Lethal Legacy

Начало книги

My earliest childhood memories of books are of those from which my mother read to me every night before I went to sleep. I still have the frayed volumes of poems by Robert Louis Stevenson and A. A. Milne, and the stories of Beatrix Potter and E. B. White. I remember the first time she took me to the public library in our small city, and with what delight I left that day carrying the three books the librarian entrusted to me. Our favorite weekly excursion-an hour of pure happiness with my mother-was the trip downtown to return the small stack I had selected and replace it with another.

Most bibliophiles love reading about books, too, and for me, the opportunity to do some of my research with literary treasures was a thrilling experience. One foundation for my exploration was a 1923 tome I picked up at an antiquarian book fair-Harry Miller Lydenberg’s History of the New York Public Library. I studied Phyllis Dain’s A Universe of Knowledge, Nicholas Basbanes’s A Gentle Madness, Ingrid Steffensen’s The New York Public Library: A Beaux Arts Landmark, and a slim little book published by Educare Press, The Waldseemüller World Map (1507).

Читать дальше →