Roger Burford Mason

A biography of Sowers with many excerpts from the introductory essays of his 79 catalogs. An unsociable, naturalist, almost he could be considered a survivalist, bookdealer who spent not quite.a year at the Huntington Library, but bragged about it his whole life. Lacks the intimacy of a memoir, of course, but we are privy to a good number of interesting anecdotes. One of the striking habits of this seller was his predilection to switch store locations very often, sometimes within a year. He started in Canada, Toronto, and worked his way to many different California addresses, finally ending up in a remote pear farm. His quality of stock was of better than average quality as he gradually changed his focus from literature and general classic histories to technical books, mostly health and medicine. The reader only gets a limited view of his day to day activities. Overall, a worthy effort.… (mehr)