Columbia Library columns (v.35(1985Nov-1986May))

(New York :  Friends of the Columbia Libraries.  )

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  v.35,no.1(1985:Nov): Page 14  



14                               Carol Z. Rothkopf

and sitting on the floor with the pile of books she had pulled from

the shelves."

In the summer of 1984, despite her now diminished energy and
failing health, iMargie decided that she must go to London to re¬
plenish the stock of House of Books, which had been forced to
move again just a few months earlier. Her good friends in London,
Valerie Eliot, Bernard Stone, Anthony Rota, and the late Winnie
Myers, did all they could to make this gallant voyage a little more
comfortable and easier for her. Alone briefly on an errand, Margie
was struck and killed by a truck. The horror of the ending was
mitigated by the knowledge that iMargie had carried on right to
the last doing what she loved best—selecting books in a city that
was virtually her second home.

In a moving obituary, Anthony Rota described Margie as

... the doyenne of the United States first edition market. She and her
husband .. . had founded the House of Books in 1930, in the depths of
the Depression. Together they made it synonymous with the best
standards of condition and with service to the young collectors who
gathered around them.... Hemingw a\'... Thomas Wolfe, T.S. Eliot,
and Robert Frost Mere among the authors the Cohns specialised in,
and sonic of the finest and most comprehensive collections of their
works in existence today were built almost exclusively by House of
Books.

The House of Books that Marguerite and Louis Cohn built has
moved for the last time. Margie picked the Rare Book and Manu¬
script Library at Columbia as the permanent home for their shop
because of its location in the city where her business had flour¬
ished and because of her many affectionate ties with several gen¬
erations of Columbia faculty and students. Looking ahead, as
Margie always did, she hoped that booklovers would always be
learning something about the unique world of rare books from
this very special collection spanning fifty-four years of the twen¬
tieth century.
  v.35,no.1(1985:Nov): Page 14