Thomas Phillipps - the world's most 'haunted' book collector

With the advent of e-books at the turn of the 21st century, there is no shortage of discussion about whether digital media will eventually replace printed books. Historically, people have been concerned about "the death of books" since the 1820s.

Despite the controversy, printed books show no sign of disappearing from the post-digital world. Thomas Phillipps is known not only as an English collector of books and antiquities, he is also a true bibliographer, possessing the largest collection of books and manuscripts of the 19th century.

The book "A Gentle Madness" described Phillipps as the greatest manuscript collector the world has ever known. But for Phillipps, it was a habit, a terrible obsession that drove him into debt.

Book collector Thomas Phillipps.

The original source of obsession

Thomas Phillipps' passion for book collecting began at a young age, around the turn of the 19th century with a collection of book chapters known as the Gothic Blue Book. While Phillipps continues to collect an astonishing amount of rare and precious material, the storybooks are a humble place to start.

They are usually pamphlets or pamphlets, mass-produced and sold by street vendors. Printed cheaply and often filled with poetry and short stories, sold for as little as a few cents. Over the centuries, such books have become popular as a way to make writing accessible to the poorest of society, and, purchased so cheaply, they are also popular with children. Popularity. Kids like the young Thomas Phillipps.

When Phillipps became more "addicted" to collecting, he owned more than 127 titles. As a dedicated collector, keeping a portfolio is a necessary habit, and this early listing was a precursor to a habit Phillipps would keep for the rest of his life. As the Grolier Club Gazette mentioned, he subsequently kept a regular series of diaries of all his literary activities.

Phillipps was "addicted" to collecting books from a young age.

Bibliomania

The compulsive need to buy books is called "bibliomania", and it's a well-known personality. As a hobby, book collecting first began to gain popularity among wealthy citizens in 19th-century England, and has a long and unusual history of its own.

Even at that time, there were many people in society who considered this a strange and irrational pastime. However, for Thomas Phillipps, collecting books is a passion. He always had a purpose.

Preservation. Phillipps was once saddened to hear of the destruction of old medieval manuscripts. Many old documents were written not on paper but on parchment. Parchment is usually made from animal skins, and parchment is one of the best used for books.

Typically, parchment is used for the most important documents, including illuminated manuscripts from the Middle Ages - and also including the original US Constitution. And such manuscripts are his true passion, Phillipps even coining a word for his own collection style.

When other book collectors were simply bibliophiles, he called himself a "fancy maniac".

The compulsive need to buy books is called "bibliomania".

Lost literature

Thomas Phillipps' concern about the disappearance of medieval texts was not unfounded. Over time, many copies have been lost, only about 9% of manuscripts from medieval Europe still exist today.

There have been many reasons for these old works to be destroyed, whether intentionally or unintentionally. Fire in history is the greatest danger, causing the entire library to disappear. Other manuscripts have been lost for political and religious reasons. Ironically, many of the books were destroyed to be used as binding materials for printed books.

Broadway Tower and Middle Hill Publishing House

The Phillipps family home is a large country house, located in Middle Hill, Broadway, in the South of England. That's where Thomas Phillipps first started collecting books as a young boy, and when he became more serious about collecting literature, he moved quite nearby.

Broadway Tower in the South of England.

Phillipps collected books while studying at Oxford University. While he has been awarded various social honors due to his family connections, those books remain his primary interest. Using the inheritance, Phillipps later acquired the Broadway Tower.

Inside the Broadway Tower, Phillipps set up a printing press that he used to print records of historical documents, each with the crest of a lion and the inscription "Sir TP/Middle Hill." as a sign of authenticity.

The tower itself is an ostentatious building, with views of some of England's most famous landscapes. Academics sometimes speak enthusiastically of Phillipps' hospitality, with one French scholar describing the Broadway Tower as a "lighthouse" from which "all pilgrims to study are welcome".

A great library

Thomas Phillipps is famously not the most organized collector, but he still has an incredible collection. It's easy to imagine that Phillips may never have read through his collection, as he would eventually own some 50,000 books and 100,000 manuscripts.

He even expanded into collecting other documents, including maps, master drawings, deed, genealogical charts, and even older items like the Babylonian cylinder seal. His collection was so large that it eventually rivaled all the books in universities.

Phillipps himself owns a huge library.

Towards the end of his life, Phillipps' collection became an obsession. 'I wish I had a copy of every book in the world.' A lofty goal he seems closer to achieving than anyone else in history.

Collection cost

Thomas Phillipps is a rich man, but the fortune that he spends on his collection is much larger than the actual wealth he owns. Auctioneer Christie's mentions that a bookseller and librarian, ANL Munby, estimated that Phillipps could have spent up to a quarter of a million pounds and around £5,000 a year. Adjusted for modern prices, this comes in at around £23 million in total and £470,000 per year.

Needless to say, constantly spending such an absurd amount of money on books and manuscripts is completely unsustainable. Phillipps inherited a fair amount of money from his father, but this was clearly not enough to quench his insatiable thirst for books. As a result, Phillipps was mostly in debt.

Collector or hoarder?

Despite the wonderful treasures in his collection, the house of Thomas Phillipps is like a "shabby abode".

The house was stuffed with large boxes of manuscripts. Every room seemed to be crammed with huge piles of papers, manuscripts, books, and all sorts of other jumbled literature piled up on tables, chairs, ladders, and even beds.

Each room was filled with boxes, containing the most valuable of Phillipps acquisitions, piled up to the ceiling. The atmosphere in Phillipps' house was always very stuffy because the windows were never opened, and the smell of paper and parchment was always "almost unbearable".

Precious manuscripts collected by Phillipps.

Phillipps' Legacy

In 1863, Thomas Phillipps set out with the enormous task of moving his entire collection to a new home. At this point, his personal library, is still sprawling and needs an entire workforce to move. According to the book "The Shakespeare Thefts", he hired 175 men and 250 horses to pull 125 book wagons.

And while the location he moved to was only 20 miles away, the entire operation still took two years. The new home for both Phillipps and his collection is a mansion, Thirestaine House, a building so large that food from the kitchen is always cold when it reaches the dining room.

In the last days of his life, Thomas Phillipps tried to find a new home for his huge literary collection, but to no avail. His collection was eventually inherited by one of his daughters, Katharine Fenwick, by decree of his unreasonably limited will.

Reportedly, it took a century of sales and auctions to sort through the mountains of texts he left behind. While Thomas Phillipps may have wanted his collections kept together, they have since been scattered around the world.