the library as oblivion
Virgil, Eclogues, Georgics, AeneidI-VI, ed. and trans. H. Rushton Fairclough (Cambridge, MA, and London: Harvard University Press, 1974).
Robert Musil, Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften (Berlin: Ernst Rowohlt, 1930).
Flann O'Brien, "Buchhandlung," in The Best ofMyles (London: Picador, 1974).
Edward Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, edited by and with an introduction and appendices by David Womersley (London: Allen Lane/The Penguin Press, 1994); Vol. I, chapter 7.
Harald Weinrich, Lethe. Kunst undKritik des Vergessens (Munich: C.H. Beck'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1997).
"Shah Muhammad, libraire," in Le Monde (Paris, 28 November, 2001). Curiously, a year after this article appeared, the Norwegian journalist Asne Seierstad published her account of an Afghani bookseller's life under the title The Bookseller of Kabul. Seierstad's hero is given the name Sultan Khan but many of the incidents and quotations are the same.
Andrew Murray, foreword to Presbyterians and the Negro: A History (Philadelphia: Presbyterian Historical Society, 1966).
Booker T. Washington, Up from Slavery (1901).
Janet Duitsman Cornelius, "When I Can Read My Title Clear": Literacy, Slavery, and Religion in the Antebellum South (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1991).
Eliza Atkins Gleason, The Southern Negro and the Public Library (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1941).
James Baldwin, Go Tell It on the Mountain (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, i953).
Nina Berberova, La disparition de la bibliotheque de Turgeniev (Arles: Actes Sud, i999).
Interview with Dr. Irene Kupferschmitt, Montreal, 3 May, 2004. Unpublished.
Robert Fisk, "Library books, letters and priceless documents are set ablaze," in The Independent (London, 15 April, 2003).
Irwin, Night & Horses & the Desert.
Jabbar Yassin Hussin, Le lecteur de Bagdad (Aude: Atelier du Gue, 2000).
Johannes Pedersen, Den Arabiske Bog (Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 1946).
Milbry Polk and Angela M.H. Schuster (ed.), The Looting ofthe Iraq Museum, Baghdad: The Lost Legacy ofAncient Mesopotamia (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 2005).
Luciano Canfora, Ilcopista come autore (Palermo: Sellerio editore, 2002).
Jean Bottero, Mesopotamie.
the library as imagination
Henry Fielding, Amelia, I:i0 (1752), Vol. VI and VII of The Complete Works ofHenry Fielding, Esq. (London: William Heinemann, i903).
Ginzberg, The Legends of the Jews; vol. I, p. 5.
"The sun itself is but the dark simulacrum, and light but the shadow of God." Sir Thomas Browne, The Garden of Cyrus, II.
Dylan Thomas, "Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night," in Collected Poems 1934-1952 (London: Dent, i952).
Shakespeare, Othello, V:2.
Van Wyck Brooks, The Flowering of New England: i8i5-i865 (New York: E.P. Dutton & Co., i936).
Christmas Humphreys, Buddhism (Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin, i95i).
In conversation with the author.
Borges, "Autobiographical Notes," in The New Yorker.
Idem., "Poema de los dones," in El hacedor.
Idem., "Examen de la obra de Herbert Quain," "El acercamiento a Almostasim," "Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius," in El jardm de senderos que se bifurcan (Buenos Aires: Sur, i94i); "El milagro secreto," in Ficciones; "El libro de arena," in Ellibro de arena (Buenos Aires: Emece, i975).
Francois Rabelais, Gargantua and Pantagruel, trans. Sir Thomas Urquhart and Pierre Le Motteux (1693—94), introduction by Terence Cave (New York & Toronto: Alfred A. Knopf, 1994).
Henri Lefebvre, Rabelais (Paris: Editeurs fran^ais reunis, 1955).
Antonine Maillet, Rabelais et les traditions populaires en Acadie (Lavaclass="underline" Les Presses Universite de Laval, 1971).
Lucien Febvre, Leprobleme de l'incroyance au seizjeme siecle: La religion de Rabelais (Paris: Albin Michel, 1942).
Jean Plattard, La vie et l'oeuvre de Rabelais (Paris: Boivin, 1930).
Mijail Bajtin, La culturapopular en la edad media y en el Renacimiento: El contexto de frangois rabelais, trans. Julio Forcat and Cesar Conroy (Madrid: Alianza Editorial, 1987).
Edwin H. Carpenter, Jr., Some Libraries We Have Not Visited: A Paper Read at the Rounce & Coffin Club, August 26, 1947 (Pasadena, CA: Ampersand Press, 1947).
Sir Thomas Browne, "Tract XIII," in Certain Miscellany Tracts (London, 1684).
Carpenter, Some Libraries We Have Not Visited.
"Qu'est-ce que tu fais, Paul?" "Je travaille. Je travaille de mon metier. Je suis attache au catalogue de la Nationale, je releve des titres." "Oh. ... Tupeux faire cela de memoire?" "De memoire? Ou. serait le merite? Je fais mieux. J'ai constate que la Nationale est pauvre en ouvrages latins et italiens du XVe siecle. . . . En attendant que la chance et l'erudition les comblent, j'inscris les titres d'oeuvres extremement interessantes, qui auraient du etre ecrits ... qu'au moins les titres sauvent le prestige du catalogue. . . ." "Mais . . . puisque les livres n'existent pas?" "Ah!" dit-il, avec un geste frivole, "je ne peux pas tout faire!" Colette, in Mes apprentissages (Paris: Ferenczi et fils, 1936).
Rudyard Kipling, "The Finest Story in the World," in Many Inventions (London: Macmillan & Co., 1893).
The Necronomicon is first mentioned in a 1922 Lovecraft story, "The Hound"; the location of a copy is detailed in "The
Festival" (1923). Both stories are collected in L.P. Lovecraft and Others, Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos (Sauk City: Arkham House, 1969).
H.P. Lovecraft, A History of the Necronomicon, (Oakman, AL: Rebel Press, 1938).
H.P. Lovecraft and August Derleth, "The Shadow Out of Space," in The Shuttered Room (London: Victor Gollancz, 1968).
Verne, Vingt mille lieues sous les mers.
Shakespeare, As You Like It, II:i.
Carlo Collodi, Le avventure diPinocchio, ed. Ornella Castellani Pollidori (Pescia: Fondazione nazionale Carlo Collodi, i983).
Information provided by the director of the Provincial Archives of Oulu, Ms. Vuokko Joki.
Timothy W. Ryback, "Hitler's Forgotten Library: The Man, His Books and His Search for God," in The Atlantic Monthly (May 2003).
the library as identity
The idea was proposed by K.W. Humphreys in his splendid Panizzi lectures. See K.W. Humphreys, A National Library in Theory and in Practice (London: The British Library, 1987), which I have closely followed for this chapter.
U. Dotti, Vita di Petrarca (Rome and Bari: Laterza, 1987).
Quoted by Humphreys in A National Library in Theory and in Practice.
Ibid.
Harris, The Reading Room.
Quoted by Humphreys in A National Library in Theory and in Practice.
Report from the Select Committee on the British Museum together with the Minutes ofEvidence, appendix and index (London: House of Commons, 14 July, 1836), quoted by Humphreys in A National Library in Theory and in Practice.