Episode 10: Bookish Places

Biblio Banter

In 1822, when Thomas Frognall Dibdin’s account of George John Earl Spencer’s mansion (castle?) was published, he wrote:

…sofas, chairs, tables, of every commodious form, are of course liberally scattered throughout the room. The bay-window looks into the pleasure-garden, or rather into a luxuriant shrubbery; where both serpentine and straight walks invite to a ramble among larches elms and oaks…Upon the whole, if must be confessed that this room, both within and from without, has a character peculiarly BOOKISH – and such as we might suppose to belong to a well-endowed monastery.

- from Thomas Frognall Dibdin, Aedes Althorpianae: or An Account of the Mansion, Books, and Pictures, At Althorp; The Residence of George John Earl Spencer, K.G. to which is added A Supplement to the Bibliotheca Spenceriana (London: Shakespeare Press, 1822), I, 20-31).

Thankfully, in order to be bookish, a place doesn’t have to resemble a “well-endowed monastery”, in fact, private libraries and book collecting (bibliomania, in fact) became quite the rage in the late 1800s – and the propensity for all the trappings of the “bookish” has continued into our times. In today’s episode of Biblio Banter we discuss some of our favorite bookish places, and play “Would You Rather…” from the places noted in the advertising pamphlet for the Atlas Obscura book Atlas Obscura: An Explorer’s Guide to the World’s Hidden Wonders.

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