BAUMAN RARE BOOKS - Key Persons
ALLISON MACINTOSH | BOOKSELLER A graduate of NYU's Institute of Fine Arts, Allison holds a Master of Arts in Art history and Archeology. She specializes in Classical and Renaissance history and literature, but her interests are ever-changing. With an undergraduate degree in Classics from Trinity College in Hartford, CT, Allison has excavated ancient sites in the Middle East and studied extensively in Italy. She traces her love of literature to the escapades of Nancy Drew, but she grew to revere the authors and historians of antiquity, and to adore the witty and romantic novels of Jane Austen. Since joining Bauman Rare Books in the fall of 2016, Allison is committed to learning everything left in-between.
ANDY HALLMAN | SENIOR CATALOGUER Andy is a senior cataloguer, editor, and writer, and has developed, managed, written and edited print and e-mail catalogues, printed promotional materials, advertising campaigns for print and online, and content for the website. He holds a B.A. in English from Harvard University, and came to BRB in 2000 after nearly a decade in advertising. He coaches the 2001 Boys soccer team at Fairmount Soccer Association, and is a weekend warrior with Bella Vista FC. He lives in South Philly.
Brandon Sellers | Bookseller Brandon earned his Bachelors in English and Political Science from Lycoming College and his Masters degree in Public Policy from the University of Maryland in 2015. Raised outside Baltimore, he moved to Las Vegas a few years ago. His favorite authors include William Faulkner, Robert Penn Warren, Joseph Conrad, and Raymond Chandler. When he isn't reading, he can be found exploring hiking trails throughout the valley, playing word games online, and (occasionally) spending time with his lovely wife.
BYRON, John. Viage del Comandante Byron alrededor del Mundo. Madrid, 1769.
Second and expanded Spanish edition-issued the same year as the first-of Byron's account of his 1764-66 circumnavigation of the world in the Dolphin, with folding map (measuring 14 by 19 inches) of the Strait of Magellan not present in English editions (hand-colored in outline) and engraved frontispiece depicting the "giants" of Patagonia. This second edition also incorporates the account of Magellan's circumnavigation of 1519-22, completed by Captain Juan Sebastian del Cano after Magellan's death, making him the first captain to complete a circumnavigation, which was not included in the first Spanish edition. $7200.
DAVID CUNNINGHAM | BOOKSELLER David holds Master Degrees in History and Library Science. After living overseas for a few years, he joined Bauman Books in 2001. Some of his favorite authors include Jorge Luis Borges, Leo Perutz, and Robert Aickman. When not in the gallery, he enjoys travelling and spending time with his family. He can be found most evenings reading books as diverse as the Decameron to Conan the Barbarian. He shares with Borges the hope that Paradise will be a kind of library - or more to the point, an enormous ramshackle used bookstore stuffed full of serendipitous discoveries.
Eric PEDERSEN | Bookseller Eric Pedersen hails from the Midwest, where he studied 20th Century American History in college and 20th Century American Literature in graduate school. He began his bookselling life at Bauman Rare Books' Las Vegas gallery in 2008 and currently works in the gallery in New York City. Other than Ben Franklin's Autobiography (which he didn't finish), he can't remember the last book he read written before 1900. As those who know him are (sometimes painfully) aware, he does not need a reason to start talking about William Gaddis, Thomas Pynchon, Something Happened, Ernest Hemingway, Revolutionary Road, Cormac McCarthy, David Foster Wallace, or Kurt Vonnegut, and so on… Recent favorites are Lauren Groff and Colson Whitehead.
ERIN MAE BLACK | BOOKSELLER Erin studied European history at Hampshire College and has an M.A. in the Cultural and Intellectual History of the Renaissance from the Warburg Institute. She was a scholar-in-residence at the Fondazione Giorgio Cini in Venice, where her research spanned the intersections of print history and the histories of science and philosophy. She brings to Bauman Rare Books a wealth of knowledge about incunables and early-printed works, a fondness for great plate-books and artist's books, and an enthusiasm for the rarities to be found in collecting scientific and women's history. Some of her favorite authors include Borges, Calvino, Pessoa, Wilde and Rabelais. She believes Ursula K. Le Guin in that "we read books to find out who we are."
