The Madman's Guide to Stamp Collecting

by Robert Irwin

A fascinating, one-of-a-kind journey through the world of stamps and collecting by maverick historian and 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? In this mosaic of fiction, philosophy, sociology, biography and autobiography, virtuoso thinker Robert Irwin takes us on a wayward journey through the art of collecting, and his own intellectual passions.
Drawing on the works of 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, 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 and enter the badlands of fakes and forgeries, all in the company of a uniquely brilliant mind.
This is a book of wonders; of labyrinthine digressions, good humour and a delight in small things. It is a meditation on the stuff of life.

Genres: Nonfiction, Historical, History

240 pages, Kindle Edition

Published April 10, 2025

About the author

Robert Graham Irwin was a British historian, novelist, and writer on Arabic literature.

Reviews

[Alex Sarll]

I have minimal interest in philately, but more in the late novelist, orientalist and all-round entertaining oddball Robert Irwin, whose final book this is. Which does sometimes show, not least in the repetition, as when Arthur Machen is twice within a couple of pages introduced, a little reductively at that, as a horror writer – the sort of thing I suspect might have been caught had the author lived longer, either to revise it himself or leave his editor less overwhelmed by sacred memory. Or, of course, it may yet be caught between my Edelweiss ARC and the final copy. This is, to be clear, a minor quibble: it's always a good sign to see Machen crop up, and even better when it's to learn that he was pre-eminent among the nobility of the notorious pseudo-nation Redonda (other literary greats including Dorothy Sayers were dukes and duchesses, but Machen the only archduke). Redonda, incidentally, or at least this version of it, may have emulated other behaviours of countries, but perhaps surprisingly, never issued stamps, so you could ask why it's under discussion in the first place. But if I query the occasional repetition, I welcome the digressions, which make up the soul of the book, not least when Irwin, in a late piece of showing-off to rival Calvin's autumn leaf, quite naturally leads the reader into a digression on the subject of digressions. When he is sticking to his topic, it's frequently by combing through world literature from Samuel Beckett to Iris Murdoch to Terry Pratchett* for books with philatelic plots or subplots. Acknowledging all the time, because he was eccentric but not insane, what an absurd approach that is – but lurking, unspoken, is the question: is this really any more deft than any other critic or theorist who approaches the vast edifice of human culture through the exclusive lens of their own hobby-horse? Some of whom are invoked along the way (Freud, obviously; the Arcades Project, inevitably), and if Irwin is legitimately sceptical of universal pronouncements and explanations, he remains keenly aware that collecting does embody some tragicomic human urges, that there's a poignant irony in seeing the world through tiny glimpses of its far corners, shutting oneself up to organise them in a miniature of exactly the sort of control the bigger world never obliges. At the same time, he kicks back against the lazy stereotyping of the hobby by Orwell and generations of subsequent hacks; even the assumption that only men are susceptible is refuted, and if Ayn Rand is nobody's idea of the perfect rebuttal, he also lists Amelia Earhart, Benazir Bhutto and Maria Sharapova. And if, as the title makes so clear, nobody sane would take this book as their primer for getting into the field, one.does learn a few concrete bits and pieces along the way, such as philately's separate and distinct definitions of 'counterfeit', 'fake' and 'forgery' – which mean there's such a thing as a fake forgery. But after all this, I think the man himself summarises the project best, so here he is to take us out:
"I found myself trapped in what felt like a conceptual prison which was equipped with an unusually small and heterogeneous library. Over the years stamps have been put to such different uses that one might just as well have written a book about the similarities and differences between a giraffe and a light bulb. But I chose to follow the dream."

*I was a little concerned at the relevant character's name being given as 'Moist Lipwig', but it's long enough since I read them that I wondered, did he give himself a spurious 'von'? Because it's exactly the sort of thing he would have done.

[Michael Reilly]

Irwin (1946-2014) was an English man of letters. He converted to Islam in his twenties and wrote fiction and nonfiction mostly on Arabic themes. I read his 1994 "The Arabian Nights: A Companion". It was the first time I had a sense of that fascinating work.

This book was released posthumously, and it has nothing in common with his previous work.

This is a book about stamp collecting as an example of collecting behavior. He starts by explaining that "my book about stamp collecting will have little or no practical use or interest to stamp collectors."

He says in the introduction that the book started as a joke. Someone asked him what his next book was going to be about, and he said, " stamp collecting", because it was the most unlikely answer he could think of. When he repeated the joke to his agent, the agent said it wasn't a bad idea.

He began to keep a notebook on stamp collecting and started seeking out mentions of stamp collecting in novels and nonfiction. This is his ramble through various approaches, thoughts and theories about stamp collecting.

He starts with a discussion of the psychiatric theories about collectors. Freud thought it arose from early problems with toilet training. He then surveys how collecting in general and stamp collecting in particular has been treated in literature.

He covers ground. He reviews discussions and mentions of stamp collecting by the heavy hitting intellectuals including, among others, Bruce Chatwin, Walter Benajmin, Susan Sontag, Ciaron Carson, Ayn Rand, Robert Calasso, Umberto Eco and Iris Murdoch. He looks at novels involving chess by, among others, Philip Roth, Graham Greene, John Fowles, John Updike, Samuel Beckett and Georges Simenon.

This is much more lighthearted than it sounds. Irwin is having fun here. He wisecracks at the expense of some of these grandees. He also gives us some postage stamp history. I did not know that Lawrence of Arabia designed the postage stamps for Hejaz, a short-lived Arabic Country. There is an interesting section of thefts of rare stamps. They are more valuable by weight and space than diamonds.

This was a labor of love. Irwin is an elegant writer. He makes no claim of a grand theory or a serious moral. He is just an intelligent guy sharing some interesting stuff about what might seem to be a boring topic.

I have on major complaint. the book has no index. That is inexcusable in this type of book. This is the kind of book that you might look back on to remember what Irwin said about Agatha Christie's stamp collecting story or the modern Iranian stamps featuring acts of terrorism. Irwin was a serious scholar. I can't help but think that if he had lived to supervise the release of this book, we would have an index.

[Jonathan Jasinski]

Got better as it went along, but this is really more of a reflection on stamps and collecting in literature, and occasionally in pop culture. It’s a weird book, it’s largely rather dull and esoteric, but it stumbles through some interesting history at points.

Wouldn’t really recommend, and it hasn’t disabused me of the notion that stamps were like pokemon cards for the stuffy sort of man of previous generations.

I really expected some fun details on hunts for rare stamps or somethin, and that isn’t featured at all- it’s just a reflection on literature where the plot involves postage, and then some real world figures who collected.

[Daniel Salinas Córdova]

Weird and interesting book, lots of reflections and quotes about collecting, stamps and other things. It flows in a rambling way, with many digressions (there's one even about digressing itself). I can imagine only other mad collectors liking it, because if you're not into that stuff, it's probably quite dull for you.