Victoria’s many readers who eagerly anticipated the essays of Rebecca Rego Barry, our 2014 Writer-in-Residence, will want to mark their calendars for December 1, 2015—the release date of her new book. Titled Rare Books Uncovered: True Stories of Fantastic Finds in Unlikely Places (Voyageur Press), the work will capture the hearts and imaginations of bibliophiles everywhere who search for rare manuscripts and hidden first editions.
Herself a voracious reader and a dedicated book lover from a young age, Rebecca holds a master’s degree in book history and is the current editor of Fine Books & Collections magazine, a quarterly publication targeted to collectors, dealers, curators, and librarians. From the time she was a teenager, she frequented tiny independent bookshops, but her passion for collecting was born when she came across a copy of Arthur Miller’s iconic play, Death of a Salesman, while at a church book sale. Rebecca purchased the tome for $1 and later identified it as a treasured first edition Miller had given his friend, Chicago Tribune journalist William Shirer.
In her book, Rebecca shares similar stories of remarkable finds, such as a Texas family whose discovery of more than three hundred vintage comics in a basement netted them $3.5 million; a Salt Lake City, Utah, bookseller who volunteered at a local fund-raiser and unearthed a five-hundred-year-old copy of the Nuremberg Chronicle; and a man who, while browsing in a thrift shop, came across a prized copy of Calvary in China that the author had inscribed to the collector’s own grandfather. Rare Books Uncovered celebrates books, collectors, and the thrill of the hunt.
Text Anne Garry, Managing Editor
