It’s not every day that a trove of Renaissance German books mysteriously appears on a Chicago sidewalk. But that’s exactly what happened on March 1, 2024, as Chicago resident Robert Miller took his dog, Sparky, for their regular evening walk. The pair came across a group of very old books lying on the sidewalk. Nobody else was nearby, and Miller was concerned that the bindings would get damp if they stayed out overnight. As a former history major, Miller knew the books were important and worth protecting, so he decided to take them home.
As it turned out, they are indeed rare, ranging in date from 1525 to 1725, and written in German, Latin, and French. They even appear to retain their early or original bindings. Miller took one of the volumes to show officers at a neighboring police station soon thereafter, where the find was announced at roll call for several days. When no one came forth with any additional information, Miller contacted the Newberry to see what he should do next.
When we first corresponded, I asked Miller to send us more pictures so we could identify the books and look for clues. Curiously, while there are some signs of their sixteenth-century ownership, all the books lacked recent institutional markings. This indicated that the books were more likely to have been owned by an unidentified bookseller or private collector than a library. After our initial attempts find the owner petered out a few weeks later, Miller offered to give the books to the Newberry. He wanted the works to go to an institution if no clear owner could be located.
We then alerted the Antiquarian Booksellers Association of America and International League of Antiquarian Booksellers to be sure that these books were not individual items stolen from a visiting book dealer. They quickly circulated the details of the find. However, no one from these organizations came forward with proof of ownership.
Indeed, we were convinced that we would now be able to accept the books as a donation. However, on November 1, nearly eight months after Miller first found the books, I came across one of the lost books, the binding dated 1561, on an old page from the Austrian book dealer, Antiquariat Inlibris’s website. They kindly confirmed that they had sold the book to Chicagoan Marvin Rawski back in 2021 and put me in touch with him. While the phone number didn’t work, the email did, and we were able to reunite this enthusiastic octogenarian book collector with his missing books just a few days later.
There is something truly surprising about a group of seemingly stolen rare books being abandoned in the wilds of Chicago. As it turned out, there was absolutely no foul play involved. Rawski was tidying up some old archival boxes and accidentally took one with the books out to the trash as well. It seems that the box fell on the ground, spilling its contents. By the time Rawski thought to go back for it, his neighbor Robert Miller had swooped in to protect the books.
Our deep thanks go out to Robert Miller and Sparky, who should be praised for their well-timed constitutional and quick thinking to protect these historical treasures. These wonderful books are only held in a few collections around the world. When Marvin Rawski visited the Newberry on November 5 to be reunited with his collection of books, he generously donated two of the volumes to our collection: Assertionvm (1525) and Etlich Trostschrifften (1559). We thank Rawski for his generosity and look forward to accessioning these two books and sharing them with researchers in our reading rooms. It is deeply satisfying that the Newberry could at last reunite the other books with their true owner.
About the Author
Suzanne Karr Schmidt is George Amos Poole III Curator of Rare Books and Manuscripts at the Newberry.