiscence Of A Fire In 1985
All the books I have ever read
lay scattered by the winds,
charred and burned out hearts
recognized like old friends
as leaves of text flutter in the breeze.
An accidental pyre in the cold of Winter
leaves behind the body of my childhood
to become food for new Spring growth.
The love of books is a love of life
no less to be mourned
when lost. After the fire
home comfort to destruction
what remains will be purged
by Nature's waiting furies.
Stephen Page
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