A.S.W. Rosenbach: The Man Who Bought the World's Books

Abraham Simon Wolf Rosenbach was born in Philadelphia in eighteen seventy-six and became the most powerful rare book dealer in the world. From his base here on Delancey Place, where he and his brother Philip lived from nineteen twenty-six until his death in nineteen fifty-two, Rosenbach assembled the most extraordinary private book collection of the early twentieth century.

He bought at auction with an aggression that stunned rivals, acquiring Shakespeare folios, Lewis Carroll manuscripts, and James Joyce's handwritten draft of Ulysses. His clients included J.P. Morgan, Henry Huntington, and the great American research libraries. He believed books should be held in public collections, not private vaults, and he worked actively to build the libraries that now house those treasures. He and Philip left their personal collection to the public: the Rosenbach Museum and Library on this block remains one of Philadelphia's finest literary destinations.