Project and content management for Contemporary Authors volumes
WORK TITLE: The Library: A Catalogue of Wonders
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE: http://www.stuartkells.com/
CITY: Camberwell
STATE: VIC
COUNTRY: Australia
NATIONALITY:
Phone: +61 400 518 955
RESEARCHER NOTES:
LC control no.: n 2016018025
Descriptive conventions:
rda
Personal name heading:
Kells, Stuart
Located: Melbourne (Vic.)
Field of activity: Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616
Affiliation: Monash University
Profession or occupation:
Editors
Found in: Outback Penguin, 2016: title page (Stuart Kells) page 422
(Stuart Kells has degrees from the Univ. of Melbourne
and a Law Ph. D. from Monash University; he is currently
writing about Shakespeare)
Associated language:
eng
================================================================================
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Bibliography from National Library of Australia:
An introduction to the IBIS database / Stuart Kells and Christopher Worswick
by Kells, Stuart S
Parkville, Vic. : Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, 1997
Small business data sources in Australia / David Johnson, Stuart Kells
by Johnson, David
Parkville, Vic. : Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, 1997
Knowledge spillovers, location and growth : theory and evidence / Michael Harris and Stuart Kells
by Harris, Michael
Parkville : Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, 1997
Measuring the performance of large Australian firms / Derek Bosworth and Stuart Kells
by Bosworth, Derek
Melbourne : Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, 1998
The theory and measurement of profitability / Ian Drummond Gow, Stuart Kells
by Gow, Ian Drummond
Parkville, Vic. : Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, 1998
Prices in sequential auctions : preliminary evidence from Australian rare book auctions / by Stuart Kells
by Kells, Stuart S
Melbourne : Dept. of Economics, University of Melbourne 2001
The Australian book auction records / by Stuart Kells
by Kells, Stuart S
Parkville, Vic. : Department of Economics, University of Melbourne, 2002
Explaining the breadth of expert estimate ranges in auctions of rare books / by Stuart Kells
by Kells, Stuart S
Melbourne : Dept. of Economics, University of Melbourne 2003
Rare : a life among antiquarian books / Stuart Kells ; foreword by Geoffery Blainey
by Kells, Stuart S
Edgecliff, N.S.W. : Jane Curry, 2011
Penguin & the Lane brothers : the untold story of a publishing revolution / Stuart Kells
by Kells, Stuart S
Collingwood, Vic. : Black Inc. Books, 2015
[text, online resource]
Penguin and the Lane brothers : the untold story of a publishing revolution / Stuart Kells
by Kells, Stuart S
Collingwood, VIC : Black Inc., [2015] , ©2015
[text, still image, volume] , Online Online – Google Books
Outback Penguin : Richard Lane’s Barwell diaries / edited by Elizabeth Lane, Fiona Kells, Louise Paton, Stuart Kells; [foreword by Geoffrey Blainey]
by Lane, Richard, 1905-1982
Carlton, VIC : Black Inc., an imprint of Schwartz Publishing Pty Ltd ; South Yarra, VIC : The Lane Press Pty Ltd, [2016] , ©2016
[text, still image, volume] , Online Online – Google Books
Outback Penguin : Richard Lane’s Barwell diaries / editors: Elizabeth Lane, Fiona Kells, Louise Paton, Stuart Kells
by Lane, Richard, 1905-1982
Carlton, Vic. : Black Inc. Books, 2016
[text, online resource]
The library : a catalogue of wonders / by Stuart Kells
by Kells, Stuart S
Melbourne, Vic. : Text Publishing, 2017
PERSONAL
Married; children: Thea and Charlotte.
EDUCATION:University of Melbourne, degree; Monash University, Ph.D. (law).
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer, book-trade historian, and authority on rare books.
AWARDS:Ashurst Business Literature Prize, for Penguin and the Lane Brothers.
WRITINGS
SIDELIGHTS
Australian Stuart Kells is a writer, book-trade historian, and authority on rare books. He writes about the publishing industry, print culture, and the book world. His history of Penguin Books, Penguin and the Lane Brothers, won the prestigious Ashurst Business Literature Prize. He holds a Ph.D. in law from Monash University and lives in Melbourne with his family.
In 2016 Kells coedited with Fiona Kells, Elizabeth Lane, and Louise Paton Outback Penguin: Richard Lane’s Barwell Diaries, which prints the diaries of Richard Lane, the founder of Penguin Books. Lane arrived in Adelaide, South Australia, Australia, in 1922 as a boy migrant, one of South Australia’s Barwell Boys. With an appreciation for literature and accessible writing, he kept a diary of his work as a farm apprentice. For the book, the editors collect one of the best firsthand accounts of the child migrant experience in Australia.
