Rosenbach: Book Buccaneer

Napoleon of the Auction Room!

Abraham Simon Wolf Rosenbach (July 22, 1876 – July 1, 1952)

$75,000,000 Lifetime Total

Abraham Simon Wolf Rosenbach of Philadelphia (1876-1952) bought and sold numerous items—mostly books— throughout his life, including:

• eight Gutenberg Bibles,

• more than 30 Shakespeare's First Folios,

• a copy of the Bay Psalm Book

• manuscripts of Ulysses and Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

• Napoleon’s penis (really)-¹

Rosenbach helped to make the trade in rare books what it is today, flamboyantly bidding on treasures around the world, sometimes driving up the price to prove the value of books as investments for his clients, helping to build the collections of libraries at Harvard’s Widener, J. P. Morgan, Folger, Huntington, Houghton, and Rosenwald. He used the allure of Gutenberg Bibles and Shakespeare folios to build his own reputation. he bought and sold some of the most famous literary manuscripts, including part of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures under Ground, and James Joyce's handwritten Ulysses.²

During the course of his career, Rosenbach purchased more than 70 libraries privately, and a host of individual books and manuscripts.³ He also amassed a collection of children’s books.⁴ He was also a bibliographer of early American Jewish culture.⁵

The lifetime total of his purchases is estimated to be worth more than $75,000,000.⁶

All of the sale catalogs from 1904-1952 were gathered into a multi-volume set.⁷

A.S.W. Rosenbach Lectures in Bibliography

Rosenbach established an endowed lectureship in bibliography in 1928 at the University of Pennsylvania.⁸ The Rosenbach Lectures are the longest continuing series of bibliographical lectureships in the United States. Individuals appointed as Rosenbach Fellows present three lectures over several weeks. Lecturers have included scholars on textual bibliography, paper history, and reading such as Alberto Manguel,⁹ Dard Hunter,¹⁰ and Fredson Bowers.¹¹

The Rosenbach Museum and Library

The Rosenbach Museum and Library (“the Rosenbach” was founded in 1954 by A.S.W. Rosenbach and his brother Philip Rosenbach.

The brothers’ own personal collection, the core of the Rosenbach, features treasures the brothers were unable to part with, including the only surviving copy of Benjamin Franklin’s first Poor Richard Almanac and the manuscript of James Joyce’s Ulysses.

The Rosenbach brothers’ 1865 townhouse at 2010 Delancey Place is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and features an official marker placed by the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission in recognition of the enduring legacy of the Rosenbach brothers.

In December, 2013 the Rosenbach became affiliated with the Free Library of Philadelphia Foundation, bringing together two of the world’s preeminent collections of rare books, manuscripts, Americana and art.

Brief Video about the Library

1. Napoleon’s Penis – The Rosenbach; Perrottet, Tony. 2008. Napoleon’s Privates : 2,500 Years of History Unzipped. 1st ed. New York: MJF.

2. Bodmer, GR. “A.S.W. Rosenbach: Dealer and Collector.” The Lion and the Unicorn (Brooklyn) 22, no. 3 (1998): 277–88.

3. Morris, Leslie A. Rosenbach Abroad: In Pursuit of Books in Private Collections. Philadelphia: Rosenbach Museum and Library, 1988.

4. A.S.W. Rosenbach. Early American Children's Books, with Bibliographical Descriptions of the Books in His Private Collection. Foreword by A. Edward Newton. New York: Kraus, 1966 [1933].

5. American Jewish Historical Society, and A. S. W. Rosenbach. 1926. An American Jewish Bibliography. Being a List of Books and Pamphlets by Jews or Relating to Them, Printed in the United States from the Establishment of the Press in the Colonies until 1850; Kaganoff, Nathan (June 1982). "The American Jewish Historical Society at Ninety: Reflections on the History of the Oldest Ethnic Historical Society in America". American Jewish History. 71 (3): 466–85.

6. Wolf, Edwin II; Fleming, John F. (1960). Rosenbach: a biography. World Publishing Company; Wendt, Bernhard. The Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America 56, no. 4 (1962): 510–12.

7. All of the Rosenbach catalogs were published, and I was able to get a set at a used book dealer! Rosenbach, A. S. W. (Abraham Simon Wolf), and Don Ward. The Collected Catalogues of Dr. A.S.W. Rosenbach, 1904-1951. New York: Arno Press, 1968. Now I need a new bookshelf.

8. The A.S.W. Rosenbach Lectures in Bibliography.

9. A.S.W. Rosenbach Lectures in Bibliography for 2011: Monday, March 21, 2011: "The Traveller, the Tower and the Worm" University of Pennsylvania Scholars Commons.

10. Hunter, Dard, and A.S.W. Rosenbach Fellowship in Bibliography Fund. 1952. Papermaking in Pioneer America. Philadelphia: Univ. of Pa. Press.

11. 1954 Lecturer. Bowers, Fredson. 1955. On Editing Shakespeare and the Elizabethan Dramatists. [Philadelphia]: Published for the Philip H. and A.S.W. Rosenbach Foundation by the University of Pennsylvania Library.