Zhong Fangling
I remember in the early summer of 2008, from San Francisco to the east coast of the United States by night, first in Chicago, and then to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, tossing and turning for six or seven hours, arriving at ten o'clock in the morning in the east of the United States, tired to no, both eyes red, no wonder americans call this kind of night departure, early morning arrival frequency as "red-eye flight" (red-eye flight).
The trip was mostly to visit friends in a small town nearly two hours southwest of Pittsburgh. After getting off the plane to rent a car and getting tired, I drove east to Oakland for a few hours, visiting the University of Pittsburgh, Carnegie Mellon University, and the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, before heading to the Nearby Caliban Book Shop, a well-known antique bookstore. This is a must-visit shop recommended to me by several California booksellers, and before leaving, they bought a copy of Shakespeare's play "Tempest" as a souvenir, just because Caliban was a character in "The Tempest." At checkout, the owner, John Schulman, knew that I was coming from afar and was having fun visiting the bookstore, so he kindly mentioned to me that there was another "Townsend Booksellers" two blocks away that sold old books, which was worth a visit. In my experience, British and American old booksellers rarely have peers to avoid each other, after all, each store has a different style, has different types of books, and can be grouped together, in fact, it is more attractive to customers and booksellers.
The Pittsburgh Carnegie Library is a nationally renowned public library funded by Andrew Carnegie, a local steel magnate, at the end of the nineteenth century. More than 2,500 libraries were established in Europe and the United States as a result of Carnegie's donations, and there are still about 900 carnegie libraries in the United States
Interior view of the Carnegie Library in Pittsburgh
A visit to the Kaliban Bookstore in 2008 has sparked a flurry of news reports in recent years
If it weren't for the fact that there was a big shop outside the building, I would have thought that the two-story bungalow with the chimney in front of me was an ordinary private house! Step up a few steps, push open the door of townsend bookstore, you can feel that this is an old-school style comprehensive antique bookstore, there is no disgusting popular bestseller, the books are obviously carefully selected by the owner, the price is very reasonable, the fireplace in the center of the room and the scattered seats, let people feel at home. A waist-high glass display shelf on the right side of the entrance is right to charge the counter, and although there are computers and printers in the corner, there is no large cash register. Neil and Beverly Townsend, a gentle, friendly shopkeeper, later talked to me about it and said they were in no way opposed to technology and sold books online, but still used simple calculators to calculate accounts in the store, and when they sold books, they wrote the prices on traditional receipts. I especially like to receive handwritten receipts, often tucking them into the book as a bookmark, so that when I turn the book, I can also recall from different handwriting different booksellers, different stores, and what the price of the book was at that time. Nowadays, many merchants provide receipts that are printed out by machines, and some even only give electronic documents, directly transmitted to the buyer's mailbox, even the paper is saved, although environmentally friendly, but less personality and fun, less of a sense of ceremony of people buying and selling between people.
Townsend Bookstore looks like a private home
Townsend Bookstore's big store move
Townsend Bookstore is an old-school style comprehensive antique bookstore
The Townsends originally operated a book business in Oakland, California, because the 1989 California earthquake shocked them, and wanted to help their children find a good school district, the next year moved to the University of Pittsburgh nearby, bought the two-story building, downstairs to run the antique bookstore, upstairs as a home, is an authentic family-run, typical "mom-and-pop store", that is, Chinese often called "mom-and-pop store". Interestingly, the district is named Oakland, the same name as the city they previously lived in California. It suddenly occurred to me that Marc Selvaggio, a bookseller friend who now lives in Berkeley, California, was originally from Pittsburgh and had previously opened a used bookstore here, so I mentioned Mark's name to the Townsends in passing, who knew that they were old acquaintances, it turned out that Mark and his wife had bought a long-established bookstore in another district of Pittsburgh in 1985 before they moved to California, so they became friends with the Townsends who later opened a store in the same city, and Mark and his wife returned to Pittsburgh every time to visit relatives. Most of them will stop by to visit here. The world is really small, and a few words will reveal that there are common friends, and it is a clear proof of the "six degrees of separation".
