bibliotaph

plural bibliotaphs · alternative bibliotaphist

1. rareOne who "buries" books, typically by hoarding them unread, hiding them, locking them away, or otherwise shutting them up and keeping them from use

   The late Sir Thomas Phillipps, of Middle Hill, was a remarkable instance of a bibliotaph. He bought bibliographical treasures simply to bury them.

   1888, William Blades, Enemies of Books

   3 more examples

   He was, by his knowledge of the intellectual value of his store, a little bit of a bibliotaph: we have reason to think he had this feeling to an extent he knew nothing of himself.

   1866 August 31, The Bookseller

   The bibliotaph buries books; not literally, but sometimes with as much effect as if he had put his books underground. There are several varieties of him. The dog-in-the-manger bibliotaph is the worst; he uses his books but little himself, and allows others to use them not at all. On the other hand, a man may be a bibliotaph simply from inability to get at his books. He may be homeless, a bachelor, a denizen of boarding-houses, a wanderer upon the face of the earth.

   1898, Leon H. Vincent, The Bibliotaph And Other People

   the vast collection of State-papers [...] were found only when they accidentally fell out of a false ceiling of his chambers in Lincoln's Inn; but doubtless he was a purposeful bibliotaph, otherwise those documents might not have survived those revolutionary times.

   1950, Holbrook Jackson, The Anatomy of Bibliomania, page 534