The Bibliotaph, and Other People

Leon H. Vincent gathered these literary essays in 1898, opening with the sketch that gives the book its name. A bibliotaph is a collector who entombs his books, locking rare volumes away rather than sharing them, and Vincent draws the type with warmth and dry wit rather than scorn. From there the collection ranges across writers he admired: appreciations of Keats and Théophile Gautier, a study of Thomas Hardy, notes on Robert Louis Stevenson’s unfinished novel St. Ives, and a lecture on an Elizabethan novelist. Four of the papers first appeared in the Atlantic Monthly. Readers who enjoy the company of bookish minds will find an unhurried, personable critic here, one who treats literature as a pleasure rather than a duty.