Kells published The Library: A Catalogue of Wonders in 2018. The book tracks the history of the library, from ancient ones in Herculaneum and Alexandria, and the oral libraries of the Arrente people of Australia, to digital libraries today, and even imagined libraries from the minds of J.R.R. Tolkien and Umberto Eco. Kells describes the creators of libraries, their acquisitions, special manuscripts, the effect of libraries on the population, library architecture, and more. “The Library is ultimately an engaging and well-written volume by a knowledgeable expert and passionate fan of the subject matter. The result is almost like poetry, a rich ode to all things books and everything we love about them,” wrote Natalie Salvo online at the AU Review.
Kells traveled the world to visit the Vatican Library, the Pierpont Morgan Library, the Folger Shakespeare Library, and many others. “He enriches this cultural history by linking the evolution of libraries to the history of book design” and to the growth of literacy among the social classes, noted a writer in Publishers Weekly who added that Kells’s passion for this subject shows in the book. According to a Kirkus Reviews contributor, “The narrative merits attention for the way it enlivens dense summaries on printing, the book trade, collecting, library design, and bibliography with tales of the disasters, discoveries, and notable book lunatics.” In a review in Booklist, Donna Seaman reported: “Kells’ revelatory romp through the centuries cues us to the fact that, as has so often been the case, libraries need our passionate attention and support, our advocacy, [and] gratitude.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Booklist, January 1, 2018, Donna Seaman, review of The Library: A Catalogue of Wonders, p. 18.
Kirkus Reviews, February 1, 2018, review of The Library.
Publishers Weekly, February 12, 2018, review of The Library, p 70.
ONLINE
AU Review, http://arts.theaureview.com/ (September 8, 2017), Natalie Salvo, review of The Library.
Stuart Kells Website, http://www.stuartkells.com/ (July 8, 2018).
Stuart Kells is an author and book-trade historian. His 2015 book, Penguin and the Lane Brothers, won the Ashurst Business Literature Prize. An authority on rare books, he has written and published on many aspects of print culture and the book world. Stuart lives in Melbourne with his family. He is writing a book about Shakespeare’s library.
STUART KELLS is an author and book-trade historian. His 2015 history of Penguin Books, Penguin and the Lane Brothers, won the prestigious Ashurst Business Literature Prize. His critically acclaimed biography of Kay Craddock—the first female president of the International League of Antiquarian Booksellers—Rare, was published in 2011. An authority on rare books, Stuart has written and published on many aspects of print culture and the book world. He has a PhD from Monash University, and lives in Melbourne with his wife, Fiona, and daughters, Thea and Charlotte.
He is the author of
The Library
Great Book Finds, and One That Got Away
“There is a saying in book collecting: You only regret the books you don’t buy.”
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Things | Rekindle
I like old books. Always have. All different kinds of them. I spend much of my time seeking them out, often in strange and remote places. Not everyone understands why. The questions come thick and fast.
Where do you buy your books? Everywhere.
Is there any money in it? No.
What are your favorite finds? They are legion.
Found at the bottom of a dusty box in a country bookshop: a royal binding from pre-revolutionary France, in wonderful condition and with spectacular provenance and rarity. Found at a “booktown” festival, an early Italian book on mathematics and magic, plus early editions of Darwin’s Origin of Species and The Descent of Man.
In a humble bookcase in a suburban bedroom: two 1625 George Chapman plays, quarto format, again in immaculate condition and bound by Riviere & Son, one of the world’s finest bookbinders. In a second-hand store: Thomas Frognall Dibdin’s luxurious catalog of Lord Spencer’s library at Althorp—the catalog in which Dibdin glamorized the 1623 edition of Shakespeare’s plays, the “First Folio.”
From a trash and treasure market, the first Ace Books edition of Philip K. Dick’s Simulacra. Crisp, tight, unread. And from a college book sale: a fine copy of John Fry’s 1814 Pieces of Ancient Poetry from Unpublished Manuscripts and Scarce Books, one of six special copies reserved for the uber-bookmen from the golden era of English bibliophilia. More than any other, the discovery of that rare (and underpriced) book set me on the road to full-blown bibliomania.
Such finds, though, are not the whole story. There is a saying in book collecting: You only regret the books you don’t buy.
When I look back on my career as a book lover and book hunter, missed prizes stand out. A collection of early books on puppetry found in a charity shop—and left behind because their condition was questionable. Rare German books on papermaking and tin toys—left behind at a book fair because I simply couldn’t afford them. And a rare seventeenth-century book on costume, extensively decorated with elegant line drawings—left behind . . . well, I can’t really explain why. A moment of temporary madness.
One book, in particular, comes to mind.
