We have had good reason to revel in the joys of scholarship, the gratifications of sleuthing. We still have. One of us still sits comfortably at the typewriter while the other makes suggestions or offers plans and ideas. When the younger generation tells us we are legendary figures, we sometimes think they really mean has-beens. It is true that they study our catalogues, buy our rare books, consult us from time to time, read and collect our co-authored publications. They search our eyes for a legacy.
Our lives are our legacy, and it is a legacy dominated by the first person plural. The delights we have discovered in detection were possible only because we have detected and discovered together. We have been companions in the search; we have rejoiced in unison. We share our achievements as we share our hopes. We still end each other’s sentences. Together we look to the future—to our next find, to our next book, to our next adventure.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Those who helped construct and shape our lives are no longer here to enjoy our acknowledgments of gratitude. But to those who helped us reconstruct our lives we give our heartfelt thanks:
To Betsy Lerner, our editor, who suggested that this book be written and then expertly guided it to its completion;
To Frances Apt, our extraordinary copy editor;
To Helen Keppler Miller, our dear friend since childhood. She saved our early letters to her; recently she enthusiastically read Old Books, Rare Friends in manuscript—and so she had a double role in the creation of this book;
To Jane Lowenthal, Barnard College Archivist, who provided copies of articles from Barnard periodicals of the 1930s;
To E. Dennis Rowley, of Brigham Young University, for photocopies of materials in the Louisa May Alcott Collection;
To Dorothy Warms, classmate at Hunter College High School, for her recollections and a copy of the 1928 Argus;
To Liane Wood-Thomas, Executive Director of the Antiquarian Booksellers Association of America, for some photographs of LR and MBS.
ABOUT
THE AUTHORS
Eighty-seven and eighty-four years old, respectively, Leona Rostenberg and Madeleine Stern have been rare book dealers for over half a century. Madeleine has written fourteen books, including biographies of Margaret Fuller and Louisa May Alcott, and Leona, a former president of the Antiquarian Booksellers Association of America, has published five books on seventeenth-century printing and publishing in England. In addition, they have co-authored six books about books, including Old Books, Rare Friends. They reside in New York City with their dachshund Bettina and summer in the Hamptons.
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