Rare Book Monthly

Articles - May - 2017 Issue

Frank Herrmann [1927-2017]

Frank Herrmann, writer, publisher and auctioneer died at his home In Essex on Sunday, a month short of his 90th birthday, following a long battle with illness.

 

After a distinguished career in publishing with Faber & Faber, Methuen’s and Ward Lock, and having himself written the Giant Alexander books as well as the acclaimed The English as Collectors, Herrmann entered the world of antiquarian books when he joined Sotheby’s to reorganise their book department soon after the publication of his Sotheby’s: Portrait of an Auction House, in 1980, following 4 years of secondment to the auction house to research its history. With an outsider’s eye and with teutonic efficiency (German by birth, his parents had fled Nazi Germany to settle in England in 1937) Frank introduced “Fast Sales” to clear the backlog of consignments – he reduced the waiting time from consignment to sale date from some 14 months to 4 weeks. He soon became head of Sotheby’s Overseas Operations outside the UK and America, a role he relished for 3 years. When Sotheby’s decided in 1983 to raise the threshold for consignments to £500, Frank saw an opportunity to create a new auction house, similar to the late lamented Hodgson’s of Chancery Lane. In cahoots with Lord John Kerr (former head of Sotheby’s Book department) and David Stagg, the dynamic force behind Hodgson’s and latterly the Sotheby’s Fast Sales, he founded Bloomsbury Book Auctions, which Geraldine Norman of the Times heralded at the time as the first specialist book auction house to open in London in 100 years.

 

Kerr, Herrmann and Stagg were an unlikely triumvirate but mightily complementary and effective, with BBA rapidly becoming a major force in the rare book world. Lord John was the quiet figure-head, highly respected throughout the trade and with a remarkable breadth and depth of knowledge; Stagg was the livewire – tall, devastatingly good-looking, charming and infectiously enthusiastic. Both were brilliant auctioneers. Frank was the financial and strategic brain behind the whole enterprise: gentle, unflappable, visionary but also with an extraordinary eye for detail (the design and layout of the orange catalogues, down to the font size, were one of his particular focuses). One journalist described him as an “affable Maecenas”. Generous with his time, encyclopaedic knowledge of the book and art world, in business Frank was naturally cautious with money, always had a financial “buffer” and seldom, if ever, had to go to the bank for an overdraft. He was a gifted and prolific writer of articles (but had almost illegible hand-writing!); he loved to entertain friends and colleagues at the Travellers’ Club, at Double Crown Club dinners and, if you brought an object to show others and on which you could elucidate, at the Society of Antiquaries.  He was immensely proud of his beloved wife Patricia, their four children and his and their successes. Amongst a host of triumphant sales at Bloomsbury, consigned directly as a result of Frank’s standing in the book world (Ralph and Phylis Yablon; Wynne Jeudwine; Curwen Studio archive to name but a few) one of his own particular favourites was the private treaty sale of the working library of Graham Greene, which he single-handedly negotiated with Boston College in Connecticut for nigh on $1m, the collection having dismissively been valued by a well-established and respected specialist modern literature firm in London at a mere £30,000. He loved that story!  

 

He was scrupulously fair, honest and ran his auction house with the utmost integrity. He made work both fun and fascinating. When he finally retired in 2002, shortly after he and Lord John (who were almost exactly the same age) could boast a combined age of 150, Frank continued to take avid interest in the book world and Bloomsbury, then latterly Forum, in particular. He loved receiving the catalogues and right up until the last few weeks was delighted to hear news and give his thoughts on recent auctions, and especially reminisce about how much copies of books reported in that week’s ATG had fetched back in the mid-80s.

 

Numerous current members of the book trade began their careers or passed through the Bloomsbury portals over the years, where we learnt directly or by a form of bibliophilic osmosis from Frank. Of course, it is the majority of the current team at Forum Auctions who have most to thank Frank for and his business ethos lives on in all they do. With a resounding ironic echo of events some 30 years earlier, most of them left Bloomsbury in 2016 to join the new books and works on paper specialists (double-irony, founded by another German, Stephan Ludwig). Rupert Powell, Dido Arthur and Justin Phillips were all given their very first jobs by Frank - Dido was initially given the task of systematically arranging his vast private collection of Sotheby’s catalogues. Those who also fell directly under his aegis or were employed by Bloomsbury at some point in its history include: Simon Luterbacher (Liss Books); Luke Batterham and Simon Roberts (Bonham’s); Clare Trimming (Beaux Books); Ian Kidman (Ian Kidman Rare Books); Angus Robb and soon to be joined by Roddy Newlands (Bernard Shapero Rare Books); John Collins (Rosebery’s); Steve Cain (Maggs Bros.) and in the US, Jeremy Markowitz (Donald Heald Rare Books); Richard Austin (Sotheby’s NY); Tom Lamb (Bonham’s); Pete Costanzo (Doyle’s); James Cummins III (James Cummins Rare Books)…and many more.

 

Frank Herrmann’s legacy is truly alive and thriving throughout the rare book world. We will all miss him dearly but he can now rest in peace.