A decade ago, in a small-town second-hand bookstore, I found on a bottom shelf a small volume that was almost falling apart. Published by the Fortune Press in 1925, it was a scarce edition: Only 225 copies were printed, on handmade Kelmscott paper. The printing was handsome, the paper thick and sumptuous.
The title page revealed the book’s title, New Preface to ‘The Life and Confessions of Oscar Wilde,’ and its authors, Frank Harris and Lord Alfred Douglas.
The subject of the book was fascinating, one of the most famous and tragic love affairs in literature: the story of Lord Douglas, known as “Bosie,” and his affair with Oscar Wilde.
Bosie met Wilde in 1891. A tempest followed. Bosie gambled and cavorted extravagantly. The pair often argued and split, only to start up again.
When Bosie fell ill with influenza, Wilde nursed him. When Wilde fell ill, Bosie partied on—and sent Wilde the bill. When Bosie gave his old clothes to gigolos, he recklessly left incriminating letters in the pockets.
Bosie’s father, the Marquess of Queensberry, thought he knew what must be going on between his son and the older poet. He accused Bosie of madness and embarked on a public persecution of Wilde. The resulting trials bankrupted Wilde and deprived him of his liberty. He was sentenced to two brutal years of hard labor. After his release, he reunited with Bosie in France, but things could never be the same between them.
Years later, Bosie would express regret that the pair had ever met. He described their literary collaboration, a translation of Salome, as “a most pernicious and abominable piece of work.”
(Wilde left behind many wise words about books, including this test of what qualifies as literature: “If one cannot enjoy reading a book over and over again, there is no use reading it at all.”)
After Wilde’s death, the Irish author and editor Frank Harris wrote Oscar Wilde, His Life and Confessions, which was published in the US in 1916. Though the book was largely sympathetic to Wilde, Bosie regarded parts of it as libelous and defamatory. His threats of legal action prevented the book’s publication in England.
When Harris crossed paths with Bosie in the South of France, he distanced himself from the book’s offensive parts, and convinced Bosie that a new preface could set things right. The two men co-authored a preamble for inclusion in future editions of Harris’s book. Though initially, the pair agreed on the text, they fell out over subsequent edits and went their separate ways. The Fortune Press copies, all of them signed by Bosie, are based on his version of the preface.
Reginald Caton issued the book. A notoriously shady publisher—often in trouble for producing obscene, piratical, or homosexual texts—Caton published Kingsley Amis’s first book, and later appeared in several Amis novels as a rogue. More than one Fortune Press edition was pulped, and more than one burned.
In the small-town bookshop, I left the book behind on its sagging, particle-board shelf. Despite its colorful and romantic backstories, this particular copy was in terrible condition, the cover utterly broken and disintegrating.
But the book refused to be forgotten. The leaves, I later reflected, were in good shape. The binding, moreover, could be fixed or replaced. (Some modern booksellers, such as Peter Harrington of London, make good money by adding dazzling new bindings to first editions that used to have unattractive or imperfect old ones.)
I went back several times to the small town and its bookshop. Despite thorough searches on hands and knees, I never saw the book again.
Copies from the 1925 edition do come up from time to time online. Adrian Harrington currently has a copy for sale at a fine price and in a fine buckram slipcase.
Market value, though, was not a factor in my regard for New Preface. The book itself had a lot going for it. Almost everything, in fact, that a book lover could want: A great story, great associations, beauty, rarity, infamy.
Over the past decade, the copy I left behind has grown in my memory. The paper has become more luxurious, the printing more limpid, the associations more pungent. Only a little book, to be sure, but the gap it left in my library grows ever larger.
I’ve been chasing rare books and other bookish treasures since childhood. In the 1980s I was regularly finding classic sci-fi paperbacks from publishers like Ace and Dell, and authors like Philip K. Dick and Robert Heinlein. When I moved to Melbourne in the summer of ’89 I was amazed by the city’s bookshops, especially secondhand shops like Alice’s and Sainsbury’s in Carlton. If I wasn’t looking for books there I was fossicking in the Co-op bookshop at Melbourne University, or hunting for books at markets and fetes. For the past 26 years I’ve been a regular at Camberwell Market, where great books can be found, along with almost everything else. Vividly remembered finds from there include Iain Banks and Vikram Seth firsts; classic Australian crime pulps; rare maps; and advertising and ephemera of every kind.
