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From the reviews of Paper: An Elegy:
‘Ian Sansom’s Paper: An Elegy has an intensity that might seem alarming if you didn’t share his obsession … Sansom’s scholarship is prodigious; his enthusiasm inexhaustible … He can make one laugh out loud by his placing of a single word (“Anyway”). He writes that when he dies, he wants to be buried in a paper coffin. And by the time you’ve finished reading this extraordinary book, so will you.’ Jane Shilling, Daily Telegraph
‘He settles on calling his book a “personally curated Paper Museum”, but few curators are so engaging and dynamic.’ Andrew Martin, Financial Times
‘His wonderfully diverting book … is not strictly a history of paper; rather, he invites us to explore it as we might wander around an eccentrically curated museum. One may also imagine it as a vast shoebox stuffed with fascinating facts jotted on a multi tude of scraps shored against paper’s ruin … splendidly dense with fact and thought.’ Steven Poole, Times Literary Supplement
For Nicholas and George, with thanks for Christmas lunch
The old book collector’s pulse was almost visible, throbbing in his wrist and temples. His voice became deeper as he held the book up to his eyes so he could read more clearly. His expression was radiant.
‘A magnificent book,’ confirmed Corso,
dragging on his cigarette.
‘It’s more than that. Feel the paper.’
ARTURO PÉREZ-REVERTE, The Club Dumas (1993)
CONTENTS
RESPECTING PAPER: An Introduction
1. A Miracle of Inscrutable Intricacy
4. Victims to the BIBLIOMANIA!
5. Ornamenting the Façade of Hell
10. A Wonderful Mental and Physical Therapy
THE HOLLOW IN THE PAPER: Acknowledgements
TEARING THE BOOK INTO PIECES: A Bibliography
Bookplate by Aubrey Beardsley © The Bridgeman Art Library Ltd
RESPECTING PAPER An Introduction
First of all, respect your paper!
J.M.W. TURNER’s advice to Mary Lloyd, recollected by her in 1880, quoted in Turner Studies, vol. 4, no. 1 (1984)
Welcome to the Paper Museum. The museum is dedicated to the preservation and study of paper and paper products, including not only – and obviously – books, letters and diaries, but also account ledgers and ballot papers, bandboxes and banderoles, bandages and dressings, bank cheques and ledgers, banners and bunting, beer mats, birth certificates, death certificates, baptism and bastardy papers, board games, bookmarks, business cards, cartons and packaging, menus, bills of fare and cash register receipts, charts (nautical, medical, educational and otherwise), cigarette papers, clothes (including suits, hats, shirts, overcoats, kimonos, overalls and coveralls), coffins, colouring books, confetti, coupons, construction and tracing paper, emery boards, envelopes, filters and gauzes (medical, industrial and culinary), fireworks, flypaper and official forms of all kinds, funeralia, greeting cards, postcards, kites, carpets, lanterns and lampshades, library cards, identity cards and passports, magazines, catalogues, newspapers, maps and globes, paper bags, paper cups, paper dolls, paper flowers, paper money, paper pipes, panoramas, photographs, playing cards, postage stamps, Post-it notes, posters, prescriptions, puzzles, report cards and registers, sandpaper, shoe boxes, stationery, stickers, streamers, tags, labels and tickets, tea bags, telephone directories, wall-paper, wrapping paper, etc., etc., etc.
We live in a paper world. Without paper our lives would be unimaginable. Or almost unimaginable. We can, of course, imagine it, as we can imagine anything, for the great writers and artists and musicians have taught us to imagine, in their books, and their paintings, and through their music. We have been trained by them, educated by them on paper, and through paper, and by paper, to imagine. So it’s easy to imagine a world without paper. Like being dead, or never having been born.
We arise, wash, and go to the toilet – though without toilet paper. We enjoy a bowl of cereal, unpackaged, naturally. Tea: no bags. Coffee: no filter. We do not buy a newspaper on our way to the