Bibliophile
"The world is made to end in a beautiful book" Stéphane Mallarmé.
The word bibliophile is recent. It appeared around 1740 and entered the Académie dictionary in 1836: "One who loves and seeks rare and precious books, particularly good and correct editions."
For the bibliophile, "the ideal book would be one that combines literary interest with beauty and rarity."
The definitions of "bibliophile" are numerous. They all express a love of books and shed light on the orientations of book lovers in each era. At this stage, we will adopt the definition by Anthony Meray, a mid-19th century bibliophile, for whom "bibliophiles can be classified into two main categories; those who enjoy the substance of books, who hunt them down to extract their content and immerse themselves in their spirit; and those who acquire them to become their custodians, who lovingly contemplate their form, who restore them, adorn them with purple and gold, and save them from the desecrators of the common people."
The oldest treatise on bibliophily was written by Richard de Bury, an English scholar of the 16th century.
