Dorothy Sloan
My
first encounter with rare book dealer Dorothy Sloan (1943-2021) involved books
of course, but also her garden of beautiful roses oddly juxtaposed with an open
garage door revealing an overflow of scuba equipment. Dorothy loved to garden
when not bookselling and her second husband Peter Oliver was a well-known scuba
instructor at The University of Texas. The year was 1992 and Dorothy lived and
worked at her house on the corner of 33rd and Duval Street in Austin, near the
UT campus. The home built in 1919 was a spacious, stucco two story on a
half-acre lot. It had been updated with some modern conveniences but retained
much of its original charm. Custom bookcases were in almost every room. The
natural, light wood finish of the bookcases blended harmoniously with the house
as if they had been there from the beginning. But they had not. Dorothy had
spent a small fortune on them. Her mighty reference collection, many thousands
of volumes strong, filled much of the shelf space. Stock and consignments
consumed the rest.
I’d come to interview for a job. Dorothy was looking for a part-time cataloguer and assistant. She greeted me at the door with a smile and ushered me in, skipping any formalities, and asked if I wanted something to drink. She poured lemonade from a glass pitcher, and we sat down. She was about fifty years old at the time but looked ten years younger. Dorothy was medium tall, with blond hair highlighted with a hint of grey, an athletic, attractive figure, and she exuded an energy and restlessness that kept her from being seated for very long unless she was cataloging. I don’t recall the details of our first conversation, but I do remember the spirit of it. Dorothy was witty and funny, and we bantered well together. In retrospect, I know she was testing me for compatibility. Dorothy tossed me some mildly off-colored humor and an occasional opinionated barb mixed in with questions about my book background. Being young and ignorant of her status as a rare book dealer, I showed no awe or adoration, just a keen interest. This first meeting must have satisfied her as I was invited back the next day to begin work.
Kurt Zimmerman & Dorothy Sloan, June 1992
Dorothy had recently acquired on
consignment the massive stock of bookseller Dudley R. Dobie (1904-1982), cousin
of famed Southwestern writer and personality, J. Frank Dobie. She was also
cataloging the Texana collection of William H. Morrow, Jr. The books were
overflowing the shelves, and Dorothy was basically a one-woman operation,
typically with a single assistant (me at this point) along with help from her
husband and family. I soon learned that Dorothy continually bit off more than
she could chew in terms of volume of books. She had an innate drive for
perfection in her cataloging descriptions combined with a strong desire to
produce extremely high caliber catalogues. This regularly puts her behind
schedule. This pattern would continue when she changed her focus from
traditional book dealing to auctions. Some consignors were patient, some
annoyed, and a few irate. Her letters / emails to consignors were often
lengthy, all polished gems of explanation, excuse, flattery, and promises. They
worked. To her credit, almost no one ever pulled a consignment, even when the
sale was months, or years behind schedule. Success in the end overrode most
objections.
On rare occasions an impatient consignor might show up unexpectedly in person. One memorable example happened shortly after I began working with her. William Morrow (1909-2002), who was in his early 80s at the time, came to check on the cataloging of his Texana collection, then about a year behind the original completion date. We all gathered in the living room. Morrow was old-school polite and quite a bookman himself, so I was fascinated with the introductory chat between him and Dorothy.
Morrow caught the collecting bug in 1929 after taking J. Frank Dobie’s famous course “Guide to Life and Literature of the Southwest” while studying at the University of Texas-Austin. He went to law school and became an oil and gas attorney for Humble Oil. From the early 1930s he scoured the bookstores of Texas and beyond for rare and interesting Texana. He worked with notable rare book dealers such as Charles F. Heartman. Morrow recounted decades earlier trading a batch of items that cost him fifteen dollars in exchange for Heartman’s unique issue of the famous Stephen F. Austin map of Texas (1834). The map was offered in Sloan’s catalogue almost sixty years later for $30,000 and acquired by the University of Texas. Morrow was a living link to a bygone collecting era.
There was discussion of the Stephen F. Austin map, and comments by Morrow on the origin of a few of his books that he pointed out on the adjoining shelves. Then he suddenly asked if she was going to finish the catalogue of his books before he died. Nonplussed, Dorothy gently replied that she would. And she did, fortunate that bookmen often live long lives. Both the catalogue itself and the brisk sale of the books were beyond his expectations, and I recall his wide smile the last time we saw him. Recently, I bought a copy of the catalogue inscribed by Morrow to historian Harwood Hinton. It’s the only copy I’ve seen that he signed. A rare Texana item, Zimmerman style.
Dorothy understood the mindset of a collector like Morrow very well, but she was fundamentally a dealer at heart. However, she tried her hand at collecting and assembled an extensive collection that focused on “Women in The Cattle Country,” issued as her bookseller catalogue No. 3 under the same title (1986). She told me that she considered the experiment a success but collected no more after that. In the lead up to publication of the catalogue, Dorothy wrote about forming the collection in an essay published in the October 7, 1985 issue of AB Bookman’s Weekly. She began,
"Women in ranching? My dear, this certainly would be a new path
in collecting, but three problems exist. First, I don’t see why you would want
to build a collection when there are only about 25 books on the subject. Secondly,
most of the books are too recent to be of interest to a real collector. And
finally, and most important, who cares even the least bit about such a subject?”
This
summary dismissal by my dear departed mentor, Warren R. Howell, immediately
became a personal challenge that led me to begin systematically collecting
books on women in the cattle industry. Over a decade has passed since Warren
and I had that conversation, and the collection has now grown to over 700
books, with a want list of about 75 as yet unlocated titles, plus the
inevitable books of which I am not aware.
At
the present time, my daughter, Julie, is preparing a catalogue of the
collection which will be issued this year. It is gratifying to realize that
despite Warren’s initial negativity on the subject of women and ranching, over
the years he became avidly interested in my collection and located for me some
of the best and most unusual books in it.
