Acknowledgements

A Note on the Evolution of This Website, and an Appreciation to All Who Have Contributed Unto It, including the Many Antiquarian Booksellers Globally Who Have Shared with Us the Profundity of Their Knowledge, Particularly Regarding First Printings, States, Issues and Variants. —-Larry James Gianakos, June 12, 2025

This website was inaugurated in 2012 and reflects the technical wizardry of my elder nephew and godson, the innovative entrepreneur Michael Justin Smylie, in consort with the brilliant designing eye of my lifelong friend and collections partner, the more than fifty-year regional attorney and developer Robert P. Safos, Esquire. In the ensuing years, it has been much enhanced by the two years of conscientious effort by Robert’s son Michael, educated at both Oxford University and the Korbel School of Diplomacy, in helping to create the vast inventory list that will soon appear as a cornerstone to its vast parameters as a storehouse of bibliographical, antiquarian and purely literary research. The soaring animus of this collection also endures through the great legacy of Robert’s eldest son, Christopher, who left us much too soon at just thirty-eight, although in his several years of international peregrinations, he touched movingly the lives of scores of all manner of nascent dreamers, so much so that the totality of his impact has superseded many having lived even generations longer.

The collection was early endorsed by the international visionary venture capitalist Nikkos J. Frangos, now based in Athens, Greece, whom I have come to label a “Renaissance Man,” raised in Belgravia, London, in what was once the home of Lord Laurence Oliver and Vivien Leigh, who commented that it represented a “collective wisdom,” and which ultimately led him, alongside of his cousin and mentor, the yet London based George T. Lemos, and the tandem team behind the Bristol, England created MarbleMen Productions, to executive produce “The Pulitzer at 100,” a documentary created by the late Oscar and Emmy-winning documentary filmmaker Kirk Simon, in consort with his brother, Chevalier Ron Simon, the longtime television curator of Manhattan’s Paley Center for Media. “The Pulitzer at 100” remains the only feature-length documentary tribute on the centenary commemoration of America’s most celebrated literary and journalistic honor.

In an increasingly devoted circle, members of my own family have contributed unto this collection–my sisters, Dr. Patricia Gianakos and Dr. Irene Gianakos, and Irene’s husband, Michael Gerard Smylie, and from our mutual friend, the celebrated regional restaurateur Mr. John Kouvas, and his own compassionate circle of family and friends. We have had the great honor to receive from Marguerite Khouri her own tribute to the collection, titled “A Literary Landscape of the United States,” based upon key images within the Pulitzer Prize collection, which is the hallmark of what is in fact a much broader assembly of globally landmark literature, extending as far back as 1749. Within this magical group I include those whose faith in the limitless potential of the collection has been steadfast: Dr. David Spangler, the long feted composer, lyricist and librettist, and founder of the International Lovewell Institute for the Creative Arts; Attorney Cintia Calevoso and her husband Ignacio, the epitome of rarefying and magnifying beauty through each of us by way of their Alavina Foundation; the international promoter, representative and affiliate of epochal civil rights legends, Mr. Marcus Wright, who early embraced the genius components of these talismanic prophets within great literature, William Shoermaker, who has commandeered Navy ships, private flights and an underground mine, but who possesses the soul of a revelatory novelist; Douglas P. McCraw, whose “Fat Village” community in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, has been a sublime prototype for artistic communities the world over, but whose connoisseur embrace of both fine literature and art—he is indeed a most “literary artist”—is legion; Michael J. Miarecki, that “Top 100” Sotheby’s Realtor whom I have called a “Prince of the Wider World,” but who from the very outset, even as he would inculcate its myriad of diamond-faceted facets, become an advocate of all that this collection could animate in that global community which he regularly inhabits; Phillip Elton Collins, a widely influential author and scenarist, being an incomparable exponent of the self-healing capacity in each of us, with a global podcast reaching into the millions; Dr. Wilma Bulkin Siegel, the very essence of a “Renaissance Lady” as she travels the wider world, brilliantly purveying the duality of her life’s mission–as scientist (formally an oncologist) and consummate artist whose scores of painted subjects have found healing also in her revelatory brushstrokes; Investment Counselor Scott Rassler and wife Karen and their monumental daughters Hebrew scholar and psychologist Rabbi Dr. Brielle and Juilliard School trained explosively talented musical composer and conductor Shelbie, and Telesphoros “Telly” R. Davidson, the much accomplished media and cultural critic and published historian on both pop culture and the ongoing divide within our society properly labeled under the rubric of “culture wars.”

