Bibliomania

'A passion for possessing books, not so much to be instructed by them, as to gratify the eye by looking on them': thus is described 'bibliomania' by one of the characters of Thomas Frognall Dibdin (1776-1847), in this humorous novel first published in 1809. Introduced in English at the end of the eighteenth century, the term 'bibliomania' - or 'book-madness' - gained popularity with the publication of Dibdin's eponymous work.