Neil and Beverly Townsend, who co-run the antique bookstore
Later, I learned that the Townsends ended the physical bookstore at the end of 2012, turning the first floor back into a living space, on the one hand, they are older and want to have more private time, on the other hand, the Internet is developed, many of their books are sold online, and they have not really left the book industry, but it is a pity for many people who love to visit physical bookstores.
Looking for an out-of-print reference book on the Internet, I met the old book collection website abebooks.com and the online store run by the Townsends, and from the brief business introduction, I learned that they had left Pittsburgh and moved to the town of Las Cruces, New Mexico in 2015, not knowing whether this was their final settlement. I browsed several pages in their online store, which listed more than a thousand books, and found that some of the large sets of books I saw in the store in my early years, although they may also be the same books that the Townsends re-acquired, an inexplicable sense of intimacy arose in my heart; although I could not visit physical bookstores and touch the books and flip through the books, it was also a way to quench my thirst by looking at them online.
Two years ago, when I was sorting out the photographic pictures stored in my computer, I found several images of Townsend's bookstore, and I realized that ten years had passed, but I remembered them vividly. On a whim, several photos of the couple were sent to their mailboxes, briefly describing that they were a guest who visited the bookstore many years ago. The letter came out, and soon received their thank-you letters, and then the two sides contacted by phone, saying that although they had retired and no longer operated a physical bookstore, they were still happy to sell books online and could find a master for the books, which made them feel happy and satisfied. The advantage of not opening a physical store is that you don't have to be tied to the store every day, and you have time to visit your son who works there in Chinese mainland Guangzhou. In addition, you can drive a campervan to different national parks for several months a year as a volunteer, not only to enjoy the different scenery and water, but also to camp for free in the park. Once they even served a small bookstore in the park! During one of their outings, the couple fell in love with Las Cruces, a small city of less than 100,000 people in southern New Mexico, and chose it as the place to retire.
Knowing that I like to record some disappearing bookstores, the Townsends sent me several old photos after the conversation, one was the photo of the couple setting up a stall at the ancient book fair in 1984, and the other was the construction scene of the old building in Pittsburgh that year was renovated into a bookstore and a living house.
Townsend Bookstore renovated old buildings before opening in Pittsburgh. Courtesy of Townsend Booksellers
This old photograph was taken in 1984 when the Townsends first attended the San Diego Book Fair in California, and the man in the middle was a veteran bookseller and mentor who introduced them. Courtesy of Townsend Booksellers
Shortly after contacting the Townsends, a scandal broke out in Pittsburgh. One of the protagonists of the incident turned out to be John Shulman, the owner of the Caliban Bookstore, who had guided me to the Townsends' bookstore; the other protagonist, who had worked at the Carnegie Library in Pittsburgh, was where I visited before I went to the Kaliban Bookstore. The Pittsburgh Post, chicago tribune, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and other media outlets reported extensively at the end of July 2018 that John Shulman of The Caliban and Gregory Priore, director and document administrator of the Carnegie Library in Pittsburgh, were both indicted for conspiring to steal and sell more than 300 centuries-old rare and ancient books and artifacts for more than two decades, with an estimated value of more than $8 million The amount is so high that it is rare in history.
According to reports, since the late 1990s, Priore has been stealing from himself, in addition to stealing ancient books from the special collection room of the library where he works, and privately stamping the cancellation seals on the books, he also used an art knife to cut off the ancient maps, prints, and old photos bound or pasted on rare books from time to time, and smuggled these "booty" out of the museum, walking a block to the neighboring Caliban Bookstore, selling them to Shulman, and then Shulman sold them through bookstores, ancient book fairs, websites, eBay and other channels. The first rare books stolen for sale included Isaac Newton's Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687), Adam Smith's An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776), and U.S. President Thomas A. Smith's "An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations" (1687), and President Thomas A. Smith 's 1776 book. Jefferson's signature editions, as well as several sixteenth-century classics, and several fifteenth-century cradle editions (printed by movable type printing in the West before 1501), the market value of a single piece ranged from tens of thousands to millions of dollars. According to the police investigation, Schulman not only knew about it, but also offered to provide a list of preorhy to supply according to the objects on the list. One of these two people has a source of goods, the other has a sales channel, and it is undoubtedly an excellent partner for committing crimes.
