Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611

  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
The Madman's Guide to Stamp Collecting

The Madman's Guide to Stamp Collecting

Irwin, Robert

Paperback

Biographies GeneralLiterary FiguresStamps

Publisher Price: $17.95

ISBN10: 1805337769
ISBN13: 9781805337768
Publisher: Pushkin Press
Published: Jun 2 2026
Pages: 240
Weight: 0.47
Height: 0.74 Width: 5.16 Depth: 7.79
Language: English
A fascinating, one-of-a-kind journey through the obsessive world of collecting (and stamps) by maverick historian and cult writer Robert Irwin.

[A] delightful mishmash of quotations, digressions, obscure facts, arcane anecdotes and playful romps. -- Literary Review

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.

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