To Have and to Hold: An Intimate History of Collectors and Collecting - Softcover

Blom, Philipp

3.75

195 ratings by Goodreads

9780140294804: To Have and to Hold: An Intimate History of Collectors and Collecting

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0140294805 ISBN 13: 9780140294804

Publisher: Penguin, 2003

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TO HAVE AND TO HOLD "is to the history of collecting what Lytton Strachey's EMINENT VICTORIANS is to the Victorian age: not the most thorough treatment, but the most fun." It is a completely engrossing, idiosyncratic, ruminative, meandering, delightful, episodic exploration of the collecting mind from mediaeval times to the present - full of eccentrics, visionaries, heroes and nutcases. It is, like Alberto Manguel's A HISTORY OF READING or Charles Sprawson's THE HAUNTS OF THE BLACK MASSEUR, itself something of a work of art.

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Review:

Blom makes for a macabre, if knowledgeable guide, as he takes us from the Renaissance cabinets of curiosities...up to present day. -- The Independent Magazine

Blom's text delights in extremists and obsessives, men who would cheat, steal, kill or marry to feed or finance their habit. -- The Guardian

He makes you rethink yourself in a civilised style, if not comfortably unsettle your view of the world. -- Spectator

I read Blom's largely anecdotal survey with the morbid fascination that a hypochrondriac brings to a medical handbook. -- The Guardian

‘A beautifully written, fascinating, amusing, astonishing account, which illuminates the strangeness of the human mind and the wonder of the world’ -- A. C. Grayling, Financial Times

‘A marvellous book ... crammed nearly to bursting with arcane facts and descriptions of bizarre, exquisite objects’ -- Jerome Boyd Maunsell, Evening Standard

‘Astonishing ... a positive rogues’ gallery ... relishing the dramas, oddities and moments of high comedy’ -- Jenny Uglow, The Times Literary Supplement

‘Brilliant in the most exact sense, it gives off constant rays of illumination’ -- Bevis Hillier, Literary Review

‘Glorious ... sparkling, discursive and eclectic’ -- Sue Gaisford, Independent on Sunday

Synopsis:

The acquisition of objects is close to the heart of what it is to be human. In the world of the collector this acquisition is divorced from utility, becoming its own, endlessly varied justification. Philipp Blom examines the various causes and forms of the collecting impulse, from the joy of identifying and satisfying a need to possess, to the creation of comforting taxonomies.

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