Background
Wilberforce Eames was born on October 12, 1855, in Newark, New Jersey, United States, but he spent most of his early life in Brooklyn. He was a son of Nelson Eames and Phoebe Harriet Crane.
https://www.amazon.com/Letter-Columbus-discovery-America-introduction/dp/B010LQYM7O/?tag=2022091-20
1892
https://www.amazon.com/First-Printing-New-York-Classic-Reprint/dp/0365083771/?tag=2022091-20
1928
bibliographer Librarian writer
Wilberforce Eames was born on October 12, 1855, in Newark, New Jersey, United States, but he spent most of his early life in Brooklyn. He was a son of Nelson Eames and Phoebe Harriet Crane.
Wilberforce Eames only received formal schooling for four years. Instead, he learned about books, printing, and publishing in his own way.
Wilberforce Eames received an honorary degree from Harvard University in 1896. The University of Michigan and Brown University also gave him an honorary degree in 1924.
Wilberforce Eames worked from the age of nine at various jobs, including newspaper delivery boy, and by the age of thirteen he became a full-time printer’s assistant at the East New York Sentinel. In 1868 he began to work as a clerk and messenger at the East New York Post Office. He also worked as a clerk at Gillespie’s Bookshop and as an assistant at bookstores of Henry Miller and Charles Woodward.
In 1885, he took up a post of superintendent at Lenox Library and became personal assistant for George Henry Moore. After the death of Moore in 1892 Eames became an assistant librarian, and eventually a full librarian at Lenox. In 1911, Wilberforce Eames became Chief of the American History Division at the New York Public Library. From 1916 to 1937 he worked as a bibliographer at the New York Public Library. Eames was an author of The First Year of Printing in New-York, May, 1693 to April, 1694. He also translated The Letter of Columbus on the discovery of America and published it in 1892.
Wilberforce Eames was an American bibliographer and librarian, famous for his bibliographic skill. He was also known as the 'Dean of American bibliographers'.
In 1929, he received the gold medal of the Bibliographical Society of London, and honors of the New York Historical Society in 1931. Besides, in 1933 Eames was awarded Honorary Membership in the American Library Association.
Wilberforce Eames was a member and co-founder of the Bibliographic Society of America. He was also a member of the American Antiquarian Society, American Library Association and Grolier Club.
Books were never merely the tools Eames used in his work; they were his passion and occupied the center of his life. Eames collected books relentlessly from the time he could first buy them, and he viewed his gradually increasing salary first and foremost as a means to acquire more books.