ERNEST HILBERT | BUYER Ernest Hilbert holds advanced degrees from Oxford, where he completed a doctorate in the Department of English Language and Literature in 2000. His poems have appeared in The New Republic, Yale Review, American Poetry Review, Harvard Review, Parnassus, Boston Review, Verse, New Criterion, American Scholar, and the London Review, as well as a number of standard university classroom anthologies. Hilbert is a member of the Association of Literary Scholars and Critics, the Royal Society of Literature, the Fine Press Book Association, the Philobiblon Club, and is a voting member of the National Book Critics Circle. He joined the firm in 2003 and serves as a senior specialist at Bauman Rare Books headquarters in the city of Philadelphia, where he lives with his wife, Lynn Makowsky, the Keeper of the Mediterranean Section at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthopology.
Fore-Edge Edge of the book furthest from the spine. Occasionally the text of a book will be put into a specialized book press and painted, often with a scene from the book or a landscape, so that the painting is invisible when the book is closed but visible when somebody bends the text and fans the pages-known as a fore-edge painting.
Katherine Shields | Bookseller Katherine joined the Las Vegas team in early 2017. Before finding her way to the desert she earned a B.A. in French and Philosophy. Favorite writers of the moment include Thomas Carlyle and Miguel de Unamuno. When not delving into books, she enjoys watching Pre-Code movies, making jewelry, and dancing with her daughter.
Leah Shoer | Bookseller Leah joined Bauman Rare Books in 2017 after graduating with a B.A. from New York University. She majored in English Literature, with a concentration in Irish Literature - finding herself particularly drawn to the ingenuity of James Joyce's novels and the lyricism of Yeats' poetry. She studied the great English classics during her semester at the University of Edinburgh, but continued on to read widely in American Literature, supplemented by the great works by political and economic philosophers of the 18th and 19th centuries. If you were to inquire after her favorite book, she couldn't possibly answer, the list is too long-but Middlemarch and Blood Meridian are definitely on it.
MARA ALEXANDER | MANAGER Mara is a bookseller at the Las Vegas gallery, with a Masters in English Literature from Brigham Young University. After a stint with a construction company (she was part of the team that built the Paris Hotel and Casino), and teaching many years at UNLV, she loves that she gets to study and talk books on a daily basis. When she's not engrossed in a book, you can find her cooking, baking, hiking or gardening.
MIKE NIKLAUS | HEAD OF CATALOGUING Michael Niklaus has been with Bauman Rare Books since 2000. At Swarthmore College and the University of Michigan, his studies focused on antebellum American literature and culture.
PAMELA RAIA | BOOKSELLER Pamela Raia joined Bauman Rare Books in 2015. After receiving a B.A. in English Literature, she spent several years traveling the world before landing in Las Vegas. In her spare time she is an avid reader, runner, and road trip planner.
NIAMH O'CONNELL | PHOTOGRAPHER Niamh is chief photographer at Bauman Rare Books since joining the company in 2005. When not behind a camera, Niamh enjoys Horse Riding, hanging with her dogs and her many and varied artistic endeavors.
STEVE MOOSBRUGGER | INVENTORY DIRECTOR Stephen Moosbrugger joined the firm at the turn of the last century and since then has assumed a range of central duties in the company's Philadelphia headquarters. He devotes his working hours managing inventory, coordinating the IT Department, and assisting with new acquisitions. Steve was born and raised in the Philadelphia area. At Penn State University he studied American history, a subject that still is his favorite area of collecting. He is married to Kathy, a reproductive biologist at the University of Pennsylvania, with whom he has three children. In his off hours, he serves as a youth baseball coach and is president of the Fairmount Soccer Association, central Philadelphia's largest youth soccer club.