The Waterbury Democrat., 1934-08-06
In New York
np PAUL HARRISON

A I
 New York.-Whefl the leather bindings of their rare old books begin to crack and break at the hinges, wealthy people and big libraries send for Miss Jahett c. Lewis. She's the nations foremost
 book doctor, and perhops the only specialist in her line.
 About 25 years ago she was a portrait painter, but got inter- ested in leather preservation when the bindings in a friends library began to crumblet Miss Lewis experimented with many
 compounds and natural oils, fin- ally succeeded with a rare black oil obtained from prehistoric afi- nal matter. When this was re-
 produced synthetically 1t was
 much cheaper, and nearly color less. The American Museum of Natural History now is rubbing gallons of it into the stuffed hides of elephants for the new Roose- welt Wing. A famous art connoisseur who inspected her first job of restora- ton persuadedsher to make 1t
 career. After a few commissions
 in Boston she had more offers lnaH SHe CoHlu dCcePt. MAD
 Whitelaw Reid. Mrs Edwin lix Warburg, some of the DuPonts, Ebert Gary, J. P. Morgan and
 many big museums and libraries
 have been among her patrons.
 The Reid library probably is the
 largest private one, but among it's
 12,000 volumes are many undis- tinguished books in ultra-fancy
 leather ~bindings-preserits to the
 original owner during his dipio-
 matic career. k Books Worth Millions
 During her work in the Mor- gan library, Miss Lewis recondi-
 tioned the geography book once
 owned by Mary. Queen of Scots.
 She has worked on several first
 folios of Shakespeare, most of them
 in the library of Marsden J. Perry. the financier. One was worth $50,000. Also in the $2,000,000
 collection were 100 copies of the
 Rubaiyat, all elaborately bound. Recently Miss Lewis fixed the Carl | Tucker library on birds, and once
 she rubbed the late Daniel Fear ing's 10000 books on fish. The
 owner watched the entire process. Miss Lewis has several asBist-
 ants, all educated gentIewomen. She wouldn't think of hiring any
 body who didn't know and love fine books, she says. Fact Is, the
 assistants are so appreciative of the treasures that they pledge themselves not to open book ex-
 cept during lunch hour, Other- 1'wise they'd never finish their job. After congress paid $1,500.000 for the Volbehr collection of in-
 cunabula (books printed and
 bound before the year 1500). Miss
 Lewis was called in to condition the bindings, which were nearly
 ruined. Her next big job with
 ancient books probably will be in
 the Vatican Library in Rome. Of- | ficials of the library already are
 using her leather restorative, but
 they want her to come over and
 Collect Dime Novels
 Old, expensive books are not | always sought by book collectors. | example, who cherisheS hundreds
 of dime novels. Some of them are
 valuable, too, If they date back
 to the 'fifties. Most Of the earliest
 ones were published by Erastus Beadle, who had print shop in Buffalo in 1852, and later moved to New York city. He turned out about 5000 dime novels, most ly with alliterative titles such us
 "Border Bessie" Dandy Darks,"
 "Roaring Ralph Redwood" and
 "Alkali Abe" Probably the first dime novel written by . woman
 was "Malaeska. or the Indian
 Wife of the White Hunter.' It was printed in 1860 and trans lated into five languages.
 When they're in town, Ernest Hemingway, Rockwell Kent. Floyd Deli, Max Eastman. john
 Dos Passes. Martha Ostenso and lots of other literary people oc- casionaily can be seen poking Bookshop in Greenwich Village. years ago in room of the old Liberal club, but has changed owners and locations several times since.
 Josephine Bell, one of the pro- prietors now was the person who launched "The Well of Loneli-
 ness" in this country. {. She's amused because people como in every day believing the place is q drug store because there are books in the window. Recently Scotsman and his wife came in and browsed for hours. The wife finally decided to read John
 Browns Body" for which the
 rental is 20 cents a week. Her husband told her not to be silly;
 he had read the book and would