Where Would We Be Without Them? Book Collectors, Bibliophiles, and the Tauchnitz Legacy

This chapter highlights the invaluable contributions made to the Tauchnitz legacy by book collectors Theodore Stanton (1851–1925), the team of William B. Todd (1919–2011) and Ann Bowden (1924–2001), and Karl H. Pressler (1926–2009). It provides details on how and why these individuals formed their collections of Tauchnitz Edition books, as well as of other Tauchnitz-related materials, and also informs readers of these collections’ status today. In addition, the chapter draws attention to the key roles three other bibliophile collectors played in ensuring that the Tauchnitz firm and its productions would eventually receive the recognition they deserved: Michael Sadleir (1888–1957), Simon Nowell-Smith (1909–1996), and Anthony Newnham (1926–1992). It concludes with brief descriptions of the ongoing work of collectors Stefan Welz, Alexander Gansa, Andrew Roth and Al Jollans. All these individuals, past and present, this chapter demonstrates, have made possible much of the research about Tauchnitz carried out thus far. For their labors, the author contends, they all richly deserve to be recognized as major contributors to the Tauchnitz firm’s legacy.