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Honnold Library Record: An Eccentric Bibliographer
From the Honnold Library Record, Volume 6, Number 1. Spring 1963:
An Eccentric Bibliographer
The Honnold Library possesses two examples of the writings of Gabriel Peignot, one of the more eccentric bibliophiles. One of these works has a title which may be roughly translated, “A Dictionary of Bibliology” (1802), and the other, “Universal Register of Bibliographies” (1812). Both are now out of date, but both gave a great impetus to the study of bibliography and to book collecting, as did the author’s other works.
Peignot was born in France in 1765. Throughout his life he held responsible positions; he was first a lawyer, later a librarian and school official. He began his career in the city of Vesoul, but spent the latter part of his life in Dijon. He must have been afflicted with the dread disease of bibliography at an early age, for when he was still in his twenties he was charged by the city of Vesoul with gathering together a municipal library. The French revolution had just occurred and it was an ideal time to found a library. The suppression of the convents and monasteries and the sale of the confiscated goods of the emigré nobles had flooded the market with books and manuscripts; valuable items were to be had for a pittance, or for nothing, and Peignot reveled in his job. In 1803, still the city’s librarian, he became, as well, the principal of its college. He later moved to Dijon and such time as he could spare from making a living, he devoted to reading, book collecting, and writing. He was one of those people who cannot resist reading everything that comes to their notice. Peignot was not only a compulsive reader, but a compulsive note-taker. If a worthless pamphlet were printed on pink paper, Peignot would make a note of the color. If he found an annotated book auction catalogue of a sale long past, he made notes of the prices paid for the items. Thus as he read, he accumulated thousands of pamphlets and books, and thousands of notes.
The mass of notes eventually resulted in 94 books and pamphlets by Peignot himself. These were as odd and as varied as the notes he had taken. He published, for example, a bibliography of books printed on colored paper, and a list of all books which had sold at auction for more than a thousand francs. He wrote an essay on the superstitions of great men, a bibliography of books printed in small editions, a list of books in which the text was engraved, and a chronological essay on severe winters since the year 396 B.C.
One of Peignot’s efforts, his list of books which had been suppressed or had been ordered to be burned, had a most astonishing effect. One morning in 1821, Peignot was aghast to learn that the King of the Two Sicilies had ordered his officials to compile a list of books to be burned in his kingdom, using as the basis for their list Peignot’s publication and the Catholic Index.
As Peignot grew older, the disease of bibliophily grew worse. He bought books when he should have been buying groceries, to the great distress of Mme. Peignot. The good people of Dijon had sympathy for her, but also great respect for her husband, a distinguished member of the Academy of Dijon, and at one time its president. The booksellers agreed that Mme. Peignot could return to them any books which her husband bought. As the good man busily and happily took notes on his purchases and piled the books in his study, Mme. Peignot quietly extracted them and returned them to the booksellers.
A curious result of Peignot’s activities was that after his death, his odd publications, issued in very limited editions, became themselves collectors’ items. A new and more complete bibliography of the items was compiled for collectors and the prices skyrocketed. Thus, posthumously, Peignot continued to advance and stimulate book collecting and bibliophily, and certainly nothing would have pleased him more.
The materials mentioned here are physically located in Special Collections. For more information on those materials, contact Special Collections.
What is the Honnold Library Record?
The Honnold Library Record, published from 1958 until 1975, was the publication of the Honnold Library Society, the friends of the library group, founded in 1954. All the issues of the Honnold Library Record are available online in the CCDL in the Honnold Library Record Collection.
— michael | December 3, 2008 08:05 PM | The more you know
