Rare Book Monthly

Articles - March - 2019 Issue

Booksellers with a Heart

Seth Marko and Jennifer Powell in their book shop

Seth Marko and Jennifer Powell in their book shop

A bookstore owner was in the hospital. So his competitors came and kept his shop open.

 

Here’s evidence that book dealers have a heart and big ones at that.

 

In the Washington Post online recently there was an uplifting story about how a couple who own a book shop were carried through a personal disaster on the shoulders of other nearby booksellers who stepped in to keep them going while they confronted life and death issues. It’s a great story and an inspiring read and it’s their story so I’m not going to write it.  Rather, I’m going to say thank you and send you directly to them for the  read.

 

 

Here’s the link  Read the full story

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2019/02/25/bookstore-owner-was-hospital-so-his-competitors-came-kept-his-shop-open/?utm_term=.1d1e9ce9a2b9

 

Rare Book Monthly

  • Heritage Auctions
    Rare Books Signature Auction
    December 15, 2025
    Heritage, Dec. 15: John Donne. Poems, By J. D. With Elegies on the Author's Death. London: M[iles]. F[lesher]. for John Marriot, 1633.
    Heritage, Dec. 15: Edgar Rice Burroughs. Tarzan of the Apes.
    Heritage, Dec. 15: F. Scott Fitzgerald. Tender is the Night. A Romance.
    Heritage, Dec. 15: Bram Stoker. Dracula. Westminster: Archibald Constable & Co., 1897.
    Heritage, Dec. 15: Jerry Thomas. How to Mix Drinks, or the Bon-Vivant's Companion, Containing Clear and Reliable Directions for Mixing All the Beverages Used in the United States…
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  • Bonhams, Dec. 8-18: Autograph Letter Signed ("Martinus Luther") to His Friend the Theologian Gerhard Wiskamp ("Gerardo Xantho Lampadario"). $100,000 - $150,000.
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    Sotheby’s, Dec. 17: Billon. Le fort inexpugnable de l'honneur, Paris, 1555, Parisian calf gilt for Peter Ernst, Graf von Mansfeld. €120,000 to €180,000.
    Sotheby’s
    Book Week
    December 9-17, 2025
    Sotheby’s, Dec. 16: Salinger, J.D. The Graham Family archive, including autographed letters, an inscribed Catcher, a rare studio photograph of the author, and more. $120,000 to $180,000.
    Sotheby’s, Dec. 16: [Austen, Jane]. A handsome first edition of Sense and Sensibility, the author's first novel. $60,000 to $80,000.
    Sotheby’s, Dec. 16: Massachusetts General Court. A powerful precursor to the Declaration of Independence: "every Act of Government … without the Consent of the People, is … Tyranny." $40,000 to $60,000.

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