For the love of the printed word, and the fascinating lives of two Jewish ladies in the service of books.

A few weeks ago, I visited a colleague’s home in Atlanta for a get-together. It was a beautiful home, spacious, luxuriously furnished, and artfully decorated. But what really captivated me was the presence of books everywhere. There were books in the drawing-room, living room and the dining room as well, neatly stacked. The books were on a variety of themes and interests, reflecting the eclectic personalities of the homeowners themselves. They were clearly not coffee-table books to present a facade of intellectually; they were books carefully chosen with an intention to read. How can someone know that? Of course, you can discover that by the way the books are arranged. Just as a trained naturalist can find out if a bouquet of flowers is artificial or not by the spotless colors and unnatural symmetry of its arrangement, a sensitive book lover can instantly make out if the arranged books on a shelf are merely ornamental or actually meant to the read. I know for sure, my colleague is a voracious reader, and what he reads he digests and makes it his own. Therefore such a collection at his home was never a surprise, but what swept me off my feet is the prime importance the family had given to their books and their aesthetic arrangement.

The age of reading physical books is slowly dying, at least that’s what we are told. But I suppose it may be closer to the truth if we state there is a decline in focussed and sustained reading in general, which in turn affects the publication of books. Reading today has become synonymous with a Google search, and what comes up on Google is the only reading many readers ever do. No judgments here. Personally, I don’t see a decline in the number of books that come out each year. New and meaningful titles continue to be published. However, what is different in modern publishing is a digital copy of the book will have to be made available the same day the physical book is officially released. It is no more an option, it is an imperative business need. I feel uneasy emphasizing the term ” Physical book”. I still belong to that generation when a book only meant paper, but I do acknowledge there is a growing community of modern readers who like their written word in digital and audio formats. ( On a side note, it is interesting that during these work-from-home times, people are often seen lining up physical books behind them during meetings to accentuate their seriousness and intellectual gravity. They can’t do it with digital copies).

Anyway, books in physical form alone are not exciting or enough anymore, and therefore, except in rare cases, publishers do not pay much attention to the quality, typeface, introductions, prefaces, and frontispieces. With content readily available on translucent screens and at the click of a button, and reading mostly done only for professional purposes and not much otherwise, why would anyone care at all about making books for aesthetic reasons, or for that matter, why would anyone read anything other than what enhances their work. Book stores, at least in the US, are closing down at an alarming rate, and the independent booksellers, family-owned in most cases, who sold books sheerly for the love of it, are also under tremendous pressure to meet ends financially. One by one, they are also closing down their shutters. So what is left for the general reader, that odd pedigree of book lovers who cannot relinquish the feel and smell of paper, are only the Thrift book stores, second-hand outlets such as Half-price books, and websites such as eBay. They are our only refuge. When I walk into second-hand book stores, I feel this delightful thrill run through my spine along with a palpitating expectation of finding some hidden wonders among the haphazardly stocked aisles, containing volumes discarded or thrown away by someone for reasons unknown. I still vividly remember the extraordinary delight of discovering, for instance, a 1902 hardbound illustrated edition of Lady Montagu’s letters she wrote during her stay in Istanbul, in musty, aged condition, its covers beautifully embroidered with intricate floral patterns, tastefully colored in pale green, compact and heavy on the hand, and nuzzled between few cheap paperbacks, waiting for me to touch it, open it, and allow the words come to life. I simply cannot resist a book that catches my attention; I will inevitably buy it. Sometimes, I may end up with two copies of the same book in different editions, but the important point is that the editions are different, the look and feel between them is different, and therefore the books themselves are different. Just as the same Mozart symphony sounds different and equally sublime when conducted by Leonard Bernstein and Sir Simon rattle, the same text in different editions can throw up different meanings to a sensitive reader. It is a love affair that cannot be reasoned.

This essay is dedicated to two beautiful women, who devoted a lifetime to recovering old books and worked as passionate advocates for books and readers. They were Leona Rosenberg (1910 -2005) and Madeline Stern (1915 -2007). They were Jewish, whose parents immigrated to the US at the turn of the twentieth century. Leona and Mady accidentally met each other at a Jewish Saturday school in their teens, and from the moment they met, they knew they found a good friend in each other. It was a friendship forged in the fire of intellect and learning. Leona was nerdy, bookish, and interested in Medieval history; Mady was more of an intellectual vagabond and immersed herself in whatever arrested her attention at any given time. Both of them read eclectically, and passionately discussed books when they were together. The common thread that bound them together was their abiding love of books and literature. Not surprisingly, upon graduation, Leona wrote her doctoral dissertation on the impact of Printers on early Publishing history; Mady, on the other hand, pursued English literature without any specific goal. In a strange twist of destiny, Leona’s academic work did not find favor with Columbia University. She had to make a choice on whether she wanted to continue her journey towards a professorship or do something else that mattered to her. Leona chose to do something different. She loved “Literary sleuthing” – which meant hunting down antiquated books, establishing historicity, validating authorship, and bring the titles up for sale. In early 1940, with some financial help from Mady, Leona set up her own little business of procuring and selling Old and rare books. The young ladies took the opportunity to travel all over England and Europe, meeting booksellers and collectors, dipping into hidden book troves, surreptitiously digging out hidden facts about books, and extracting forgotten gems of literature. In the process, they also discovered fascinating details about authorship and the history of printing. They loved the work. Literary sleuthing came naturally to them, and it proved to be an exhilarating and intriguing journey, full of surprises, revelations, disappointments, but never without joy. Soon Mady left whatever she was doing and joined Leona as a full-time partner in crime. And thus began a partnership that spanned more than sixty years till their death, and remains a testimony of a great friendship rooted in deep love, respect, and in their common love of books and reading.

