[image1-right:resize-180w]Rare book collectors aren’t the only ones with their eyes on valuable first editions, a fact made clear by GSLIS adjunct professor Travis McDade in his latest book, Thieves of Book Row: New York's Most Notorious Rare Book Ring and the Man Who Stopped It (Oxford University Press, 2013). Tracing the activity of the most infamous book-theft ring in American history, McDade examines the intersection of organized crime and literary culture in early twentieth-century New York.
Thieves of Book Row focuses on the black market in books during the late 1920s and early 1930s. Highlighted in The Chronicle of Higher Education, it tells the story of three booksellers—Charles Romm, Ben Harris, and Harry Gold—who recruited a network of scouts and thieves to “[pilfer] valuable works from libraries and private collections to sell to often-complicit dealers on Book Row.” It also tells the story of G. William Bergquist, the man responsible for the capture of Romm and Harris after the 1931 theft of New York Public Library’s Reserve Book Room, which held first editions of The Scarlet Letter, Moby-Dick, and Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane, and Minor Poems, a rare, early collection by Edgar Allan Poe.
The New York Times describes McDade's book as “an engaging cat-and-mouse account of porous libraries, scouts armed with ‘gall, confidence and oversized coats,’ complicit salesmen and of G. William Bergquist, the dogged New York Public Library investigator who cracked the gang’s most audacious caper.” Kirkus calls the book “a treat for true crime fans and bibliophiles alike.”
“As a GSLIS student, I discovered a love of rare and antiquarian books in Professor Krummel’s wonderful Bibliography class. So it was a real treat not only to have him read an early draft of the book but to inform me that he had met Bergquist many years ago. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised,” said McDade.
McDade is curator of rare books at the University of Illinois College of Law. This is his second book on rare books and crime; in 2006, he published The Book Thief: The True Crimes of Daniel Spiegelman. At the law school he teaches Legal Research, and at GSLIS he teaches Rare Books, Crime & Punishment.
“Both of my books have as their heroes librarians—a fact I’ve come to discover is perfectly normal in this field. In my research, and in teaching Rare Books, Crime & Punishment, I continually find librarians called upon, unexpectedly, to combat book thieves or clean up the mess left by one. It is heartening to see them, again and again, rise to the occasion—and I love telling the stories.”
“It was a fun book to write, and it was helped not only by the research I do to prepare for class, but the feedback I get from students. That’s the great thing about the class: getting new perspectives on subjects I’m almost too familiar with.”