The Library: A Catalogue of Wonders
Publishers Weekly. 265.7 (Feb. 12, 2018): p70.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2018 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
The Library: A Catalogue of Wonders
Stuart Kells. Counterpoint, $26 (224p)
ISBN 978-1-64009-020-0
Book-trade historian Kells (Penguin and the Lane Brothers) blends scholarly expertise with sharp wit in this enjoyable history of libraries. From the ancient oral libraries of the Arrente people of Australia to the digitized collections of today, Kells consistently proves that "libraries are full of stories." He takes the reader inside some of the most famous libraries in the world, such as the Vatican Library, the Pierpont Morgan Library, and the Folget Shakespeare Library. In addition to exposing a trove of secret doors, hidden staircases, and disappearing ladders tucked away in these libraries, Kells unmasks centuries-old tales of crimes (stolen books, modified dust jackets, spurious blurbs), forgeries (like the corset at the Folger Library once believed to have belonged to Queen Elizabeth I), and spicy tales of erotica (the Russian State Library stockpiled thousands of erotic works in storage during the Cold War). He enriches this cultural history by linking the evolution of libraries to the history of book design and the expansion of literacy among social classes. Kells's passion for this subject suffuses this pleasurable book, calling readers to understand the importance of the library's role preserving humanity's history and why libraries are still relevant today. (Apr.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"The Library: A Catalogue of Wonders." Publishers Weekly, 12 Feb. 2018, p. 70. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A528615535/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=14fa5d7c. Accessed 4 June 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A528615535
Kells, Stuart: THE LIBRARY
Kirkus Reviews. (Feb. 1, 2018):
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2018 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Kells, Stuart THE LIBRARY Counterpoint (Adult Nonfiction) $26.00 4, 10 ISBN: 978-1-64009-020-0
A bright, idiosyncratic tour of a book historian's collected knowledge about libraries and bibliophilia.
More miscellany than catalog, the book assembles snippets from a wide variety of disciplines into an eclectic history of libraries as cultural, political, aesthetic, literary, mnemonic, and, above all, personal phenomena dedicated to collecting and preserving the written word. Australian book industry historian Kells (Penguin and the Lane Brothers: The Untold Story of a Publishing Revolution, 2015, etc.), an expert on rare books, invokes recognizable figures such as Borges and Tolkien as patron saints of the library, but he also spotlights less familiar libraries and librarians from the dawn of writing to the information age, with thematic interludes for all the strange, obsessive things people have done with books besides reading them. The author leads us through this labyrinthine account by his own associative logic rather than following a systematic design; paragraphs jump from one millennium to another and back again, while lists of names and dates exhilarate and disorient in equal measure, running headlong through the stacks of the world's great collections. Kells leaves the modern library to other writers to chronicle and analyze, bypassing current and future threats to global archives and ignoring the rise of the hip librarian. In adapting academic subject matter for a mainstream audience, the author risks boring general readers with an accumulation of arcana and irritating scholarly readers by omitting the sources and depth of coverage that characterize a reputable book history. Still, the narrative merits attention for the way it enlivens dense summaries on printing, the book trade, collecting, library design, and bibliography with tales of the disasters, discoveries, and notable book lunatics that populate library lore.
Readers familiar with St. Gall, Poggio, Count Libri, and other such significant figures in the history of manuscripts may look to more specialist accounts, but budding book enthusiasts will find this an engaging bedside read.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Kells, Stuart: THE LIBRARY." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Feb. 2018. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A525461369/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=f98c35a9. Accessed 4 June 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A525461369
Infinite Libraries
Donna Seaman
Booklist. 114.9-10 (Jan. 1, 2018): p18.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2018 American Library Association
http://www.ala.org/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist/
Full Text:
The Library; A Catalogue of Wonders.
By Stuart Kells.
Apr. 2018.224p. Counterpoint, $26 (9781640090200).027.
An Australian expert in the history of the book offers a glowing tribute to libraries--"hotspots and organs of civilization."
Libraries "massively predate books," Kells asserts, if one defines a library "as an organized collection of texts." He's thinking of the oral tradition: "Warehoused as memories," legends, myths, prayers, parables, and poems were preserved and shared for generations. But as intriguing as this line of inquiry is--leading Kells, an Australian historian of the book and rare-book collector, to a stinging recounting of outsiders' attempts to understand the first Australians' "Dreaming stories"--it is the physical book that delights and occupies him--all the ways books have been made, amassed, sheltered, and accessed. In this free-roaming history of libraries, Kells, well-read, well- traveled, ebullient, and erudite, relishes tales of innovation, obsession, and criminality.
Kells' scintillating, often irreverent catalog of "wonders" and bibliomaniacs begins with a reluctant cataloger, the future library director and renowned writer Jorge Luis Borges, whose tedious work at a municipal library in Buenos Aires inspired his indelible and disquieting short story, "The Library of Babel." Kells will return to Borges after he tells the full story of the clay tablet, papyrus scroll, vellum and parchment codex, and printed books on paper, each technological advanced paralleled by the evolution of library organization, design, and construction, including the development of the bookshelf and bindings that allowed books to stand upright.
