Bernard Shapero

Bernard John Shapero (born August 1963) is a British dealer in antiquarian rare books and works on paper, the founder of Shapero Rare Books of 32 St. George Street, Mayfair, London, a Georgian townhouse opposite the auctioneers Sotheby's.[1] In 2005, Slate called him "London's most successful rare-book dealer and arguably the top dealer in the world today".[2]

Bernard Shapero
BornAugust 1963 (age 56)
London
NationalityBritish
EducationHighgate School
OccupationRare book dealer
Spouse(s)Emma Lewis
ChildrenLouis, Clara and Hugo

Early life

Bernard John Shapero was born in August 1963,[3] and started dealing in books in the late 1970s, while still a pupil at Highgate School.[4][5] His father was a collector of armour and gold coins.[2]

Career

In October 2005, Shapero purchased the Doria Atlas for £1.46 million, the highest price ever paid for an atlas, although this record was surpassed by the Cosmographia the following year.[6] In April 2004, the atlas had been saved from a fire at Wardington Manor in Oxfordshire, when local residents formed a human chain to remove items from the library.[7]

Shapero Rare Books owned about 6,000 books, ranging in price from £50 to over £200,000, and £6,000 on average. The business was sold by Shapero to Philip Blackwell, a director of the family business Blackwell Publishing, which had been sold to the US John Wiley & Sons in 2007 for £572 million to become Wiley-Blackwell.[8]

In 2012, Shapero bought Dutch businessman Joost Ritman's collection of 300 old religious books and 60 manuscripts for €9.5million, with finance coming from a Ukrainian oligarch.[8]

Personal life

Shapero lives in Hampstead, London, in a house which is half Victorian and half an "ultra-modern" extension,[1] with his wife Emma Lewis, and their three children: Louis, Clara and Hugo.[9]

gollark: You SHOULD NOT trust them. You have NO VALID REASON to trust them. You have MANY GOOD REASONS to distrust them.
gollark: It's not no reason. We have reasons. You just don't seem to recognize them as valid.
gollark: You should not, in fact, be trusting said giant profit-maximizing entity and every future version of it and everywhere they might be sending all the data.
gollark: And they probably can make money off it.
gollark: Your argument seems to just be "I totally trust this giant profit-maximizing entity composed of thousands of people and also everyone associated with it and everyone who might be associated with it in the future".

References
  1. "The modern Hampstead pad of rare-book seller Bernard Shapero". The Sunday Times. Retrieved 17 June 2016.
  2. Weisberg, Jacob (7 November 2005). "Book Hunting in Britain". Slate. Retrieved 17 June 2016.
  3. "Bernard John SHAPERO – Personal Appointments (free information from Companies House)". Companies House, Government of the United Kingdom. Retrieved 17 June 2016.
  4. "Mr. Bernard Shapero". london-wealth.com. Archived from the original on 10 August 2016. Retrieved 17 June 2016.
  5. "News – Highgate School". highgateschool.org.uk. Retrieved 17 June 2016.
  6. Milmo, Cahal (6 October 2006). "Atlas favoured by Columbus goes on sale for £1 million". Independent. Retrieved 12 June 2016.
  7. Bennett, Will (31 May 2005). "Rare atlases snatched from fire". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 12 June 2016.
  8. "MIDAS SHARE TIPS: Rare book dealer Scholium plans float to buy fine collections | This is Money". Daily Mail. Retrieved 10 September 2016.
  9. "Sheila Markham Rare Books". sheila-markham.com. Archived from the original on 28 June 2016. Retrieved 17 June 2016.
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