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Mohrbooks Literary Agency
Sebastian Ritscher |
| Original language | |
| English | |
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THE COLLECTOR
A New and Twisted History
Some collectors buy art; others hunt specimens. Collectors shape our taste, what we value and what we know. Sometimes god-like visionaries, they dream of collecting entire worlds. But what is the dark side of collecting?
A Roman emperor who has sex with a statue. A melancholy prince who stares at his art for hours on end. Obsessives who spend their life's fortune on a single flower. An aristocrat who kills his pet tortoise by studding its shell with gems. Imperial collectors who act like butchers. Archaeologists who descend into madness after raiding ancient tombs. Serial killers who collect their victims' remains. People who buy Nazi memorabilia. People who collect disposable product packaging. A billionaire art collector who refuses to pay his grandson's ransom. A suburban housewife who hoards her own excrement.
Some collectors buy art; others hunt specimens. Collectors shape our taste, what we value and what we know. Sometimes god-like visionaries, they dream of collecting entire worlds. But what is the dark side of collecting?
In 2018, the World Health Organization classified Hoarding Disorder - or "extreme collecting" - as a global phenomenon. Enter the hoarder: an addict whose urge to accumulate verges on insanity. Yet the hoarder is only the latest incarnation of a figure who recurs throughout history: the obsessive collector driven not by sublime reason but a dangerous passion. Who are the mad collectors that came before the hoarder and what is the nature of their madness? From ancient tyrants to the decadents of the fin de siècle, from Freudian "psychos" to hoarders and megalomaniac billionaires, The Dark Side of Collecting explains how we came to see the collector as the embodiment of our deepest fears -- social, sexual and political -- about possessing things.
James Delbourgo is recognized as the leading expert on the life and career of Sir Hans Sloane and a leading academic authority on the history of science and imperialism in the early modern world. Trained in the histories of science and empire at the University of Cambridge and Columbia University, and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, he is a tenured Associate Professor of History at Rutgers University, having previously taught at McGill University, Montreal, where he directed the program in History and Philosophy of Science. His first book, A Most Amazing Scene of Wonders: Electricity and Enlightenment in Early America (Harvard University Press, 2006), was awarded Harvard's Thomas J. Wilson Prize for the best first book in any field, and was runner-up for the Canadian Historical Association's Wallace K. Ferguson Prize.
Some collectors buy art; others hunt specimens. Collectors shape our taste, what we value and what we know. Sometimes god-like visionaries, they dream of collecting entire worlds. But what is the dark side of collecting?
In 2018, the World Health Organization classified Hoarding Disorder - or "extreme collecting" - as a global phenomenon. Enter the hoarder: an addict whose urge to accumulate verges on insanity. Yet the hoarder is only the latest incarnation of a figure who recurs throughout history: the obsessive collector driven not by sublime reason but a dangerous passion. Who are the mad collectors that came before the hoarder and what is the nature of their madness? From ancient tyrants to the decadents of the fin de siècle, from Freudian "psychos" to hoarders and megalomaniac billionaires, The Dark Side of Collecting explains how we came to see the collector as the embodiment of our deepest fears -- social, sexual and political -- about possessing things.
James Delbourgo is recognized as the leading expert on the life and career of Sir Hans Sloane and a leading academic authority on the history of science and imperialism in the early modern world. Trained in the histories of science and empire at the University of Cambridge and Columbia University, and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, he is a tenured Associate Professor of History at Rutgers University, having previously taught at McGill University, Montreal, where he directed the program in History and Philosophy of Science. His first book, A Most Amazing Scene of Wonders: Electricity and Enlightenment in Early America (Harvard University Press, 2006), was awarded Harvard's Thomas J. Wilson Prize for the best first book in any field, and was runner-up for the Canadian Historical Association's Wallace K. Ferguson Prize.
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Published by W.W. Norton & Company, Inc. - New York (USA) |
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Book
Published 2025-08-12 by W.W. Norton & Company, Inc. - New York (USA) |