As soon as there were books, there were forgeries and thefts, yielding saucy bits of history. The rapid and constant proliferation of books means that libraries have their own Moore's law, Kells observes, necessitating structural and logistical evolution. As books multiplied, so did threats to libraries, from fires and floods to war and political change, not to mention the perpetual onslaught of voracious, book-eating insects.
Kells, who will please readers of his fellow bibliophiles Alberto Manguel and Nicholas Basbanes, tells tales of "the best and worst librarians in history," and outs library secrets, including the use of fake books, which he was pleased to see on a super-sized scale at the Kansas City Public Library's splendid downtown branch. Kells also tracks the presence of libraries in literature, citing Hobbit libraries in Tolkien and Audrey Niffenegger's beautifully haunting illustrated novel, The Night Bookmobile (2010), among others. As Kells ponders the role of libraries now, he returns to Borges' vision of an "infinite library," a prescient metaphor for the internet, which has created an even greater need for librarians and libraries and their arts of "selection and curation."
"Much more than accumulations of books, writes Kells, "the best libraries are hotspots and organs of civilizations;" they are also "places of solace and education, sources of nourishment for the human spirit, cultural staging posts in which new arrivals can be inducted into their adopted countries." Kells' revelatory romp through the centuries cues us to the fact that, as has so often been the case, libraries need our passionate attention and support, our advocacy, gratitude, and (given Kells' tales of book-kissing, including Coleridge pressing his lips to his copy of Spinoza), love.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Seaman, Donna. "Infinite Libraries." Booklist, 1 Jan. 2018, p. 18. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A525185491/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=23ba8de9. Accessed 4 June 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A525185491
Kells, Stuart. The Library: A Catalogue of Wonders
Maria Bagshaw
Xpress Reviews. (Jan. 26, 2018):
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2018 Library Journals, LLC
http://www.libraryjournal.com/lj/reviews/xpress/884170-289/xpress_reviews-first_look_at_new.html.csp
Full Text:
Kells, Stuart. The Library: A Catalogue of Wonders. Counterpoint. Mar. 2018. 224p. ISBN 9781640090200. $26; ebk. ISBN 9781640090217. SOC SCI
What is a library? Book trade historian Kells describes libraries as an "act of faith." Libraries cover many areas of human existence: being integral to education, offering solace and discovery, and providing a social connection. Interesting facts abound. Want to learn more about "bookworms," or Dermestes lardarius? What vellum is made from the skin of bovine fetuses? Each chapter follows a general theme, such as oral traditions, ancient books, design, and war. Interspersed after each chapter are brief stories on topics such as accidental physical items found in books and historical accounts of book vandalism. Kells also covers the development of both real (the Folger Shakespeare Library) and fantasy (J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings) institutions. The author ends with his own "love letter" to libraries, seeing them as something sacred, magical, and hard to quantify.
Verdict This work takes readers on what can only be described as a labyrinth of traditions, facts, and vignettes that will whet the appetite of any bibliophile or lectiophile. It will appeal mostly to those who are attracted to the minutiae of libraries (although this is not an exhaustive history.)--Maria Bagshaw, Elgin Community Coll. Lib., IL
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Bagshaw, Maria. "Kells, Stuart. The Library: A Catalogue of Wonders." Xpress Reviews, 26 Jan. 2018. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A528197436/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=759cf691. Accessed 4 June 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A528197436
The Library review: Stuart Kells' idiosyncratic take on the marvels within
By Fiona Capp
31 August 2017 — 1:28pm
The Library: A Catalogue of Wonders
Stuart Kells
The Library: A Catalogue of Wonders, by Stuart Kells.
The Library: A Catalogue of Wonders, by Stuart Kells.
Photo: Supplied
Text, $32.99
If you think you know what a library is, this marvellously idiosyncratic book will make you think again. After visiting hundreds of libraries around the world and in the realm of the imagination, bibliophile and rare-book collector Stuart Kells has compiled an enchanting compendium of well-told tales and musings both on the physical and metaphysical dimensions of these multi-storied places. He takes us to Jorge Luis Borges' fictional "infinite library" and the oral libraries of Indigenous Australians, the oldest of their kind on earth, exploring how European attempts to explain the songlines of the Arrente people became "a hub of concentric scandals". As in a game of Cluedo, deaths, births, crimes and passions all take place in the library. Perhaps in an attempt to avoid such scandal, a 19th-century book of etiquette advised that the works of male and female authors should be segregated "unless they happen to be married".
