A BOOKMAN’S PURGATORY

Thomas Blinton, a lifelong enthusiast in the art of book-hunting, prided himself on a hobby he deemed harmless and intellectually stimulating, contrasting it with more bourgeois pursuits like shooting or fishing. Despite the potentially sinister fate that befell famous book-hunters according to tales he dismissed, Blinton cherished his daily excursions through London, beating the paths from the City to West Kensington in search of literary treasures hidden within the countless bookstalls. These excursions were more than mere hobby; they were an affirmation of a lifestyle, an exercise in intellectual superiority, and a practical denial of the moral quandaries his passion often entailed.

Blinton’s pursuits, however, were not without their ethical dilemmas. His obsession led him down paths that danced delicately along the edges of envy, greed, and pride. He coveted rare volumes, occasionally exploiting sellers’ ignorance, and basked in the misery of fellow collectors whom fortune had forsaken. Speculating in books, he often crossed the delicate line that separates collecting from sheer avarice, much to the chagrin of his financially neglected household.

The narrative sketches a day in Blinton’s life that begins with transactions tinged with deceit and ends with a supernatural encounter that turns his world upside down. A mysterious stranger, embodying every trope of the mystical and occult, forcefully takes Blinton under his wing, compelling him to purchase volumes he neither needs nor desires–from complete sets of Auerbach’s novels to Allison’s extensive “History of Europe.” This spectral guide leads him through a gauntlet of increasingly nonsensical acquisitions, culminating in a raid on a book auction where Blinton, possessed by an inexplicable frenzy, bids astronomical sums on rare volumes, far beyond his means.

As this day of manic acquisitions spirals into financial ruin, the dark custodian orchestrates a final act of humiliation: an auction of Blinton’s own collection. Treasured volumes, carelessly bundled with trivial or damaged books, fetch but a fraction of their worth, the sum of years of passionate collecting dismantled lot by irreplaceable lot. The horror of witnessing the dismemberment of his library—a ghostly sale where friends and foes alike snatch up his treasures for pennies—is Blinton’s ultimate purgatory, a fitting retribution for a life spent in blind devotion to the acquisition of knowledge without the wisdom to temper his passion.