last's words: Bibliophilia, with occasional bibliomania

It's odd that I haven't posted a confession before now about my addiction to books. My addiction is almost life-long. It began in a serious way before puberty. I've commented often about books I've been reading, and perhaps I've implied that all the books I've mentioned have been my own, but I don't think I've ever said this in so many words. It's a better kind of addiction than gambling or getting hooked on alcohol or drugs; and although it can be costly, at least there is something to show for it.

From time to time I have an opportunity to speak about books, and I'll be doing so again in the Roddick Room of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada on May 22, when I will talk about the John Last Collection to members of the Medical History Club of Ottawa.

I donated my collection of antiquarian 'medical' books and others of interest to physicians, to the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada after the second break-in at our vulnerable home, because I feared further break-ins and vandalizing of rare and valuable books.

The John Last Collection, valued at about $80,000 in 1992, must be worth over $100,000 by now, if it remains intact and undamaged. I know it has been damaged by an ignoramus who had several partly disbound books rebound rather than repaired, and discarded the original boards on which owners had written their signatures, revealing the history of books as they passed through the hands of successive owners, sometimes famous or distinguished people. I fear there may have been some pilfering too, and will find out next week when I visit the collection after an interval of nearly 20 years since I last saw it.

The curator of special collections at the RCPSC partly classified the collection:

Antiquarian, facsimile and rare books 289
Books on history of medicine 278
Public health, vital statistics etc 188
Ethics, philosophy of medicine 79
Biography, autobiography 73
Reference 25

Some can be further classified. For instance, about a dozen are classical works of natural history, including early editions of several works of Charles Darwin. There is a first American edition of the Origin of Species and a sixth English edition, in which Darwin expanded on and clarified a few phrases that had confused readers of earlier editions. Darwin's Journal of Researches ... during the voyage ... of HMS Beagle (1890 edition) remains on my own shelves with a note that it belongs to the collection; so does Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy and Charles Mackay's Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds and a first edition of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring. I will deliver all four books to the Royal College in due course.

I began collecting antiquarian books absent-mindedly and by accident. In 1961-62 I was a visiting fellow in the MRC Social Medicine Research Unit, doing field work in three industrial cities in the north of England, Stoke on Trent, Wigan and Middlesborough, usually commuting by train for the day on the fast and in those days excellent trains of British Railways. One day I arrived in Stoke on Trent in the midst of a torrential rain storm with over an hour before my first interview. Across the road from the railway station was a second-hand book shop I'd noticed on previous visits to Stoke. It was an ideal place to while away the time, stay dry, perhaps pick up a bargain. I did better. On a shelf of dusty old - almost ancient - books, I picked up a copy of Robinson Crusoe, and a copy of Gulliver's Travels, both published early in the 19th century, for sixpence each. On the same shelf there was a copy of The Whole Works of that Excellent Practical Physician Thomas Sydenham, Corrected from the Original Latin. It was in terrible condition, with no back cover, binding loose, some pages missing; it cost 10 shillings, my lunch money. I bought it - and a few years later, changed it for a copy in much better condition from McNaughton's Bookshop in Edinburgh. By then, living in that lovely city, made lovelier by several excellent antiquarian book shops, I had a tiny amount of disposable income to spare for books, so my collection expanded rapidly, even augmented occasionally by carefully selected old books of historical interest in my domain of specialization. I kept them all when we migrated from Edinburgh to Ottawa, and all but one arrived intact. A Nonesuch Press edition of the Complete Works of Lewis Carrol with the Teniel illustrations had a nail driven through from front cover to back when a careless packer misfired. Insurance replaced it, although not with the early Nonesuch Press edition, unfortunately.

To finish off this post, here are a few photos that happen to have some of my books in the background.