 

Rupert Powell

Rare Book Monthly

  • Freeman’s | Hindman
    Western Manuscripts and Miniatures
    July 8, 2025
    Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. FRANCESCO PETRARCH (b. Arezzo, 20 July 1304; d. Arqua Petrarca, 19 July 1374). $20,000-30,000.
    Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. CIRCLE OF THE MASTER OF THE VITAE IMPERATORUM (active Milan, 1431-1459). $15,000-20,000.
    Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. CIRCLE OF ATTAVANTE DEGLI ATTAVANTI (GABRIELLO DI VANTE) (active Florence, c. 1452-c. 1520/25). $15,000-20,000.
    Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. FOLLOWER OF HERMAN SCHEERE (active London, c. 1405-1425). $15,000-20,000.
    Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. An exceptionally rare, illuminated music leaf from a Mozarabic Antiphonal with sister leaves mostly in museum collections. $11,500-14,000.
    Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. Exceptional leaf from a prestigious Antiphonary by a leading illuminator of the late Duecento. $11,500-14,000.
    Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. CIRCLE OF THE MASTER OF MS REID 33 and SELWERD ABBEY SCRIPTORIUM (AGNES MARTINI?) (active The Netherlands, Groningen, c. 1468-1510). $10,000-15,000.
    Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. Previously unknown illumination from one of the most renowned Gothic Choir Book sets of the Middle Ages. $6,000-8,000.
  • Forum Auctions
    Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
    17th July 2025
    Forum, July 17: Lucianus Samosatensis. Dialogoi, editio princeps, second issue, Florence, Laurentius Francisci de Alopa, 1496. £10,000 to £15,000.
    Forum, July 17: Boccaccio (Giovanni). Il Decamerone, Florence, Philippo di Giunta, 1516. £10,000 to £15,000.
    Forum, July 17: Henry VII (King) & Philip the Fair (Duke of Burgundy). [Intercursus Magnus], [Commercial and Political Treaty between Henry VII and Philip Duke of Burgundy], manuscript copy in Latin, original vellum, 1499. £8,000 to £12,000.
    Forum, July 17: Bible, English. The Holy Bible, Conteyning the Old Testament, and the New, Robert Barker, 1613. £4,000 to £6,000.
    Forum, July 17: Bond (Michael). A Bear Called Paddington, first edition, signed presentation inscription from the author, 1958. £4,000 to £6,000.
    Forum Auctions
    Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
    17th July 2025
    Forum, July 17: Yeats (William Butler). The Secret Rose, first edition, with extensive autograph corrections, additions and amendments by the author for a new edition, 1897. £6,000 to £8,000.
    Forum, July 17: Byron (George Gordon Noel, Lord). Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, bound in dark green morocco elaborately tooled in gilt and with 3 watercolours to fore-edge, by Fazakerley of Liverpool, 1841. £4,000 to £6,000.
    Forum, July 17: Miró (Juan), Wassily Kandinsky, John Buckland-Wright, Stanley William Hayter and others.- Spender (Stephen). Fraternity, one of 101 copies, with signed engravings by 9 artists. £6,000 to £8,000.
    Forum, July 17: Sowerby (George Brettingham). Album comprising 22 leaves of original watercolour drawings of fossil remains of Cheltenham and Vicinity, [c.1840]. £6,000 to £8,000.
    Forum, July 17: Mathematics.- Blue paper copy.- Euclid. De gli Elementi, Urbino, Appresso Domenico Frisolino, 1575. £12,000 to £18,000.
  • Sotheby’s
    Books, Manuscripts and Music from Medieval to Modern
    Now through July 10, 2025
    Sotheby’s, Ending July 10: Book of Hours by the Masters of Otto van Moerdrecht, Use of Sarum, in Latin, Southern Netherlands (Bruges), c.1450. £20,000 to £30,000.
    Sotheby’s, Ending July 10: Albert Einstein. Autograph letter signed, to Attilio Palatino, on his research into General Relativity, 12 May 1929. £12,000 to £18,000.
    Sotheby’s, Ending July 10: John Gould. The Birds of Europe, [1832-] 1837, 5 volumes, contemporary half morocco, subscriber’s copy. £40,000 to £60,000.
    Sotheby’s
    Books, Manuscripts and Music from Medieval to Modern
    Now through July 10, 2025
    Sotheby’s, Ending July 10: Ian Fleming. A collection of James Bond first editions, 8 volumes in all. £8,000 to £12,000.
    Sotheby’s, Ending July 10: J.K. Rowling. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, 1997, first edition, hardback issue. £50,000 to £70,000.
    Sotheby’s, Ending July 10: J.R.R. Tolkien. Autograph letter signed, to Amy Ronald, on Pauline Baynes's map of Middle Earth, 1970. £7,000 to £10,000.
  • Rare Book Hub is now mobile-friendly!
  • DOYLE
    Rare Books, Autographs & Maps
    July 23, 2025
    DOYLE, July 23: WALL, BERNHARDT. Greenwich Village. Types, Tenements & Temples. Estimate $300-500
    DOYLE, July 23: STOKES, I. N. PHELPS. The Iconography of Manhattan Island, 1498-1909. New York: Robert H. Dodd, 1915-28. Estimate: $3,000-5,000
    DOYLE, July 23: [AUTOGRAPH - US PRESIDENT]FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT. A signed photograph of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Estimate $500-800
    DOYLE, July 23: [ARION PRESS]. ABBOTT, EDWIN A. Flatland. A Romance of Many Dimensions. San Francisco, 1980. Estimate $2,000-3,000.
    DOYLE, July 23: TOLSTOY, LYOF N. and NATHAN HASKELL DOLE, translator. Anna Karénina ... in eight parts. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., [1886]. Estimate: $400-600
    DOYLE, July 23: ROWLING, J.K. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. London: Bloomsbury, 2000. Estimate $1,200-1,800

Article Search

Archived Articles