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<b>Bonhams:</b> MANDELSHTAM, OSIP. 1891-1938. Autograph Manuscript, 2 pp, [Petersburg,] January 1913, entitled

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Sotheran's - An Exceptional Story - By Bruce McKinney Thomas Sotheran A book about Sotheran’s, the London booksellers has recently been published to celebrate its history. Its title, taken from the company’s telegram address is Bookman: London - 250 years of Sotheran bookselling. The author is Victor Gray. It is an exceptionally well-written story. Against a history that reaches back to the enlightenment and halfway to the age of discovery Sotheran’s bookshop in the United Kingdom is celebrating its 250^th anniversary, a rare achievement in any era and an extraordinary one in the complex world of which the firm is a part today. Men make fortunes, live and die, and are forgotten in a few decades. Companies outlive them but barely so, demise so common it’s expected. But a few companies make it through and Sotheran is one. These days nine of ten new ones disappear within a year. Sotherans has seen the New Year two hundred and fifty times. In England in 1761, the year Sotheran was foundeded Wedgwood was two years old as was Guiness the Irish brewer. Faber-Castell was a German start-up and in America Fraunces Tavern, where George Washington would deliver his farewell address in 1796, serving its first beer. In England the industrial revolution, a hundred years to fruition, was beginning and literacy, handmaiden to its eventual success, becoming an English national objective. There was already a small but growing role for printers and publishers, an outcome of the enlightenment that was itself a child of the age of reason. The gathering realization that literacy would be essential to national development and that efficient transfer of knowledge would be achieved via the printed word now brought booksellers into a critical nexus with national ambition. There was little to suggest it but books were entering their golden age for they uniquely could carry knowledge into the far corners, the printed word as pioneer and conqueror. Print in all its forms would provide foot soldiers for England’s emergence as cradle of the industrial revolution, then support its rise to imperial power and later its development as leading exporter of equipment to support industrialization abroad. In all this the transfer and spread of knowledge was key and the printed word the exchange mechanism. And Sotheran was there, a start-up so to speak, almost certainly without any idea of what would lie ahead. Most booksellers are rodeo riders, the trip exciting and all too brief. Sotheran’s journey, begun during the French and Indian War, would become a marathon.
Sotheran's - An Exceptional Story - By Bruce McKinney An engrossing story Their timing was good for Mr. Sotheran entered the book trade at almost the exact moment of the first surge in literacy in England, in the first shift from agrarian to industrial economy, when advances in printing and declining paper costs had begun to make printed materials affordable and the industrial revolution make them essential. For Sotheran the moment of their starting was pregnant with possibilities. Even so, by right no one would remember that Henry Sotheran, in partnership with John Todd, acquired a bookseller’s shop in York in 1761. It was a going concern trading under the sign of the Bible, a local shop, one of a few booksellers in the community. Such shops would come and go, names and ownerships changing, many surviving a generation or two, and then disappearing into the fog of history. Had Sotheran and his heirs had a fifty-year run they would have disappeared before the War of 1812, that they survived and prospered no doubt because they took a flexible approach. In the beginning they would sell both old and new books and later, for a time, drinks. Some fifty years on Thomas Sotheran moved into London and began to trade under the Sotheran name as dealers in the antiquarian, rare and used books they continue to sell today. For the first hundred years in London they would be sited at the epicenter of human development and make the most of it. Underpinning all would be increasing literacy and national wealth. The printed word was in demand. When public libraries in the 1830s began to proliferate, in replacement of private lending associations, Sotheran became a primary source for them. When collectors emerged in the 1860s, they developed a presence to supply them, as well as the more casual passing customers known as "carriage trade." Rising prices then brought important private libraries into the market and the firm, now long established, was well positioned to represent owners of country house libraries wishing to raise money and the nouveau riche or 'newly-wealthy middle-class buyers looking to acquire. Even then they were an old company and longevity has its rewards, the most valuable of which is to earn and enjoy the confidence of the public and this gave them increasing access to astounding collections that they catalogued or occasionally sold by private treaty. They would, in short, be the chameleon, fitting their trade to the times, ever mindful that recession, depression and war were never more than a decade or two away.
Sotheran's - An Exceptional Story - By Bruce McKinney A Sotheran catalogue of the 1880s They would move many times, expand and retrench, move into the City and out and rarely over-commit. They would have as many as five shops in the closing decades of the 19^th century and by one account in the 1880s as many as 500,000 books available. They would become prolific cataloguers, issuing more than 700 “Price Current” catalogues as well as an extensive run of “Piccadilly Notes." They assisted Enriqueta Rylands to create an institutional library in memory of her husband John, an institution today renowned for its exceptional holdings. When the trade shifted to America they courted the lions of the day, coming to represent Henry Clay Folger and J. P. Morgan and selling to many others. In these same decades, when dealers regularly participated in rigged bidding to buy cheap and resell within their ring, Sotheran did not participate. Those who did were later unapologetic, when their activities were revealed, claiming that it kept their costs down, although it defrauded sellers. In the 1920s, when rarity and collecting merged into an upward spiral of prices Sotheran's stepped aside, later becoming underbidders in the auction rooms, willing to lose out to those willing to pay more as the decade advanced. Ten years later many who went a bump or two higher were gone. In 1928 Henry Cecil Sotheran, the last member of the family to be directly involved in the firm, died. In his stead Gabriel Wells, the American rare book dealer, purchased the firm, in time transferring his interest to the Rothschild family that continues, now three generations later, its involvement, only the second enduring ownership in the firm’s 250 year history. Looking back it is possible to feel the excitement and impetus for opening a bookstore in 1761. Literacy was on the wing and English prospects unparalleled. England would place its stamp upon the world, installing its language upon a quarter of the globe. The path would prove uncertain but the best place to be at that moment and for decades to come would be London. The city and nation would dominate the world for the next 140 years and Sotheran be present, its own history developing. Its story would then follow the transition from the British century to the American one, the transition softened by the shared language that lessened the impact for sellers of the printed word.
Sotheran's - An Exceptional Story - By Bruce McKinney 36 Piccadilly circa 1872 That Sotheran continues suggests many generations of owners and management, some dozen or so, have found ways to survive and prosper in every type of environment, through wars too numerous to mention, through prosperity, recession and depression, through the golden age of libraries and today the rise of electronic media. There is more to come. Survival is a process, not a destination. But it is also a signal moment and Sotheran’s has published its story as a book, a fitting approach for a bookseller to commemorate and remember its history. Such accounts appear now and again. Booksellers, recognizing their personal mortality and the comparative immortality of good books, regularly recount their stories in print in the hope that like Yorick they will be remembered well. The best ones are exceptional but many are dreary recountings. This is one of the very good ones, an interesting story well written. The writer, Victor Gray -- formerly Director of the Rothschild Archive, Chairman of the National Council on Archives, and President of the Society of Archivists -- is to be commended. Whatever may come this volume ensures that Sotheran’s story will be found upon the shelves of they who love books, the chase and adventure. It’s a fascinating story and in my view required reading. Link to Sotheran's Order a copy