Both Leona and Mady never married, had no children. They had their own little flirtations when young but they were only on the “fringes of their life”, as Leona later wrote in her memoir. The excitement of books was the glue that held them together, and they had no time for any other commitments. Once their name as reliable antiquarian booksellers had spread among book lovers, Leona and Mady, quite accidentally embarked upon an ambitious project, which was to give lasting fame in the world of letters. The project was to unearth the prodigious talent of the great New England author Mary Louise Alcott, best known for her brilliant and homely novel “ The little women” – One of the best-known English works of the 19th century. Ms. Alcott was only known to the reading public as the author of cozy stories that spoke about the virtues of family, chastity, and marriage. During their literary investigations, Leona found there was more to Ms. Alcott’s life and writing than just homely stories. Both, Mady and Leona, spent three years uncovering the trails of Alcott’s writings. They dug up her pseudonyms, pen names, her steamy gothic stories printed in pulp journals. They discovered that Ms. Alcott lived a double life. On one hand, she wrote gentle stories for the puritan reading public of New England, and on the other, she conjured grotesque, lurid, and sensational short stories for journals and newspapers so that she could financially support her family. Based on their joint literary sleuthing and investigation into literary sources of Ms. Alcott’s work, Mady published in 1953, a brilliant biography of Mary Louise Alcott, that is still considered the most authoritative, lucid, and comprehensive life of that great author. Along with it they help revise and redefine the image of Mary Alcott from that of a docile homemaker to a staunch liberated feminist, and a writer with tremendous talent and scope. The biography revived interest in Alcott’s work and her place in English literature.

In appreciation of the contribution of Leona and Mady, The ABAA ( Antiquarian Booksellers Association of America), an organization of volunteer booksellers and collectors who specialize in recovering, restoring, and selling old books, unanimously appointed Leona as their President in 1971. During her tenure, Both ladies traveled the globe, warming the hearts of all those who came in contact with their simplicity, erudition, and grace. Together, they published several critical studies of literature and sparkling catalogs of books that documented antiquated volumes for various auctions. When they entered their eighties, Mady and Leona were requested to write an account of their special friendship and passion for books. They readily agreed and jointly authored an autobiography titled “Old Books, rare friends”, perhaps their last literary effort together. It came out in 1997 and soon became a bestseller. In fact, I have this book in front of me as I pen this essay. In it, in their inimitable style, that is at once scholarly, elegant, flowing, and profound, they unfold their lives and their immeasurable love of books before us. It is a touching account of lives spent in service of a cause which also was the love of their lives. That is a rare blessing indeed. Towards the end of their beautiful book, the couple sum up their life’s work in two simple, moving statements. I reproduce it verbatim. They write:

“Our lives are our legacy, and it is a legacy dominated by the first person plural. Together we look to the future, to our next find, to our next book, to our next adventure…”

I started this essay thinking aloud about books and their future. Personally, I remain very optimistic about the future of physical books. The digital reading devices of today with their many attractive options may be a convenient way of carrying and finding information at will, but to assume that it can replace the physicality of the printed page is stretching the argument a bit far – at least for the foreseeable future. Like me, there will always be a group of people who will continue to cuddle with a book in their hand and enjoy the tactile, visual, and olfactory sensations that only a well-made book can produce. The joy of gently and indecisively holding a page with the tips of one’s fingers, gently feeling its smoothness, its texture; unconsciously weighing the options of either to flip the page and continue reading or to linger on for just a few seconds longer on the current page and revisit a beautifully crafted sentence or paragraph before turning the page – these are inexpressible joys, only a physical book can give us. On the digital page, it is either a flip or no-flip. The world of analog is sometimes more fulfilling than its digital equivalent. As long as there are book lovers like Mady and Leona, the trade, the passion, and the market for physical books will never die, and the tribe of readers who like to hold a book in their hands will ensure the legacy is kept alive and secure.

God bless…

yours in mortality,

Bala