ROY VERNON SOWERS: A LIFE IN RARE BOOKS. by Mason, Roger Burford. (Roy Vernon Sowers.) - 1997

Toronto: Subway Books, 1997. 93 pp, 8vo (8 1/2" H). One of the trade edition of 950 copies. B&w illustrations. "A Canadian whose first shop, in the mid-1920s, was a mecca for Toronto collectors and writers, Sowers later settled in Southern California. There he dealt rarities to the emerging carriage trade and subsequently worked at the famous Huntington Library. Later still, he was a conspicuous book-and print-dealer at a succession of locations in San Francisco, where he also patronized and promoted the fine-press movement. Sowers, who died in 1970, spent his last years gathering books in Britain and Europe for resale through catalogues from his remote fruit farm in the Santa Cruz Mountains. His catalogues (he issued seventy-nine in all) were notable for more than the often extraordinary books they described so knowledgeably, from modern first editions (in the first years of his career) to titles in early medicine and the history of science (areas which Sowers helped to make fashionable). His catalogues were themselves collected for the grumpy erudition of their introductory essays, pieces which grew more curmudgeonly as Sowers aged. In a trade that reveres both learning and eccentricity, Roy Vernon Sowers was held in special regard." Interior - clean and tight with no previous ownership marks. Exterior - minor darkening to spine.. First Edition. Soft Cover. Very Good+.