Bibliomania Tour

The great book collections assembled and dispersed by Norfolk’s Battell,  Eldridge, and Robbins families in the period 1790–1930 contributed to the golden age of book collecting, a time period  described and celebrated by English librarian Thomas Dibdin in his 1809 “Bibliomania” (book-madness, or uncontrollable passion for books). Although Dibdin’s volume is a satire pretending to offer a “cure” for book-disease, his writing on the subject did much to popularize book collecting as a pastime. The exhibit will feature never-before-displayed items from the combined collections of rare books at the Norfolk Library and the Norfolk Historical Society, giving valuable insight into the lives lived by the Norfolkians whose cabinet collections contained these “imagined” antiquarianisms.

Please join us for an opening reception Friday, October 4 from 4:00 – 7:00 PM. A conversation with curator Lucy Mookerjee will begin at 5:00 PM

Museum open Saturday 1:00 – 4:00 and Sunday 1:00 – 4:00