Founded in 1893, Philobiblon is Philadelphia’s club for Bibliophiles—Collectors, Librarians, Booksellers, Binders, Printers, Illustrators, and anyone else who loves books.

The Philobiblon Club is exactly what its name implies: an association of book-lovers. It is not a literary club of writers, publishers, and illustrators of books and articles; nor is it a club of those who are interested primarily in the ideas and experiences that go into books; nor is it an association of bibliographers for whom the book is a tool for study and research. It is a club for those who love books—old, new, big, little, proud, quaint, rich, poor. For its true members (and admittedly there is much overlapping in all these interests) the book as book has a special mystique that can be extended only by courtesy to the vellum manuscript, the letter collection, the magazine or newspaper, the television or film.

From Robert Spiller, The Philobiblon Club of Philadelphia: The First Eighty Years, 1893-1973.