Allison Bartlett - The Man Who Loved Books Too Much - The True Story of a Thief, a Detective, and a World of Literary Obsession

7 As quoted in Janine Burke, The Sphinx on the Table (New York: Walker, 2006), p. 290. Burke cites Max Schur, Freud, Living and Dying (London: Hogarth Press and the Institute of Psychoanalysis, 1972), p. 247.

8 As quoted in Burke, The Sphinx on the Table , p. 7. Burke cites Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson, ed., The Complete Letters of Sigmund Freud to Wilhelm Fliess, 1887-1904 (Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press, 1985), p. 398.

9 Walter Benjamin, “Unpacking My Library,” in Illuminations: Essays and Reflections , trans. Harry Zohn (New York: Schocken, 1969), p. 67.

10 Rick Gekoski, Nabokov’s Butterfly (New York: Carroll and Graf, 2004), p. 12.

11 In 1998, the members of the editorial board of the Modern Library released a list of what they considered the one hundred best novels in English published since 1900.

Chapter 4

1 Ken Sanders. Interviews with the author.

2 Susan Benne. E-mail interview with the author.

3 Patricia Hampl, Blue Arabesque: A Search for the Sublime (New York: Harcourt, 2006), p. 52.

4 Bibliomania: A Documentary Film of the 34th California International Antiquarian Book Fair . Directed and edited by Paul Ryall, 2003. An Antiquarian Booksellers’Association of America Production of a Session Seven film.

5 Eugene Field, The Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1896), pp. 97-98.

Chapter 6

1 Ken Sanders. Interview with the author.

2 According to Sanders, a complete copy was recently sold for more than $1 million.

3 James Thorpe, Henry Edwards Huntington: A Biography (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1994).

4 www.huntington.org (website of The Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens).

5 Barbara Pitschel, Head Librarian, San Francisco Botanical Garden at Strybing Arboretum. E-mail correspondence with the author.

6 For a thorough account of the world’s violence toward books, see Fernando Baez, A Universal History of the Destruction of Books , trans. Alfred MacAdam (New York: Atlas, 2008).

7 Basbanes, A Gentle Madness , pp. 42-43.

Chapter 7

1 This was before the availability of Wi-Fi.

2 John Milton, Areopagitica.

3 Walt Whitman, “So Long,” Leaves of Grass.

4 Quoted in Basbanes, A Gentle Madness , p. 20.

5 Tony Garcia. Interview with the author.

6 Ken Lopez. Interview with the author.

7 Kenneth Munson. Interview with the author.

8 Ken Sanders. Sequence of events reported in interviews with the author.

9 Kenneth Munson. Interview with the author. Munson explained that suspects will often use the physical details of someone they’re close to when describing a nonexistent accomplice. In Gilkey’s case, Munson assumed it was Gilkey’s own father he was describing.

Chapter 8

1 This is a common misconception, stemming probably from the fact that his 1876 The Hunting of the Snark is one of the earliest books by a famous author for which the jacket still exists. Earlier jackets from the 1830s by relatively unknown authors are still around.

2 Ken Sanders. Interview with the author.

3 Arnold Herr. Interview with the author.

4 Kenneth Munson. Interview with the author.

5 Ibid.

6 Confirmed as standard procedure for prisoners residing in the Reception Center by San Quentin State Prison public information officer Lieutenant Samuel Robinson.

Chapter 9

1 John Crichton. Interview with the author.

Chapter 10

1 Andrew Clark. Interview with the author.

2 Alan Beatts. Interview with the author.

3 Bob Gavora. Interview with the author.

4 This lax attitude was not always so. In the time of King Henry IV (late fourteenth, early fifteenth centuries) a man named Johannes Leycestre and his wife, Cedilia, stole “a little book from an old church.” His punishment: “Let him be hanged by the neck until his life departs.” Apparently, the fate of Cedilia, like that of most women of her day, was not worth recording. See Edwin White Gaillard, “The Book Larceny Problem,” The Library Journal , vol. 45 (March 15, 1920), pp. 247-254, 307-312.

5 Sebastiaan Hesselink, interviews with the author, and Travis McDade, The Book Thief (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2006).

6 Nicholas A. Basbanes, A Splendor of Letters (New York: Harper Perennial, 2004), p. 15.

7 Robert Vosper, A Pair of Bibliomanes for Kansas: Ralph Ellis and Thomas Jefferson Fitzpatrick (Bibliographical Society of America publication), vol. 55 (Third Quarter, 1961).

8 James Gilreath and Douglas L. Wilson, eds., Thomas Jefferson’s Library (Washington, DC: United States Government Printing Office, 1989).

9 Wilmarth Sheldon Lewis wrote this for a speech that was never delivered. Quoted in Basbanes, A Gentle Madness , p. 23.

10 P. Alessandra Maccioni Ruju and Marco Mostert, The Life and Times of Guglielmo Libri (Hilvesum, Netherlands: Verloren, 1995).

Chapter 11

1 Lawrence Sidney Thompson, Notes on Bibliokleptomania , Bulletin of The New York Public Library, September 1944; and Basbanes, A Gentle Madness .

Chapter 13

1 American Library Association online newsletter, December 12, 2003.

Chapter 14

1 Marcello Simonetta, ed., Federico da Montefeltro and His Library (Milan: Y. Press and Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 2007).

2 Jonathan J. G. Alexander, “Perfection of Illustration and Ornament,” in Simonetta, Federico da Montefeltro and His Library , p. 17.

3 According to Freud, the collector’s makeup often includes “an enquiring mind; a penchant for secrecy” and “a propensity for rationalization.” As quoted in Burke, The Sphinx on the Table , p. 196. Burke cites Patrick Mauries, Cabinets of Curiosities (London: Thames & Hudson, 2002), p. 182.

4 Baez, A Universal History of the Destruction of Books.

A Note on Sources

It’s probably no surprise that there are many books about rare books and those who collect them. To read them is to learn the rich history of the book, the varied forms it has taken, and why some periods, genres, authors, illustrators, and presses lend collectible charm to a selection of them. Surprisingly few books, on the other hand, detail the deeds of book thieves. The bulk of this information I found in periodicals and by interviewing those who have had firsthand experience with them. Readers interested in learning more are advised to visit rare book libraries and bookstores, where they will be able not only to see, touch, even read, fine old books, but also to hear for themselves stories that have never been put to paper, never bound into a book.

While there are several fine memoirs by and biographies of individual collectors, the following books offer readers an expansive view of the rare book world and those who inhabit it:

Nicholas Basbanes, Among the Gently Mad ; A Gentle Madness ; Patience and Fortitude ; and A Splendor of Letters

Philipp Blom, To Have and To Hold

Rick Gekoski, Nabokov’s Butterfly: And Other Stories of Great Authors and Books

Holbrook Jackson, The Anatomy of Bibliomania

Robert H. Jackson and Carol Zeman Rothkopf, eds., Book Talk: Essays on Books, Booksellers, Collecting, and Special Collections

Werner Muensterberger, Collecting: An Unruly Passion: Psychological Perspectives