PEOPLE KNOWN FOR: book collecting

J.P. Morgan was an American financier and industrial organizer, one of the world’s foremost financial figures during the two pre-World War I decades. He reorganized several major railroads and financed...

Sir Hans Sloane, Baronet was a British physician and naturalist whose collection of books, manuscripts, and curiosities formed the basis for the British Museum in London. As a child Sloane possessed a...

A. S. W. Rosenbach was a U.S. book and manuscript collector and dealer who combined solid scholarship and exceptional business acumen. Rosenbach attended the University of Pennsylvania (B.S. 1898; Ph.D....

George Thomason was an English bookseller whose collection of printed books, handbills, pamphlets, ballads, newspapers, and other writings (cataloged and bound from 1640 to 1661) constitute one of the...

Iñigo López de Mendoza, marquis de Santillana was a Spanish poet and Humanist who was one of the great literary and political figures of his time. As lord of the vast Mendoza estates, he led the nobles...

Nikolay Petrovich, Count Rumyantsev was a Russian statesman and diplomat who was also a bibliophile and a patron of historiography and voyages of exploration. The Rumyantsev Museum in St. Petersburg, founded...

James Lenox was an American philanthropist and pioneer book collector. Lenox’s father was a wealthy Scottish merchant from whom Lenox inherited several million dollars as well as valuable properties in...

Henry E. Huntington was an American railroad magnate and collector of rare books. Henry was the nephew of the railroad magnate Collis P. Huntington. He ultimately held important executive positions with...

Berthold Laufer was a U.S. scholar who, for 35 years, was virtually the only sinologist working in the United States. Laufer took his doctorate at the University of Leipzig under men in the forefront of...