The Madman's Guide to Stamp Collecting

A fascinating, one-of-a-kind journey through the obsessive world of collecting (and stamps) by maverick historian and cult writer Robert Irwin.

Why do we collect? Is it to rescue objects from oblivion? Is it a kind of desire—or even a kind of madness?

Robert Irwin—novelist, historian, translator, collector—was a true original; a virtuoso thinker who combined encyclopaedic knowledge with boundless curiosity. In this ‘mosaic of fiction, philosophy, sociology, biography and autobiography’ he takes us on a wayward journey through the art of collecting, and his own intellectual passions.

Drawing on a treasure-trove of literary references from writers including Susan Sontag, Walter Benjamin, Iris Murdoch and Georges Perec, as well as a host of lesser-known geniuses, flaneurs, obsessives and eccentrics, Irwin explores everything from mysticism to nostalgia, psychology to propaganda, classical antiquity to surrealism, dreams to death. We join Thomas De Quincey on a night mail coach, encounter the man who set out to acquire every stamp ever issued, enter the shadowlands of long-vanished kingdoms and the badlands of fakes and forgeries, all in the company of a uniquely brilliant mind.

This is a one-of-a-kind book of wonders; of labyrinthine digressions, good humour and a ‘delight in small things’. It is a satisfying and unforgettable meditation on the stuff of life.