The Perverse Library

Craig Dworkin

Price £10.99+pp oop

ISBN 978-1-907468-03-2

Year 2010

Edition 500

Pages 176

Binding perfect bound

Illustration BW illustrated cover; text only inside

Dimensions 197 x 128 mm

The Perverse Library is the latest poetic bookwork from scholar, critic, and iam co-editor Craig Dworkin. The book comprises of a bibliography of Dworkin’s book shelves at home, a supplementary bibliography of absent and imagined books, and an accompanying essay arguing that libraries are in fact defined not by what they contain, but by what books they exclude or fail to include.  The essay also investigates the histories of libraries, makes a theoretical argument about the relation of canons to architectural space, and explores the psychology of collecting — including the pathology of bibliomania:

He had but one idea, one love, one passion: books. And this love, this passion burned within him, consuming his days, devouring his existence.”

Gustave Flaubert, Bibliomania, no trans.  (London: The Rodale Press, 1954) p.10.

The Perverse Library

  • Categories →
  • Publications
  • Date →
  • September 2010
 

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