Book Weeding

 

    My plan, one of many for the new year, is to begin the discarding of things. I may start with clothes which are now too small, since my plan to grow smaller may not be implemented. Tchotchkes, trinkets and knick-knacks will be boxed and cleverly concealed so as to avoid embarrassment at the Goodwill drop off depot. At some point I will then take a look at the books. 
   This project is the difficult one. Should I start with novels I have not read or the non-fiction which it is my intention to read again? What about the impressive titles that visitors assume I have read? 
    After the long culling process ends, the even longer vetting one begins. Is anyone in London likely to be interested in all the books that Patrick Leigh Fermor wrote or all of those by Richard Russo? The collected works of Reynolds Price? Does anybody even read any books not written by James Patterson or Colleen Hoover? 
   Maybe I should buy a few of those decluttering books, or perhaps it makes more sense to just borrow The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning from the library. 
   There is some consolation in knowing that others have wrestled with the weeding process and that the questions which need to be asked (and answered) as one moves along the shelves can become quite involved. Here is a sample from a chap who had (and probably still has) a very interesting library indeed.

Marmaduke Pickthall?

   "I kneel on the floor of my book room with a large cardboard box at my side. Do I really need all those George Meredith novels? Edgar Saltus is harder, but will I miss those duplicates of Purple and Fine Women and The Pace That Kills with the variant dust-wrapper and the misprint on page 43? My shelf of the works of Philip Thicknesse, that querulous 18th-century gentleman, contains nearly all of his 24 books, and if I were forced to sell them I could never sacrifice The Valetudinarians Bath Guide, which contains valuable information on the exorcism of gallstones, and an account of Mrs Mary Toft of Godalming who claimed that she gave birth to 15 rabbits; an assertion Thicknesse plausibly supports. Whatever the demands for space in my book room, I cannot banish my Marmaduke Pickthall, or a single one of my 15 copies of the first edition of The Wooings of Jezebel Pettyfer, which Meredith praised with the mysterious disclaimer: ‘It ought never to have been written.’ Not seldom, when I surrender a book to a rascally dealer, I return to his shop and buy it back."

Unintended Consequences

    Once one starts pulling books from the shelves and reading the jackets of those pulled, one is reminded of other books by the author that one does not have and when reading a paragraph, such as the one above, one realizes that there are many other books that need to be looked at and perhaps purchased.

Edward Saltus - "Dean of Decadence"

    Who the hell is Edward Saltus? It seems he was an American who also wrote using the names "Myndart Verelst" and "Archibald Wilberforce" and translated works by Balzac. In addition to Purple and Fine Women, he also authored, The Pomps of Satan, The Imperial Orgy and Parnassians Personally Encountered and I doubt if they are contained in The Philosophical Writings of Edward Saltus: The Philosophy of Disenchantment & The Anatomy of Negation. I am also curious about The Facts in the Curious Case of Hugh Hyrtl Esq.

Thicknesse - "Libertine Turned Ornamental Hermit"

   One now has to have a look at The Valetudinarians Bath Guide and a purchase of it could be justified because the subtitle indicates it provides the Means of Obtaining Long Life and Health. I confess to obtaining one of Thicknesse's other works from the university library close by, simply because of its subtitle:  Memoirs and Anecdotes of Philip Thicknesse, Late Lieutenant-Governor of Land Guard Fort, and unfortunately Father to George Touchet, Baron Audley.

   Marmaduke Pickthall's first name turns out to be Muhammad and he was an Islamic scholar, but his novel Sir Limpidus about an eccentric and reclusive English aristocrat is probably worth a look. 

   And although the author of the paragraph above has 15 copies of The Wooings of Jezebel Pettyfer, I did find the one pictured, available for only 875 euros.

Source: 
   The quoted paragraph was written by Barry Humphries, "Why Does No One Dress For Dinner at Claridge's Any More?", The Spectator, Dec. 17, 2022.

mea culpa

   I discovered too late that I have already told you about Marmaduke. Just a few months ago! Obviously this blogging is not improving my memory. Since the material mentioned before is found at the bottom of a long post, I will assume you didn't read it. If you did, and appreciate such odd information, you will likely have enjoyed it again and perhaps didn't remember it either.