Random shelving observations, with lots of pictures of books

There is a downside to alphabetizing and categorizing your books--namely, that shelving new books eventually turns into a full-scale Broadway production, complete with falling chandeliers and singing cats.   Running commentary generally results, like so:

There are times when I think I have rather too much Emily Sarah Holt on my shelves.  Then again, she did set novels at just about every major turning-point in British history, so she's always useful for something.  (Some of J. F. Shaw's covers are quite pretty, but the house made no attempt to match covers to texts--which is why a woman who looks like she's dressed in an Alma-Tadema knockoff is attached to a novel about the Armada.)

I hate moving these novels around, for obvious reasons. This is a rapidly self-deconstructing set of Disraeli's novels (the Edmund Gosse edition).  I did contemplate having these rebound, only to faint once the binder quoted a price of $70/volume.  (The set came in this condition, which is how I managed to afford it in the first place.) 

Victorianists speak of Wilkie Collins' other novels in deeply hushed tones, of the sort you generally use when discussing an embarrassing relative.  I picked up these "Pocket Classics" reprints in London when I was working on my doctoral dissertation, and have somewhat gloomy memories of reading them in a spartan University of London dorm room (Campbell Hall, I think it was), by the light of a single, unshaded bulb. 

As an undergraduate, I had twice as much Nabokov as this.  However, they were packed away in my parents' garage loft, and...well...there was an invasion.  Of multiple-legged, non-mortgage-paying residents with fur and hairless tails.  So much for Nabokov (and also for The Closing of the American Mind, which was extremely well-chewed). 

This set of Charles Reade testifies to my dedication to scholarship: I bought the entire set at one go (at the Powell's in Chicago's South Loop), lugged it several blocks to the nearest bus stop, and finally lugged it several blocks from the Hyde Park bus stop to my apartment building.

OK, maybe it testifies to my willingness to risk permanent injury for the sake of a third-rate Victorian novelist. 

I earnestly recommend full sets of Charles Reade to anyone interested in body-building.  Don't buy weights--it's ever so much more economical to just tote seventeen volumes of Reade around!

I haven't the slightest clue how I managed to wind up with two copies of this utterly obscure Irish novel.  At least they were both cheap copies. 

And this isn't even all of Trollope.  (That's his mother right next to him.)

You may note that despite my exasperation with LOTR, I managed to hack my way through the Silmarillion.  Which...did not improve matters, I have to say.

The Victorian Christian periodicals are starting to take over this bookcase.  Now, if only some nineteenth-century Anglo-Jewish periodicals would start coming my way...

Comments

[Belle]

Oh! Oh! Oh my dear! Such loveliness! Such books! Such design, such... what? What? Is that... empty space on your shelves?

Obviously, you have need of more, more, ever more books!

[Bourgeois Nerd]

All those lovely shelves... Jealous!

Sorry about The Silmarillion. Like I said, I'm like the only person in the world who liked it more than LotR itself.

[Sherman Dorn]

My 17-year-old daughter's reaction: "I hope that my college's library looks like that, only with more science fiction."

[jseliger.com]

That puts my library (a part of which are here) to shame; you can see another shot here, on Grant Writing Confidential, but I have ~500 books, as opposed to thousands.

[German Grad]

I've been following your blog for a little while, but have never commented on anything, but the sight of such a lovely collection is enough to break my lurking.

Also, there's a professor in my department who has a book coming out next year on 18th and possibly 19th century German-Jewish popular fiction. Though his focus is on the construction of German-Jewish identity he may have come across Anglo-Jewish periodicals in the course of his research. Let me know if you're interested and I can forward along his information.

[chasing bawa]

Your first and last pictures look like something from the Bodleian! Beautiful.

[Deb]

I love the Trollopes. I have a number of the books in that edition. My goal was to get (and, eventually, read) all of them. Still working on that.

Wonderful pictures--thanks for sharing!

[bklynharuspex.wordpress.com]

For your Disraelis, instead of restoring the bindings, have you thought about the book boxes or wraps available from a library supplier like Gaylord (others are Demco & Highsmith, I checked Gaylord's site because it came to mind first)? You can get off-the-rack clamshell or drop-spine boxes if they will fit, or kits with precut board to make wrappers if you don't mind a bit of crafting. They might not look so gorgeous but your books would be protected.

[George Kelley]

The picture of the Trollopes could have been taken at my house. I love the Oxford University Press editions. I have a few Penguin editions sprinkled in, too.