Sotheran's - An Exceptional Story

- By Bruce McKinney

Thomas Sotheran

A book about Sotheran’s, the London booksellers has recently been published to celebrate its history. Its title, taken from the company’s telegram address is Bookman: London - 250 years of Sotheran bookselling. The author is Victor Gray. It is an exceptionally well-written story.

Against a history that reaches back to the enlightenment and halfway to the age of discovery Sotheran’s bookshop in the United Kingdom is celebrating its 250^th anniversary, a rare achievement in any era and an extraordinary one in the complex world of which the firm is a part today. Men make fortunes, live and die, and are forgotten in a few decades. Companies outlive them but barely so, demise so common it’s expected. But a few companies make it through and Sotheran is one. These days nine of ten new ones disappear within a year. Sotherans has seen the New Year two hundred and fifty times.

In England in 1761, the year Sotheran was foundeded Wedgwood was two years old as was Guiness the Irish brewer. Faber-Castell was a German start-up and in America Fraunces Tavern, where George Washington would deliver his farewell address in 1796, serving its first beer. In England the industrial revolution, a hundred years to fruition, was beginning and literacy, handmaiden to its eventual success, becoming an English national objective. There was already a small but growing role for printers and publishers, an outcome of the enlightenment that was itself a child of the age of reason. The gathering realization that literacy would be essential to national development and that efficient transfer of knowledge would be achieved via the printed word now brought booksellers into a critical nexus with national ambition. There was little to suggest it but books were entering their golden age for they uniquely could carry knowledge into the far corners, the printed word as pioneer and conqueror. Print in all its forms would provide foot soldiers for England’s emergence as cradle of the industrial revolution, then support its rise to imperial power and later its development as leading exporter of equipment to support industrialization abroad. In all this the transfer and spread of knowledge was key and the printed word the exchange mechanism. And Sotheran was there, a start-up so to speak, almost certainly without any idea of what would lie ahead. Most booksellers are rodeo riders, the trip exciting and all too brief. Sotheran’s journey, begun during the French and Indian War, would become a marathon.

Sotheran's - An Exceptional Story

- By Bruce McKinney

An engrossing story

Their timing was good for Mr. Sotheran entered the book trade at almost the exact moment of the first surge in literacy in England, in the first shift from agrarian to industrial economy, when advances in printing and declining paper costs had begun to make printed materials affordable and the industrial revolution make them essential. For Sotheran the moment of their starting was pregnant with possibilities.