Title page of Newton's Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy
The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy contains many diagrams
Adam Smith's magnum opus, The Wealth of Nations, is regarded as an important milestone in the history of the world economy. The first edition of The Wealth of Nations, which I saw in the picture, was one of the most important exhibits I promoted in 2009 when I was a public relations consultant at the Hong Kong International Book Fair, which was priced at HK$1.1 million; today some booksellers can order up to US$250,000 (about HK$1.9 million). Courtesy of Bernard Quaritch Ltd
This is the title page of the first edition of The Wealth of Nations in 1776. Courtesy of Bernard Quaritch Ltd
To the shock of the ancient book industry, Shulman is a member of the International Association of Ancient Booksellers, usually actively participates in the affairs of the association, has a good relationship with the ancient booksellers, and has won the trust of many people, otherwise no other bookseller would have introduced me to his bookstore. Ironically, he also served on the Ethics Committee of the American Society of Booksellers, according to which "members should do their utmost to prevent the theft or distribution of ancient books and related objects; members should do their best with law enforcement officers and association members to find and return the stolen objects, and at the same time arrest and sanction those responsible for the theft and provide the names of the participants." Now that such a disgraceful thing has happened, Shulman's membership has been revoked, and the Carnegie Library in Pittsburgh has of course expelled Prior, and everyone can't help but sigh in unison. Ancient book business is often referred to as "gentleman's business" in the West, and librarians are regarded as the patron saints of books, but there are always some black sheep in all walks of life.
In June, the verdict came out, and the judge was kind enough not to send the two book thieves to prison cells, but to four years of home imprisonment and three years of home imprisonment and electronic handcuffs for Prioré, and twelve years of probation each, and Shulman had to pay another $55,000 in compensation. Such a light sentence, who knows that thanks to the new coronavirus, the judge Gu Nian and the two have no previous criminal records, and are not violent criminals, and they are not young (56 and 63 years old each), considering that they are prone to infection with the virus in prison groups, they raise their hands; if they are lucky, they have become the beneficiaries of the epidemic, but the book industry has no place for them.
The hidden greed of human nature, once provoked, is like an out-of-control train that is rapidly derailed, rushing to the road of destruction. For those who cherish books and love cultural relics, Shulman and Prioré are unforgivable, they deprive the public of the opportunity to enjoy those treasures, especially the original illustrations and maps of some ancient books, such a book destruction is really a thousand fingers and extremely spurned atrocities; the Carnegie Library in Pittsburgh also issued a statement, disappointed by the verdict, believing that it cannot show the seriousness of the crimes of the two people. Still, I won't forget the kindness of the early Shulman who led me to townsend's bookstore. Remembering that the two bookstores I visited at the same time in Pittsburgh had such a completely different opportunity more than a decade later, I wrote this short article of reminiscence.
postscript:
After the incident, the police recovered some books and maps from the warehouse of the Kaliban Bookstore, but most of the stolen subjects were missing. Newton's first edition of The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy was one of the few books that had been lost and recovered, and Caliban had sold it seven years earlier to Pom Harrington, a well-known london bookmaker, for seventy-two thousand five hundred pounds, and Harrington had sold it to a collector for a double price of fourteen or five thousand pounds; two years earlier, the reputable Harrington had immediately returned the money to the collector, retrieved the Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy and returned it to the library, and he himself bore all the losses and became one of the bitter masters.
Editor-in-Charge: Gu Ming
Proofreader: Yan Zhang