4                                 Carol Z. Rothkopf

espionage in the United States. But, he had enough time left over
to spend weekends visiting boyhood friends at Harvard where, be¬
tween bridge games, these better-educated friends gave Louis their
required reading list. The list was carefully saved, suggesting that
Louis did do this extensive "homework."

By the time World War I began, Louis was in France and asked
to be transferred to active duty with the Foreign Legion. His ser¬
vice in the artillery and, later, in the Army of Occupation as an
aide to General Mangin, won him a case full of medals, including
the Legion d'honneur—a lifelong source of pride.

If, as Margie always claimed, the Harvard reading list was the
seed from \\hich House of Books sprouted, it was Louis's meeting
with Hilaire Belloc while he was still in the army that directly led
to his transformation into a collector. Strange as it may seem, the
Jewish lieutenant from Brooklyn was fascinated by the notorious¬
ly anti-Semitic Belloc's writing. The two men corresponded and,
again according to Margie's recollections (in speeches she gave in
the 1970s), it was one of these letters from Belloc that changed the
direction of Louis's life:

In 1921, Belloc mentioned his new book ... and Louis went to his
Fourtlt Avenue bookdealer, as a reader and not as a collector, to pur¬
chase the book. He was informed that it had not been published in this
country and that he should go to James F. Drake and Co., who would
have a copy. [Louis] was appalled at the idea of going to a rare book
dealer—rare books meant Rosenbach and Gutenberg Bibles, but he
went.... That day, he purchased not only the Belloc but a copy of
Galsworthy's latest book, I think it was To Let [1921], in the correct
English edition, after it was explained to him why the English edition
was priced at $2.75 instead of the usual $2.50 fot a Scribner edition.
From this start, he built up in a few years, one of the great Galsworthy
collections of the time. The first time he paid $35.00 for a then rare
Galsworthy, he knew he was hooked as a collector....

It was just a short step from collecting to learning the art of bibli¬
ography. Self-taught, Louis first began to work on a supplement to