Stuart Kells Explores the Wondrous History of Libraries
by Jonathan A. Liebson
April 17, 2018
Comments 0
The subtitle of Stuart Kells’ latest work, The Library: A Catalogue of Wonders, presents a riddle of sorts. How to arrange and present the many marvels he’s unearthed without taming his subject matter, à la an encyclopedia? Kells himself seems aware of this challenge. In an early subchapter, “The Pleasure of Books,” he warns of the “excessive attachment” of bibliophiles and their “overweening” obsessiveness. Kells speaks like a man who’s seen his own shadow. As an academic, a book collector, and a book-trade historian, he straddles two tendencies that are sometimes at cross purposes: a near-insatiable passion for books, and a near-inexhaustible desire to classify them.
Kells’ fervor is visible from the outset. He recounts his emergence from a dismal life at a social research institute in Melbourne, Australia to one of an avid book collector, thanks to a random find at a college book sale. When Kells stumbles on an obscure 1814 volume of poetry, with no discernible author or publisher, he calls it “a perfect life moment, the kind of discovery that explains why bibliophiles spend so many hours at flea markets, book stalls. . . and garage sales.”
His calling is infectious; readers will be inspired to follow Kells as he tracks down the book’s origins and then hunts for similar volumes in order to build “the nucleus of [his] future library.”
The act of assembling that library provides the through-line to his current work. Along the way, he visits hundreds of libraries of every kind, from national libraries to modest “working men’s” libraries to posh private libraries. Consequently, the author’s fascination with books evolves into a secondary fascination with the places that house them. It turns out libraries are more than staid repositories for slowly aging texts. Their history, as Kells finds out, holds intriguing stories “of every possible human drama,” touching upon a full range of faults and failings: “anxiety, avarice, envy, fastidiousness, obsession, lust, pride, pretension, narcissism and agoraphobia.”
With a claim so invigorating, Kells sets a high bar for his work and high expectations in his reader. To his credit, the book delivers on this promise in a number of places, not only surprising its readers but instilling that sense of “wonder” promised by its title. Elsewhere, however, the chapters do start to take on something of a catalogue’s dry accounting. A high turnover of facts, trivia, and brick-and-mortar details end up deflating some of the book’s allure, however informative those details may be.
Kells’ tour through history predates our common conception of libraries. He examines the ancient Arrernte tribes of Australia and their “dreaming tracks”—small, oblong stones carved with patterns of concentric circles, dots, arches, and lines—which some argue are among mankind’s earliest “oral” libraries. Kells explains how the study of these “totems” led to controversy, as well-intentioned Western scholars were criticized for their misunderstanding and even romanticizing of the Aboriginal’s traditions and histories. Here, Kells seems to try and have it both ways. He pays respect to the “beautiful word-pictures” of the Arrernte, such as one dreaming track that represents the “moment in twilight when the tufts of grass can no longer be distinguished.” But, at the same time, he doesn’t withhold criticism of those scholars who “failed in their duty as curators.”
Other nontraditional libraries of the ancient world include the “tablet rooms” of Mesopotamia, which date as far back as 3100 B.C. Some of these rooms contained thousands of clay tablets comprising as many as fifteen ancient languages. Kells identifies Aristotle’s Lyceum (ca. 335 B.C.) in Athens as an early precursor to the more contemporary library. Not simply a storehouse of readings, the Lyceum was a public forum in which these texts were shared and discussed. Kells calls this the site of “two important beginnings: the inception of Western scholarship, and the creation of…spaces for reading, writing and conversing.”
One of the most fabled libraries in history is the Great Library of Alexandria, established by Alexander the Great (ca. 300 B.C.). With its hundreds of thousands of Greek and Latin scrolls, the library holds an almost mythical status. Not only did it make Alexandria the center of “spectacular achievements in medicine, astronomy and geometry,” but its mysterious destruction remains widely debated to this day, a phenomenon lost to history like the Hanging Gardens of Babylon.
Another key transformation of the library followed the evolution of bookmaking. Papyrus scrolls (hard to label and keep track of) gave way to the codex—i.e., a “hinged” book made from rectangular-cut parchment. Just as the codex could store more information in less space, so too could the places where codices were kept. Kells seizes on this fact in what becomes a prolonged journey through the Middle Ages. He serves up sometimes interesting, sometimes tedious facts about everything from bookbinding and types of animal skins to illuminated manuscripts, pictorial frontispieces, and medieval scribes.
One note of particular importance is how, in the late Middle Ages, the ever-increasing number of codices led to the end of storing books in chests or on lecterns. Instead, codices were placed upright, and alongside each other, on what we now know of as bookshelves. This change would precipitate a host of other questions and issues, such as whether to shelve books spine-inward or spine-outward, how best to arrange bookcases, and how to combat what Kells amusingly calls the “thermodynamic” problem of “shelf-lag.” (One modern librarian, he points out, has deduced the optimal shelf length to be one meter.)
