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Description
Louisa May Alcott once wrote that she had taken her pen for a bridegroom. Leona Rostenberg and Madeleine Stern, friends and business partners for fifty years, have in many ways taken up their pens and passion for literature much in the same way. The "Holmes & Watson" of the rare book business, Rostenberg and Stern are renowned for unlocking the hidden secret of Louisa May Alcott's life when they discovered her pseudonym, A.M. Barnard, along with her anonymously published "blood and thunder" stories on subjects like transvestitism, hashish smoking, and feminism. Old Books, Rare Friends describes their mutual passion for books and literary sleuthing as they take us on their earliest European book buying jaunts. Using what they call Finger-spitzengefühl, the art of evaluating antiquarian books by handling, experience, and instinct, we are treated to some of their greatest discoveries amid the mildewed basements of London's booksellers after the Blitz. We experience the thrill of finding one of the earliest known books printed in America between 1617-1619 by the Pilgrim Press and learn about the influential role of publisher-printers from the fifteenth century. Like a precious gem, Old Books, Rare Friends is a book to treasure about the companionship of two rare friends and their shared passion for old books.… (more)
User reviews
The world as it was when Rostenberg and Stern were hitting eureka after eureka in the postwar attics of Europe are long gone, but as long as there are people like Leona Rostenberg and Madeline Stern in the world, the love of books and discovery will never die.
In addition to being internationally respected collectors and sellers of antiquarian books, the authors were both prolific writers. Rostenberg and Stern each had their own areas of specialization, but they also often collaborated on books about their trade in general, and their own experiences in it in particular. Leona Rostenberg researched and wrote throughout her life on the history of publishing and printing. Madeleine Stern became widely known as an authority on the literary "double life" of Louisa May Alcott, editing several collections of Alcott's so-called "blood and thunder" pot-boiler stories, which she tracked down in their original publications in an endeavor quite worthy of Sherlock Holmes.
February 2009
separate and joint careers as both researchers and writers. A life-long friendship of two wonderful ladies.