The Mind Creative FEB 2014
Reading can be a wonderful pastime; in fact, it can be a passion
or even a penchant. All of us, at some time or other, have spent
a fair amount of money buying books or have enrolled in a library
in order to gain access to a huge array of books at a very low cost.
In this day and age, reading books has become even more
affordable with the advent of the internet in the fast growing world
of digital media.
However, there are those whose passions goes well beyond just
reading books. Their excitement lies in collecting rare books; and
rare books come at a cost - a very high cost at times. The whole
process of collecting books entails seeking, locating, acquiring,
organizing, cataloguing, displaying, storing, and maintaining
books. In fact , there is a special word that describes love of books
and the word is bibliophilia, and someone who loves to read,
admire, and collect books is often referred to as a bibliophile.
It probably all started with the collections of illuminated
manuscripts, both commissioned and second-hand, by the elites
of Burgundy and France in particular, which became common in
the 15th century. Duke Philip the Duke of Burgundy appears to
have had the largest private collection of his day, with about six
hundred volumes. Book collecting received a particular impetus
in England and elsewhere during the Reformation when many
monastic libraries were broken up, and their contents often
destroyed.
Here’s a look at some of the rarest and most expensive books
in the world.
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