As The Library speeds through the centuries and catches up to our contemporary era, a snapshot quality begins to take over. Certain morsels will delight and educate—for example, the use of bats in Portuguese libraries to control bookworms and other pests. Others may prove interesting only to the most diehard of library enthusiasts, such as the science of configuring windows to manage light most effectively. Provocative titles like “The Best and Worst Librarians in History,” or “Book Looters and Thieves,” don’t quite live up to their billing, while bona fide scandals (a medieval illuminator who murders his arch-rival) are often delivered in a clipped style that feels more reportorial. In “Tricks and Treasures in Library Design,” his examples of Harry Potter–like hidden chambers, or statues and busts that conceal secret staircases, also arouse great interest. But the rapid succession of these ends up having a list-like quality—sometimes resembling more of a slide show than a narrative.
Which is not to say that the book runs out of interesting material. Ultimately, Kells’ writing finds refuge in an important principle espoused by Charles McKim, the famous architect hired to build the Morgan Library. In a chapter dedicated to the building’s creation, McKim is quoted as saying that the interior of a library should “whisper and not shout.” If J.P. Morgan eschewed this philosophy in favor of supreme opulence, Kells himself will observe it more faithfully.
In spite of some hyped-up chapter headings, the book itself maintains a proper and more learned tone of voice. Kells succeeds not by transforming libraries into places of great lore and intrigue, but by honoring these venerable institutions that the internet has yet to kill.
9781640090200_068e4
NONFICTION
The Library: A Catalogue of Wonders by Stuart Kells
Counterpoint
Published April 10, 2018
Stuart Kells is an author and book-trade historian. His 2015 history of Penguin Books, Penguin and the Lane Brothers: The Untold Story of a Publishing Revolution” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener”>Penguin and the Lane Brothers, won the prestigious Ashurst Business Literature Prize. Rare—his critically acclaimed biography of Kay Craddock, the first female president of the International League of Antiquarian Booksellers—was published in 2011. An authority on rare books, Kells has written and published on many aspects of print culture and the book world.
Book Review: Stuart Kells’ The Library is a love letter to literature
September 8, 2017 / Natalie Salvo
A leading Australian bibliophile goes on a tour of thousands of libraries. The result isn’t a punchline but in fact a book called The Library by Stuart Kells. This volume is a fascinating text that draws together Kells’ scholarly essays on a range of different topics related to the storage of books, reading in general and different methods of communication through history. It’s an intriguing trip skipping through the history books and hearing about places that are so much more than a mere storeroom. For many people libraries possess a heart and soul and are a delightful sanctuary, a solace and comfort.
Kells begins by tracing the oral traditions of native tribes and how their members shared their stories and handed these down through the generations. From here, there were original methods to record and write things down. This was done on materials like tablets, the paper-like papyrus and codices made of animal skins. Fast forward through history and we would eventually get books as we know them- printed on a mass scale, made from paper and featuring illustrations. We would also get ones that were ultimately bound with covers to enable the book to be easily located.
This volume is meticulously researched and is full of interesting anecdotes and snapshots from history. Kells is obviously very passionate about books (no one will question his bibliophile status after reading this) and his joy and love is apparent to the reader. Kells’ enthusiasm is also something that can be shared by the reader as they come to learn so much and gain a new understanding of the value of books and literature. This is particularly important in this digital age when kindles, e-books and the internet pose a big threat to physical books and libraries.
This volume is also a celebration of different cultures. It cites examples of how libraries have influenced different people and how they have been used as the settings in films and novels. It includes delightful anecdotes like the story of writer, Jeanette Winterson hiding books under her mattress and on her person in order to read these on the loo because she was forbidden to read non-religious texts by her strict, Pentecostal step-mother. The Library even describes the lengths that some bibliophiles will go to in order to curate and create their own perfect library and to source that elusive or rare book. Heck, Kells even describes some threats to books like fire and water damage and insects like silverfish, bedbugs and book worms. Who would have thought?
The Library is ultimately an engaging and well-written volume by a knowledgeable expert and passionate fan of the subject matter. The result is almost like poetry, a rich ode to all things books and everything we love about them. The enjoyment and engagement is so palpable you can almost taste it and Kells proves to be the perfect guide through the subject matter and history, which ironically could have been lost were it not recorded in this faithful tome. You could consider The Library the good book, except that that one was already taken…
The Library is out now through Text Publishing
STUART KELLS The Library: A catalogue of wonders. Reviewed by Michael Jongen
Tags: Andrew Carnegie/ Bruce Chatwin/ Domesday Book/ Stuart Kells
Stuart Kells gives us an entertaining and enlightening history of the pursuit, collection and housing of books.
