Definition of "bibliomania" [bib•li•o•ma•ni•a]

• An exaggerated preoccupation with the acquisition and ownership of books. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "(The other reason indulgence and castigation often are hard to distinguish in an account of bibliomania is that those diagnosing the disorder so often detect symptoms in themselves.)"
• "The ardor of possessing books, commonly called bibliomania, also styled bibliophilism and "biblio" -- whatever else that has suggested itself to the fruitful imaginations of dozens of felicitous writers upon the subject, -- is described by Dibdin as a "disease which grows with our growth, and strengthens with our strength.""
• "Himself an indefatigable collector of books, the possessor of a library as valuable as it was interesting, a library containing volumes obtained only at the cost of great personal sacrifice, he was in the most active sympathy with the disease called bibliomania, and knew, as few comparatively poor men have known, the half-pathetic, half-humorous side of that incurable mental infirmity."