Even so, by right no one would remember that Henry Sotheran, in partnership with John Todd, acquired a bookseller’s shop in York in 1761. It was a going concern trading under the sign of the Bible, a local shop, one of a few booksellers in the community. Such shops would come and go, names and ownerships changing, many surviving a generation or two, and then disappearing into the fog of history. Had Sotheran and his heirs had a fifty-year run they would have disappeared before the War of 1812, that they survived and prospered no doubt because they took a flexible approach. In the beginning they would sell both old and new books and later, for a time, drinks. Some fifty years on Thomas Sotheran moved into London and began to trade under the Sotheran name as dealers in the antiquarian, rare and used books they continue to sell today. For the first hundred years in London they would be sited at the epicenter of human development and make the most of it.

Underpinning all would be increasing literacy and national wealth. The printed word was in demand. When public libraries in the 1830s began to proliferate, in replacement of private lending associations, Sotheran became a primary source for them. When collectors emerged in the 1860s, they developed a presence to supply them, as well as the more casual passing customers known as "carriage trade." Rising prices then brought important private libraries into the market and the firm, now long established, was well positioned to represent owners of country house libraries wishing to raise money and the nouveau riche or 'newly-wealthy middle-class buyers looking to acquire. Even then they were an old company and longevity has its rewards, the most valuable of which is to earn and enjoy the confidence of the public and this gave them increasing access to astounding collections that they catalogued or occasionally sold by private treaty. They would, in short, be the chameleon, fitting their trade to the times, ever mindful that recession, depression and war were never more than a decade or two away.

Sotheran's - An Exceptional Story

- By Bruce McKinney

A Sotheran catalogue of the 1880s

They would move many times, expand and retrench, move into the City and out and rarely over-commit. They would have as many as five shops in the closing decades of the 19^th century and by one account in the 1880s as many as 500,000 books available. They would become prolific cataloguers, issuing more than 700 “Price Current” catalogues as well as an extensive run of “Piccadilly Notes." They assisted Enriqueta Rylands to create an institutional library in memory of her husband John, an institution today renowned for its exceptional holdings. When the trade shifted to America they courted the lions of the day, coming to represent Henry Clay Folger and J. P. Morgan and selling to many others.

In these same decades, when dealers regularly participated in rigged bidding to buy cheap and resell within their ring, Sotheran did not participate. Those who did were later unapologetic, when their activities were revealed, claiming that it kept their costs down, although it defrauded sellers.

In the 1920s, when rarity and collecting merged into an upward spiral of prices Sotheran's stepped aside, later becoming underbidders in the auction rooms, willing to lose out to those willing to pay more as the decade advanced. Ten years later many who went a bump or two higher were gone.

In 1928 Henry Cecil Sotheran, the last member of the family to be directly involved in the firm, died. In his stead Gabriel Wells, the American rare book dealer, purchased the firm, in time transferring his interest to the Rothschild family that continues, now three generations later, its involvement, only the second enduring ownership in the firm’s 250 year history.

Looking back it is possible to feel the excitement and impetus for opening a bookstore in 1761. Literacy was on the wing and English prospects unparalleled. England would place its stamp upon the world, installing its language upon a quarter of the globe. The path would prove uncertain but the best place to be at that moment and for decades to come would be London. The city and nation would dominate the world for the next 140 years and Sotheran be present, its own history developing. Its story would then follow the transition from the British century to the American one, the transition softened by the shared language that lessened the impact for sellers of the printed word.

Sotheran's - An Exceptional Story

- By Bruce McKinney

36 Piccadilly circa 1872

That Sotheran continues suggests many generations of owners and management, some dozen or so, have found ways to survive and prosper in every type of environment, through wars too numerous to mention, through prosperity, recession and depression, through the golden age of libraries and today the rise of electronic media. There is more to come. Survival is a process, not a destination.

But it is also a signal moment and Sotheran’s has published its story as a book, a fitting approach for a bookseller to commemorate and remember its history. Such accounts appear now and again. Booksellers, recognizing their personal mortality and the comparative immortality of good books, regularly recount their stories in print in the hope that like Yorick they will be remembered well. The best ones are exceptional but many are dreary recountings. This is one of the very good ones, an interesting story well written. The writer, Victor Gray -- formerly Director of the Rothschild Archive, Chairman of the National Council on Archives, and President of the Society of Archivists -- is to be commended.

Whatever may come this volume ensures that Sotheran’s story will be found upon the shelves of they who love books, the chase and adventure. It’s a fascinating story and in my view required reading.

Link to Sotheran's

Order a copy