When it comes to the last century, at least, this library vividly demonstrates otherwise. The mournful, ancient lament of book collectors-concurrent almost with the creation of printing presses-that great copies of great books are victims of some form of bibliophilic global warming, can really only be true when juxtaposed with specific periods. All logic and experience underwrote that thesis, and to build a memorable collection one needs a regular flow of memorable books. But once the ambition to acquire only books with resonant presentations was isolated from the impulse to acquire books-the last leap in the evolution of a connoisseur-it soon became apparent that the opportunities to secure unique, big-time Romantic and Victorian titles was disproportionately thin to that provided by the Modernists. In an earlier incarnation, the collection extended almost 100 years from where it now starts. Indeed, the decision to focus on the 20th century didn't reflect any particular prejudice. My collection was always blueprinted to be small however, the goal of limiting it exclusively to modernist texts with significant literary or biographical associations came into sharp relief only after a number of false starts.
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