A NOBLE MADNESS

An extraordinarily illuminating account of a powerful cultural impulse, James Delbourgo's A Noble Madness ranges from ancient Rome and Ming China to Hearst's Hollywood and Warhol's New York; his cast of characters includes historical and fictional figures as various as Cicero and Darwin, Norman Bates and Hannibal Lecter. We could not ask for a better guide to this fascinating territory than Delbourgo. A Noble Madness is a delight to read and ponder, not to mention an exceptional achievement in cultural history.

UK: Quercus ; Russian: Alpina ; Taiwanese: Rye Field

"In this fascinating, witty, and provocative book, Delbourgo's collectors range from emperors to scientists, from shopaholics to taxonomists, from bibliomaniacs to serial killers. Some appalling and others appealing, his protagonists reveal the obsessive yet strangely noble impulses behind the drive to accumulate. Give it to the collector in your life, and watch the sparks fly!"

Delbourgo traverses time and place to portray collectors' roles. A well-researched history of the passion to possess.

"The word 'collecting' is often seen alongside the word 'mania,' but I never really understood just how intensely, wildly, hilariously and sometimes tragically obsessive true collectors can be until I read, in breathless wonder, James Delbourgo's magnificent A Noble Madness. A study of a certain kind of pathology, yes, but one that casts light on the whole history of ideas and the development of human curiosity and learning. This book is itself so compulsive and entertaining that I found myself wanting to collect the collectors whose lives and passions Delbourgo so brilliantly brings to life."

"A tour de force of scholarship and storytelling, James Delbourgo explores the obsessive side of a very human impulse, and in so doing brings new insight into something deep and enduringly important within ourselves."

"I've seen the inside of James Delbourgo's New York apartment, and can report that it is surprisingly orderly, even minimalist. But the inside of his mind? What a dazzling cabinet of curiosities! He shows incontrovertibly in this mesmerizing new book the parallel between people's psyches and the objects they surround themselves with. From the high-end art collector to Jeffrey Dahmer's horrifying temple of human bones, nothing puts the human soul on display like collecting. I declare from my coffee-stained couch, surrounded by dirty plates, unopened mail, and more books than anyone could ever read, that A Noble Madness makes a fundamental contribution to the study of human psychology."

Is a scientist plunging into a jungle in search of specimens really all that different from someone surreptitiously snipping passersby's hair to add to his very private collection? Delbourgo has great fun tackling this question by presenting a collection of collectors in a witty dash through the history of a deeply human urge.

Everybody has things; some people collect things; and just a few of these people are obsessives, defining themselves through their collections. What's been thought about people like that? Are they contemptible, pitiable, or admirable? Are they perverse or pious, crazy or charismatic? Delbourgo puts the collector right at the center of a historical story about what it means to be human. A Noble Madness enlightens, it provokes, and it delights.

This is a wonderful book: witty, erudite, and deliciously written. The book has many layers, with different energies flowing and glowing across the pages, maintaining elegance and lightness of touch throughout. A rare combination of human empathy and critical insight. Delbourgo takes us round the world and deep into history to reveal both the dark and the bright side of collecting.

As contemporary museums contend with the looting and theft that have frequently undergirded the construction of public and private collections of art and artifacts, historian Delbourgo's book deals with a different "dark side of collecting" that of how lusting after and loving things have been perceived within various cultures around the world at different points in time (though most are from postseventeenth century EuroAmerica). Freud, who understood collections to reveal a hidden inner self and even diagnosed collecting as "a substitute for sexual gratification," casts a long shadow on modern understandings of collecting that Delbourgo seeks to redress. He places Freud's view alongside many other perspectives on collecting: Ming Dynasty commentators who had a word to describe collecting as an obsessive sickness, libertines of the European enlightenment who sought pleasure in things, colonial-era naturalists who gathered specimens in their hunt for knowledge, and those today expecting a return on investment. But, like Freud, Delbourgo ultimately concludes that throughout history and the world over, "by expressing that love" for things, collectors "are themselves."

A gallery of collectors from ancient times to the present -- obsessives and dilettanti, hoarders and cataloguers, emperors, scholars and libertines. Delbourgo's exploration of their 'madness,' whether uncontrolled passion, devious greed, or a desire to order chaos, is an exuberant and illuminating delight.