Redefining a Little Library

Joshua Bright for The New York Times Neale Albert in his study on the Upper East Side curling up with one of his favorite miniature books, “La Patria,” bound in 1937.

He browsed the books like a giant looking for something to read. Some were small enough to fit into a fold of his hand. Many of the books were illegibly small, and he didn’t know what they were all about. But reading them was never the point.

Neale Albert, 75, is a collector of miniature books, and he may be the most serious collector living in New York. By definition, miniature books are properly printed and bound, and for the most part no larger than three inches. Mr. Albert has over 4,000 of them, some the size of matchboxes and others smaller than a tab of chewing gum. Some of the books are worth many thousands of dollars.

The Miniature Book Society, established in 1983, is a club of about 400 like-minded members. Mr. Albert, a retired lawyer, has served two terms as its president. “You either are or you aren’t,” he said of his ilk.

“What is it with you and little things?” friends have asked him over the years. He doesn’t have a great explanation. I’ve known Mr. Albert since childhood; he did legal work for my father and they became friends, and my parents still occasionally seek his counsel. And I, too, had often wondered about his fascination with tiny objects.

Part of Mr. Albert’s book collection is stored in a “cottage” on top of the Upper East Side apartment building where he lives with his wife. A small bookcase built specifically for his miniatures, each shelf only a few inches high, is packed with rows of the stout creations, elegantly bound and held inside precious slipcases. There are more in his apartment and in 20-some boxes in storage.

In the field, Mr. Albert is known for commissioning what he calls “miniature designer bindings” - the binding, in this context, referring mainly to the covers â€" that he believes elevate the objects to art. “A designer binding is a book binding usually made on commission,” he said, “and done by a binder who is not just a craftsman, but an artist.”

Joshua Bright for The New York Times Mr. Albert making an adjustment to the library in his dollhouse version of Cliveden House, a British mansion, stocked with miniature books from his collection.

A leather-bound cover for a binding of “Brush Up Your Shakespeare” (part of a collection of bindings he had commissioned for a miniature book version of the Cole Porter song) was interpreted as a pinstripe suit that might be worn at a hot jazz club. A metallic cover for a book of Shakespeare plays bears a carving of a medieval scene. Mr. Albert commissions binders mostly in England and around Europe, and years can pass before the high-precision works are sent back to him.

Joshua Bright for The New York Times A miniature version of Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night,” atop a full-size version.

Mr. Albert was born in 1937, grew up in Cambria Heights, Queens, and started collecting early. “I used to get miniature African violets,” he recalls. “Dozens of them. Fast forward a couple years and they’re all over the house. I’m in a club.”

He studied law at Yale and went on to become a prominent mergers-and-acquisitions lawyer at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison. But he was always collecting little things. In the cottage’s glass display: a fully operational golf-pencil-size fly fishing rod, complete with string, reel and case; and a walnut-size tool chest filled with functional tools. Mr. Albert’s previous obsessions included English brass tobacco boxes and walking sticks.

His book collection began in the early 1990s as an offshoot of his interest in meticulously detailed dollhouses. He had commissioned a model of Cliveden House in England, where he and his wife had spent a weekend. It required a library.

“What do you need for a library?” he said. “Books.”

So he started buying dollhouse-size books from collectors (partly with the assistance of a publication called International Dolls’ House News). It took years to fill the dollhouse library, but by the time he’d finished, he was addicted.

Recently, Mr. Albert was showing me around the books in his rooftop cottage, when he made me an intriguing offer. “Let’s go downstairs,” he said. “I’ll show you the smallest book in the world.”

In his apartment, Mr. Albert showed me more books, including some with his favorite bindings: an atlas of the British Empire contained a goatskin-bound globe the size of a softball, and a book purporting to contain Voltaire writings held a key embedded in its cover to open the little book of erotica hidden inside. One miniature book was so small that its creator is said to have gone blind after setting its type.

On a bookshelf in the living room, Mr. Albert lifted a secret panel to retrieve what he said was the smallest book in the world. (The book, an edition of a Chekhov short story, is recognized by Guinness World Records as the smallest ever printed, though the claim may be challenged by a book recently created in Japan.)

Inside an ornate wooden box, under a clear protective cover, something minuscule glinted gold. Mr. Albert handed me a magnifying glass. The glint was a book with two covers and about 30 pages between them. It was less than a millimeter across, perhaps the size of a large grain of sand.

“It’s called ‘The Chameleon,’” he said.

“What’s it about?” I asked in awe.

Mr. Albert shrugged, surprised I’d asked. “I don’t know.”

Joshua Bright for The New York Times The small gold object inside the white circle is “The Chameleon,” a book less than a millimeter across.