Browse Items (1387 total)

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A visual representation of a note left in the margin, likely by Stephen Blumberg, detailing plans for arriving at Colfax, CA. This excerpt is part of larger directions for travel by train from Omaha, NE to San Francisco, CA.

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Count Libri (1803-1869)
The word “book” translates to “libri” in Italian. It seems apt that one of the most sensational book thieves of all time is Count Guglielmo Bruto Icilio Timoleone Libri-Carruci della Sommaia, shortened to Count Libri. An…

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Alois Pichler (1833-1874)
Hot on the heels of Count Libri’s crimes, Alois Pichler stole thousands of books from the Imperial Library in St. Petersburg, Russia from 1869-1871. Born in Germany and trained as a theologian, Pichler took a job as…

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Thieves of Book Row (1926-1930)
In the first decades of the twentieth century, Manhattan’s famous Book Row consisted of six city blocks filled to the brim with second-hand bookstores. A variety of interesting personalities ran these stores; some…

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James Shinn (1936-2005)
The book thief James Shinn had the most profound and direct influence on Stephen Blumberg. Blumberg admitted that he was fascinated by Shinn “like a moth drawn to a flame.” Born in 1932, Shinn was a lifelong thief, and in the…

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