Thieves of Book Row

In the late 1920s and early 1930s a ring of thieves, taking orders from a group of second-hand book dealers in lower Manhattan, stole from every public library within a five-state radius. That meant hundreds of institutions and hundreds of thousands of books. The thieves were so unafraid of arrest-or even the slightest resistance to their looting-that they carried out these thefts with little attempt to hide them. Very few people seemed to care at all. In this book, Travis McDade tells the story of the 1931 theft (and later recovery) of Edgar Allan Poe's Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane and Minor Poems from the New York Public Library. The book brings readers into a vivid world in which Manhattan booksellers assumed such a theft would be an insignificant event. In fact, the ultimate downfall of this large criminal enterprise was the thieves' underestimation of the libraries. Since most institutions offered no resistance to the wholesale thefts, it was assumed that all libraries were comfortable being victims. But the New York Public Library proved otherwise. The NYPL had a long history of theft detection and prevention, a history precipitated by an early rash of thefts. So by January 1931, when a young book thief ran out of the front door of the NYPL onto Fifth Avenue, having just stolen three books-Moby Dick, The Scarlet Letter, and the extremely rare Al Aaraaf-from the fantastic rare book collection, the library was well equipped to react. From theft to conviction, McDade follows the story of NYPL special investigator William Bergquist, Book Row theft ring organizer Harry Gold, and Gold's on-the-ground thief Harold Borden Clarke, while providing rich context regarding the rare book world in early twentieth-century America.

ISBN 0199922667   Pages 256 ISBN13 9780199922666 (What's this?)   Weight (grammes) 363 Publisher Oxford University Press Inc   Published in New York Imprint Oxford University Press Inc   Height (mm) 210 Format Hardback   Width (mm) 140 Publication date 27 Jun 2013   Spine width (mm) 23 DEWEY 364.1628002097471   Academic level General DEWEY edition DC23

PROLOGUE ; CHAPTER 1: THE ANTICS OF THE LEADING INDUSTRIALS ; CHAPTER 2: THE ACCUMULATED WISDOM ; CHAPTER 3: A PURLOINED POE ; CHAPTER 4: SCHOLARSHIP AND INVESTIGATION ; CHAPTER 5: THE BOSTON SCENE ; CHAPTER 6: SOMEONE QUALIFIED AS A BOOKMAN ; CHAPTER 7: THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK AND THEIR DIGNITY ; CHAPTER 8: THAT'S THE END OF THE RARE BOOK ; EPILOGUE ; INDEX

"With wit, erudition, and a nice sense of timing, McDade recreates the seamy side of the antiquarian book business in Depression-era New York and Boston. This immensely engaging story will appeal to cultural historians, literary scholars, bibliophiles, and true-crime lovers alike."--Joan Shelley Rubin, Professor of History, University of Rochester and author of Songs of Ourselves: The Uses of Poetry in America

"Thieves of Book Row chronicles a fascinating chapter in the history of the book trade, libraries, and organized crime. In a highly engaging narrative, McDade provides a wonderful portrait of books stolen and recovered and of many colorful characters ranging from rare book legends to petty thieves."--Thomas Hyry, Director of Special Collections, UCLA Library

"Definitive history... a fantastically colorful cast of characters and rich period detail will hook book lovers and historians of N.Y.C"--Publishers Weekly

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