AN EXCERPT FROM AN ADDRESS BY WILLIAM LYON PHELPS

We are pleased to present the peroration of William Lyon Phelps’s landmark address, The Pleasure of Books. There has rarely been a more immediate or succinct rundown on the importance of books. Book-friends (as opposed to human-friends, says Phelps) provide a second reality of sorts – one in which we are less tethered by age or circumstance or wealth or ability. The pleasure of books is, in fact, so obvious, that Phelps seems to say (as Emerson put it) “with masterly good sense precisely what we have thought and felt all the time, and we [are] forced to take with shame our own opinion from another.”

This rousing summation of why we love books not only speaks a deep truth but is a statement of purpose. It reminds us what our books are for.

The address is printed alongside two-toned deco ornamentation.