Kells, a book-trade historian, begins by looking at the songlines and oral traditions that collected myths and legends long before they were written down. The Arrernte people in central Australia were developing a system of gathering tribal knowledge and ethics tens of thousands of years ago. The dreaming tracks have been of scientific interest ever since the 1906 publication of Mythes et legendes d’Australie (by Arnold van Gennep). In 1971 Ted Strehlow published Songs of Central Australia, which attracted the attention of Bruce Chatwin, who in January 1983 retraced Strehlow’s journeys. After a second trip to Australia, Chatwin wrote Songlines, published 30 years ago. Kells also mentions Nomads of the Australian Desert, by anthropologist Charles P Mountford, which is one of the earliest examples of a book being withdrawn from sale because of Indigenous cultural sensitivity.
As with The Badass Librarians of Timbuktu, there is much to commend here for readers in the #GLAM industries (Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums). The book provides details of many interesting processes of preservation and the pitfalls of collecting and curating manuscripts. It looks at the personalities and motives of the collectors and the desire to accumulate human knowledge. While there are many heroic stories, this is also about the not-so-pure adventurers, speculators and the censorious.
The boys-own-adventure approaches to the tales of acquiring will thrill and amuse general readers who have a fascination for the odd, obscure and mildly revolting facts exemplified by Ripley’s Believe it or Not.
The chapter ‘Library Fauna’ begins by noting that the prevalence of bedbugs in US libraries was of such concern to public health officials that they employed bedbug sniffer dogs to inspect infested libraries. In loving and lurid detail Kells outlines how an ‘animal kingdom of book botherers’ has destroyed valuable collections and books. He details the struggles of monks in the Middle Ages who had to decide which manuscripts to rescue and which to sacrifice in order to defend books in buildings infested with mice. This glorious history of destruction ends with the story of the McArthur River Institute in Borroloola in Australia’s Gulf country and makes connections with Gerald Murnane’s fictional library in The Plains.
The fascinating background politics to the history of movements of libraries and collections is well covered. The travails of the Vatican Library, dated from c385 CE, are detailed. The library moved with the popes of Avignon before returning to Rome, where more venal popes sold off the treasures. In medieval times libraries could be valuable prizes for conquerors or they could be used to light fires. There are sad tales of the burning of books and the ransackings of collections that had been accumulated over centuries. There are many heroic efforts to save manuscripts from marauders and vandals during the Dark Ages, from monks in particular. Kells notes that libraries in the Arab world and Far East thrived in these times.
Peppered throughout are stories of how literary figures responded to libraries. There are anecdotes and references to the works of writers such as Zafon and Canetti, which lead to one of the book’s highlights for me – an examination of the great imaginary libraries of Borges, Eco and Tolkien. The forensic detailing of the history of the libraries in Tolkien’s works is a delight:
… the family seats of all the major Hobbit clans collect the types of shelf-filling volumes that can be found in every second-hand bookshop in Britain: genealogy, local history, poetry, cooking, gardening, sport and true crime. Shire readers especially delight in tales of burglars, heroes and ‘things that are never seen seen or done’. More popular still are books filled with things that Hobbits already know, ‘set out fair and square with no contradictions.
The book details how great libraries have come about from the first great collection at Alexandria through to the Bodleian. Collectors like Bodley and JP Morgan, who established libraries, knew that they would become a magnet for books and collections:
For however many centuries, Alexandria had preserved and promoted the Greek literary heritage. In turn, that tradition passed to the great libraries of Constantinople – the Imperial, Patriarch and University libraries – which maintained it for another thousand years. Though scholars at those libraries produced little that was new or creative, they edited, annotated and elucidated the standard classical texts, thereby guarding them for the future.
Kells deals swiftly with Andrew Carnegie building public libraries in 19th-century America, and the development of libraries in the 20th century and in the digital crossroads of the 21st century. He notes the rise and fall of technologies and the danger obsolete storage methods present to the preservation of knowledge. The fall of the card catalogue has led us to a world where data rules and knowledge, learning and information can still be contained, despite the open-culture movement and access to Google.
In a book which deals with the founding and loss of manuscripts through politics, war and neglect, Kells warns of the ephemeral nature of some digital storage. The electronic Domesday Book, in which over a million people took part, was recorded onto laser disks. Within 16 years the digital data had virtually disappeared:
Only after a massive recovery effort – that involved painstaking unpicking of hexadecimal data, and resort to the original analogue mastertapes – could the ‘book’ be read. All the while the original, thousand year-old Domesday Book housed in Kew remained entirely readable.
There is much more that is delicious and fascinating in this book. Kells details how men have died in their libraries and looks at librarians, famous and infamous. Joe Orton and Kenneth Halliwell’s defacing of books at Islington Library is given a loving retelling. For this librarian, who culls his personal library on a constant basis, this one’s a keeper.
Stuart Kells The Library: A catalogue of wonders Text Publishing 2017 PB 288pp $32.99