helluo librorum

plural helluones librorum

1. archaicliteraryAn insatiable and obsessive bookworm (“avid book reader”).

   Among the helluones librorum, the Cormorants of Books, there are wretched Reaſoners, that have canine Appetites, and no Digeſtion.

   1729, [Bernard Mandeville], “The Fourth Dialogue between Horatio and Cleomenes”, in The Fable of the Bees. Part II. […], London: […] J. Roberts […], →OCLC, page 187

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   [A] Writers Stomach, Appetite, and Victuals, may be judg'd from his Method, Stile, and Subject, as certainly as if you were his Meſs-fellow, and ſat at Table with him. Hence we call a Subject dry, a Writer inſipid, Notions crude, and indigeſted, a Pamphlet empty or hungry, a Stile jejune, and many ſuch like Expreſſions, plainly alluding to the Diet of an Author, and I make no manner of doubt but Tully [i.e., Cicero] grounded that ſaying of Helluo Librorum upon the ſame Obſervation.

   [1720, [attributed to Jonathan Swift], The Right of Precedence between Phisicians and Civilians Enquir’d into, Dublin: […] [J. Gowan] for John Hyde […], and Robert Owen […], →OCLC, page 16

   Study was his [Gabriel Naudé's] principal occupation, and he was indeed a true "Helluo librorum;" ſo that he underſtood them perfectly well.

   1784, “NAUDE (Gabriel)”, in A New and General Biographical Dictionary; Containing an Historical and Critical Account of the Lives and Writings of the Most Eminent Persons in Every Nation; […], new edition, volume IX, London: […] W[illiam] Strahan, […], →OCLC, page 441

   The Helluo Librorum, or Glutton of Books, was a character well known at the university, and mentioned by the ancients; but I believe their idea is far exceeded by many a fair subscriber at the circulating library. I have known a lady read twenty volumes in a week during two or three months successively.

   1788, Vicesimus Knox, “Evening XXIV. On Reading Trifling Uninstructive Books, Called Summer Reading.”, in Winter Evenings; or Lucubrations on Life and Letters. […], volume I, New York, N.Y.: Evert Duyckinck, […], published 1805, →OCLC, page 119

   [L]et us perform a good knife and fork as helluones librorum at those two magnificent repositories of legible or illegible rarities. Here we may feast on Editiones Principes, Uniques on vellum, books without date or place, literary frauds, colophons, catchwords, and dainties, as the ballad has it, 'past expression.'

   1810 June, “Art. II—Anecdotes of Literature, and Scarce Books, by the Rev. William Beloe, &c. London, 1810, p. 10s. 6d. Vol. IV. [book review]”, in The Critical Review: Or, Annals of Literature (Series the Third), volume XX, number II, London: […] J. Mawman, […]; and sold by J. Deighton, […]; J. Parker, and J. Cooke, […], →OCLC, page 127

   And, even physically considered, knowledge breeds knowledge, as gold gold; for he who reads really much, finds his capacity to read increase in geometrical ratio. The helluo librorum will but glance at the page which detains the ordinary reader some minutes; and the difference in the absolute reading (its uses considered), will be in favor of the helluo, who will have winnowed the matter of which the tyro mumbled both the seeds and the chaff.

   1844 November, Edgar Allan Poe, “Marginalia. I. [Text: Democratic Review, November, 1844.]”, in James A. Harrison, editor, The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe, Virginia edition, volumes XVI (Marginalia–Eureka), New York, N.Y.: Thomas Y[oung] Crowell & Company, published 1902, →OCLC, page 13