Dictionary of American Antiquarian Bookdealers

The first published reference source to bring together biographical information on American antiquarian bookdealers, this book provides librarians, dealers, and collectors with useful information on those dealers who were prominent in securing and distributing used and rare books, manuscripts, maps, autographs, documents, and ephemera. The book covers 205 notable dealers who died before August 1, 1997. Prominent dealers are identified as those who carried quality stock, issued carefully documented sales catalogs, participated in professional organizations, and helped develop important private and institutional collections.The book considers such well-known figures as Abraham Simon Wolf Rosenbach, Charles Sessler, and Hans Peter Kraus. Each profile describes the dealer's subject specialities, the style of catalogs and sales lists issued, the dealer's impact on private and institutional collecting, professional activity, and, when relevant, the final disposition of the dealer's stock. Entries conclude with a selected bibliography of sources. The information, drawn from both primary and secondary sources, will be useful to library reference workers, bookdealers, collectors, and anyone interested in the history of the American antiquarian book trade.

"It is a job beautifully compiled and carefully executed. The sketches are not only informative but interesting."-Madeleine Stern Rare Book Dealer, "This outstanding compilation...will, inevitably, become a standard reference book in the history of antiquarian bookselling."-Bernard M. Rosenthal, Bookseller, .,."[a] valuable contribution to a neglected area of scholarly research....Dickinson has demostrated that this is an area of the book trade worthy of scholarly research and has created an essential resource for bibliophiles, collectors, librarians, and researchers who require biographical information about members of the book trade."-Rare Books & Manuscripts and Librarianship, "Dickinson's Dictionary of American Antiquarian Bookdealers, like any dicitonary, is not the kind of book one is likely to read cover to cover, but which is a pleasure to open often and to read at random. Each entry contains in turn useful, informative, always enjoyable data presented in Dickinson's lively, readable style....It is fascinating to mine Dickinson's Dictionary for odd nuggets--interesting, too, to note how one entry leads you to another which in turn leads to another....[A]ny dealer worth his salt...will find Dickinson's Dictionary not only an inspiring read but a worthwhile investment--I've even found it helpful in tracing the history of a particular document. Anyone addicted to the chase after rare books and manuscripts will find it intoxicating."-Manuscripts, ?...[a] valuable contribution to a neglected area of scholarly research....Dickinson has demostrated that this is an area of the book trade worthy of scholarly research and has created an essential resource for bibliophiles, collectors, librarians, and researchers who require biographical information about members of the book trade.?-Rare Books & Manuscripts and Librarianship

DONALD C. DICKINSON is retired Professor Emeritus at the School of Information Resources and Library Science at the University of Arizona, Tucson. His teaching specialities included reference services and bibliography, and he is the author of Dictionary of American Book Collectors (Greenwood, 1986) and Henry E. Huntington's Library of Libraries (1995). He has a longstanding interest in the antiquarian book trade, particularly in the background and achievements of members of that trade.