Mark Twain's Books

 Alan Gribben (R.I.P. 1941-2026)
  In "Mark Twain and Libraries" I wrote about Twain's collections of books. In it, I also  wrote about Dr. Gribben and his quest to locate all of the books that Twain possessed. His was not an easy task and the result was a 2000 page dissertation based on his findings.
  Dr. Gribben passed away and this obituary is found in the New York Times:
  "Alan Gribben, Twain Scholar Who Excised Slur From ‘Huck Finn,’ Dies at 84," Michael S. Rosewald, June 10, 2026. Here is a portion related to Twain's books and Gribben's mission to document them:

  "For his doctorate studies, he moved to the University of California, Berkeley, home to the Mark Twain Papers and Project. The project’s editor hired him as a graduate assistant and tasked him with preparing explanatory notes for Mr. Twain’s handwritten notebooks...."

   He was fascinated by Mr. Twain, especially the mystery surrounding the author’s literary influences. Before Mr. Twain died in 1910, he gave away most of his books, scattering evidence that would have undoubtedly upended his carefully cultivated image as an uneducated “littery man,” as he once joked.

 

For his dissertation, Mr. Gribben set off on what would become a lifelong quest to find and document every book that Mr. Twain had owned. Driving cross-country in his blue Volkswagen Beetle, he visited libraries, rare book collectors and Mr. Twain’s distant relatives....

 

   
The culmination of Professor Gribben’s lifelong project — “Mark Twain’s Literary Resources” — was published in two volumes, in 2019 and 2022, totaling 1,379 pages. In them, he documented nearly 6,000 books, magazines and other materials that Mr. Twain had read. The subjects included sea voyages, French history, hymns, botany, slavery, detective fiction, insects, India, astronomy, birds, bees and the afterlife."

The End

Bruno's Books

   Bruno Schröder worked in the Ibbenbüren mines near the German town of Mettingen. He was also a collector of books and Der Spiegel reports that he bought about twenty new volumes per week. He passed away a while back and it was discovered that there are about 70,000 books in the house he left behind. Here is a sample of what is to be seen as you enter one room.  

  One person who viewed photographs of the collection says: "But I also recognized something else: one of the bookcases pictured online was filled with thin books in antique tones, each with a small title label hand-pasted on its spine. They were from Insel Verlag, which publishes a series of classics in sturdy but portable hardcovers. The Insel-Bücherei books are easy to spot: their covers boast no photographs, blurbs or ISBNs."  Apparently the books are catalogued and well organized. 

    According to a story reported by Daniel Winkelkotte, "It could be the largest private library in Westphalia," Winkelkotte says. Taking aside public libraries or private museums and research centers, how many anonymous people in the world, whose work activity has nothing to do with literature, have housed so many books in their homes? "The house is quite inconspicuous in the middle of a housing estate. But under the roof, and up to the roof, there is a real treasure: a treasure trove of books." But, wait, there are more:

  Given that he was an engineer, he must have calculated the weight the ceilings would hold.

  The entire house was full of, and the walls covered in books. His wife must have been a wonderful soul and would likely have agree with the Reverend Sydney Smith who wrote: "No furniture so charming as books, even if you never open them, or read a single word.”

Sources:

   "Hoard As Many Books As You Can; Let Them Be Your Life's Companions," Jane Shilling, The Telegraph Online, Jan. 29, 2023.
   "The Secret Story of the German Miner Who Had 70,000 Books," CE Noticias Financieras, Feb. 8, 2023.
   "Shelf Life," Irina Dumitrescu, TLS, Feb. 24, 2023

Post Script:

   You may recall that Professor Macksey also had about 70,000 books, but he was a professor of literature. See: "Professor Macksey's Library (Again.)"
   Stalin had only 25,000. See: "Stalin's Library."