"By heritage, inclination, appearance, baptism and temperament Vincent Starrett was destined to be a bookman.  By that is meant not one who deals in books or necessarily one who writes them, but rather a man who lives by them.  As Samuel Johnson was a bookman so Vincent Starrett is one."...............  Ben Abramson on Vincent Starrett.

Vincent Starrett enjoyed a distinguished career as a newspaperman, poet, literary critic, novelist, mystery writer and book collector.  In effect, he was the quintessential bookman.  Although his work covers several genre, it is hoped to include an extensive Bibliography and, in tandem with this, incorporate  an   updated examination of current trends in the antiquarian market for his books, pamphlets and broadsheets.
He was a prolific writer with the vast majority of his books being published between 1918 and 1945.  In his later life, his output was somewhat more sporadic and, unfortunately, due to personal tragedy, several planned books were never completed.   Through this Site, it is intended to investigate the life of an extraordinary man, in as much detail as possible, given limited resources, and to celebrate his literary achievements with fellow enthusiasts.

Extracts from Starrett's letters:
"I wish I were the first-class cynic I used to think I was."
"What was it I said?  That I made it a point always to believe the worst of women; but to treat them as if I believed only the best?  Something like that, I think; but probably I was only being smart.  One never really knows what one believes.....it depends on the circumstances of the moment."
"Hunting down old, elusive books is the greatest adventure in the world."
"I'm delighted that I've started you on the happy path - sweet and perilous - of book acquisition.  You may ultimately curse me for it, but always in the same breath you'll thank me."

Starrett quotations from his Books Alive column:
"It is proverbial that the right kind of booksellers are musty creatures, blinking owlishly in the cavern-like recesses of darkling gopher-holes called 'olde booke shoppes'.  A little frightened by the tempo of contemporary life, taciturn and suspicious of casual customers, a couple of months behind in their rent, yet they have tea and crumpets and an apt Vergilian quotation for the right sort of visitor, preferably Charles Lamb or the late John Quincy Adams.  That is what sentimental literature has done for the bookseller, and it is all very delightful fiction."
"There is nothing clever in using a complicated word; it merely implies ownership of a big dictionary.  And there is nothing clever in a complicated sentence; it merely implies possession of a muddled mind."  From A Little Anthology.   A Book of Literary Quotations Collected by Vincent Starrett, edited by Peter Ruber and Esther Longfellow.  Published by The Battered Silicon Dispatch Box (The Vincent Starrett Memorial Library, Vol. 9), 1996.

"The time will come, my watch thunders; the time will come, it whispers, when I shall not hear that careful beat; and it will sound on, my watch tells me, although I shall not hear it".  Extract from What's O'clock?  Published by Edwin B. Hill,  Ysleta, Texas, April 1930.

This Website will be perpetually under construction.  It will be up-dated as data and photographs become available. 

Vincent Starrett, on left smoking cigar, at book signing for Chicago Murders, c. 1945.

    This page last modified on Thursday, March 25, 2010