Among the innumerable antiquarian booksellers who have shared with us their understanding of the most esoteric if not recondite aspects of rare first printings of seminal literature, and whose names we will continue to single out as we have come to cherish your comprehension even as we all of us cherish the seminal literature itself. Among this special and enduring coterie, we extend a special appreciation to Mr. James Cahill, whose passionate regard for the intricate aspects of fine literature in its most axiomatic form has dynamically elevated the collectible first edition to the high value of even some coveted world-class paintings.

Now, as we commence to reveal upon this website the many thousands of pieces we have meticulously assembled and documented through these fifty-three years, we also are much indebted to the published regional historian, musician, teacher and cultural promoter, Adreanne Foos, who has gifted unto this website countless hours, completely gratis, towards helping make this a method by which all of our shared humanity, whatever the diversity of their gender, race, ethnicity, faith, political ideology, or reading preference, may find a common understanding. For the illumination great literature can deliver to anyone anywhere–even should we read in Braille, is incalculable. And as no two persons ever read the same book in the same way, perhaps this affords to our often feeling dislocated and even disappropriated shared humanity, an antidote–for in their common and yet individual reading they can find comfort, knowing that the many facets of their own nobler aspects of character become revealed to them at last.

The talents and knowledge of the following antiquarian book authorities were invaluable in assembling this extraordinary collection:
Allen Ahearn, Patricia Ahearn, and Beth Fisher of Quill & Brush (Dickerson, Md.); the staff of Between the Covers Rare Books (Gloucester City, N.J.); Kevin Johnson of Royal Books (Baltimore, Md.); Salvador Cortes of Modern Rare (Chicago, Ill.); Bill Stevens of Books of Choice (Bloomington, Minn.); Dan Adams of Waverly Books (Santa Monica, Calif.); Michael Manz of Yesterday’s Gallery & Babylon Revisited (East Woodstock, Conn.); James Jaffe and Tom Wood of James Jaffe Rare Books (New York, N.Y.); Ron Randall and Pia Oliver of Randall House Rare Books (Santa Barbara, Calif.); Donald Stine of Antic Hay (Asbury Park, N.J.); Eric Davidson (Medford, N.J.); Roman Abramovsky (Palisades Park, N.J.); Peter Stern (Boston, Mass.); Stephen Pepple of Buddenbrooks, Inc. (Boston, Mass.); Ken Lopez (Hadley, Mass.); Ed Smith (Rollingbay, Wash.); Ralph Sylvester and Stathis Orphanos of Sylvester & Orthanos (Hollywood, Calif.); George Houle (Los Angeles, Calif.); James Pepper (Santa Barbara, Calif.); James Cahill (Aliso Viejo, Calif.); Robert Dagg (San Francisco, Calif.); Thomas A. Goldwasser (San Francisco, Calif.); Mark Post (San Francisco, Calif.); Charles Agvent (Mertztown, Penn.); Jeff Bergman (Fort Lee, N.J.); Emma Salazar of E.B. Books (Vancouver, B.C.); James Cummins (New York, N.Y.); Tim Kendall-Carpenter of timkcbooks (Manchester, U.K.); Peter Harrington of Peter Harrington Books (London, U.K.); Alexander Buchlis of Ernestoic Books (Williamsville, N.Y.); John Lutschak (Burlington, Wis.); Douglas Clausen of Clausen Books (Colorado Springs, C.O.); Stephen Johnson of Allington Antiquarian Books, LLC (Winston-Salem, N.C.); John W. Knott, Jr. (Laurel, M.D.); Dan Pope of Dan Pope Books (West Hartford, C.T.); and Heather O’Donnell of Honey & Wax Booksellers (Brooklyn, N.Y.), Ann Open Book (Lansing, MI), Arroyo Seco Books (Pasadena, CA), Atlanta Vintage Books (Atlanta, GA), Barbara Mader (Children’s Books, University Place, WA), Bird’s Books (Ellicott City, MD), Boards & Wraps (Baltimore, MD), Dan Pope Books (West Hartford, CT), G.S. MacManus Co. (Bryn Mawr, PA), Gibbs Books (Buffalo, NY), Great Matter Books (Grand Rapids, MI), Grendel Books (Springfield, MA), Karen Wickliff Books (Columbus, OH), Larry W Price Books (Portland, OR), M.S. Books (Salisbury, MD), Midway Book Store (St. Paul, MN), Second Story Books (Rockville, MD), The Calico Cat Bookshop (Ventura, CA), The Literary Lion (San Diego, CA) and Ulysses Books (Trumansburg, NY).