book-ghoul
English
Noun
book-ghoul (plural book-ghouls)
- (rare) Person who vandalizes books by ripping their pages out and stealing them.
- (Can we date this quote?), Andrew Lang, The Library, page 56:
- There is a thievish nature more hateful than the biblioklept. The Book-Ghoul is he who combines the larceny of the biblioklept with the abominable wickedness of breaking up and mutilating the volumes from which he steals.
- 1959 January 25, Elizabeth Lawrence, Bill Neal, editor, Through the Garden Gate, →ISBN, page 5:
- I bought the text of the volume on bulbs for a dollar. It had been priced at a hundred dollars before some book-ghoul tore out the fifty-eight plates to use as decorations for lamp shades and scrap baskets.
- 1973 August, Julia Fields, “The Plot To Bring Back Dunking”, in Black World, volume 22, number 10, page 70:
- And the front doors were locked. Locked for what? Burglary? Ol' book-ghoul come to retrieve his pictures from E-boney?
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