Cover proof with original watercolor by Theresa Avini
What Dorothy loved and gathered without end was her reference books. She built a formidable reference library of approximately 8,000 volumes during a career that spanned over forty-five years. In flush times and lean times, she continually bought reference material. When I worked with Dorothy, I recall her husband Peter shaking his head over an unexpected invoice for another batch of reference books. Peter handled much of the finances and would gently admonish her to rein in spending. “But I need them,” she would say. And that was the end of the discussion.
Dorothy began to hold auctions in the early 1990s and this gave her an excuse to expand her already large reference library. She reasoned (correctly) that an auctioneer would deal in a wider variety of material, including literature, fine press, science, medicine, et al. Although the internet eventually opened up further avenues of research, Dorothy understood that much knowledge was still found only in books and that an expansive reference library was indispensable.
The books were tools for her, and she was a master craftsman. She drew upon her library to catalog thousands of rare items, knowing not only what sources to access but also taking time to explore more obscure references. Her ability to utilize her reference material was exceptional. Dorothy was highly regarded for her detailed and accurate catalogue descriptions that remain an important source of information.
Kurt Zimmerman & Dorothy cataloging ca. 1992
We were together day after day at her
home, cataloging books and maps, her garden of roses just in view from a second
story window. The experience was rewarding and intense. Dorothy’s sense of
humor could be wickedly funny, but she was all business when cataloging. Like a
hummingbird, she would move quickly between bookcases, stopping for a moment to
hover, pulling books to consult. Time was no object. The result of her efforts
was an in-depth description with a focus on what made the book, map, or
document important, enhancing both the historical and monetary value of many
underappreciated items. I tried to keep up and learned much. But I would grow
hungry, and it would be well past lunch hour. Food was a lower priority for
Dorothy than for me. “I can make us some rice and beans,” she would say,
“that’s a quick meal.” I would grumble
and eat, but after a number of these rice and bean specials I began to bring my
own lunch.
Surprisingly, I learned that Dorothy was reluctant to express her own opinion in her catalogue descriptions. She structured them to be detailed and factual and always looked to quote or cite reference sources. They are models of their kind. She had many opportunities to interject her own thoughts about an item that would have taken the description to an even higher level. But she almost always deferred to the printed references. I noticed this right away working with her and encouraged her to make freer use of her knowledge -- to no avail; her ways were set.
One day after another lean lunch she randomly said, “I should make you catalog a cereal box.” I didn’t know what to make of this, so I mumbled something. She laughed and tossed her hair back and explained that her reputation for being able to catalog anything had resulted in this early “assignment” by her male colleagues. She took their teasing in stride, but she was sensitive to being a woman in a predominately man’s world of rare book dealing. This sparked memories. She shared her frustrations with me on the subject, but by the time I met her she had generally made peace with the occasional testosterone hijinks.
She did give me one example when the male-dominated world combined with her willingness to catalog difficult material certainly worked in her favor. When Johnny Jenkins acquired the Eberstadt stock in 1975 it was rightly hailed as a major coup. The best Western Americana and Texana material was sifted through and sold rather quickly. The Eberstadts had also specialized in Latin Americana, especially in their early bookselling career, and a great mass of Spanish language material awaited cataloging and re-discovery. It would be a complicated task. Dorothy was assigned the job as low woman on the totem pole. The Latin Americana turned out to contain many gems and Dorothy became an expert in the area. Through the cataloging and sale of this material she would meet numerous clients from the United States and Latin America. The rest of her career she acquired and sold many important Latin American items. One noted client was Mexican collector Roberto L. Mayer. I have before me an exhibition catalogue of Mayer’s material Mexico Ilustrado: Mapas, Planos, Grabados e Illustraciones de los Siglos XVI al XIX (1994), inscribed, “For Dorothy with appreciation for helping me build up a collection and for your friendship, Roberto.” Much of Mayer’s extensive library was sold at auction in 2010.
Dorothy’s rise to prominence as a
rare book dealer was an improbable one. She was born in Houston in 1943. Marrying
young, she eventually made her way to the University of Texas—Austin where she
majored in American Studies. One of her professors was William Goetzman,
historian and author of Army Exploration in the American West, 1803-1863
(1959) among many other works. He encouraged her interest in books. In the
early 1970s, Dorothy found her proverbial calling when she was hired by Warren
Howell, proprietor of John Howell-Books in San Francisco. This famous shop on
Post Street was founded by Warren’s father, John Howell in 1912. Warren Howell served as a mentor to Sloan. “I
was immediately thrown into the heady inside track on rare books, deals,
dealers and clients,” Sloan once said. “Every single day was exciting to me and
I threw myself wholeheartedly into doing the best job I could.”
I have Dorothy’s annotated copy of
the landmark John Howell—Books Catalogue 50, California. . . The Library of
Jennie Crocker Henderson (1979) inscribed, “For Dorothy Sloan, My most apt
student in the world of rare books. With love and affection from Warren R.
Howell.”
These heady years of book immersion were clouded by a complex personal life that pulled her in perhaps too many directions at once. She and her first husband divorced, and Dorothy returned to Texas in 1979, now an expert book woman and ready for a fresh start. She quickly found employment at The Jenkins Company in Austin, Texas. Johnny Jenkins was at the height of his biblio-stardom as a dealer in rare Texas material. He’d grown the business into one of the largest rare book operations in the country. It must have been quite a shock for Sloan to transition from the formal environment of Warren Howell’s shop to the free-wheeling style of Johnny Jenkins. But Sloan once again dove in and soon played a significant role cataloging the wide-ranging material. She was responsible for a number of Jenkins catalogues including Nos. 140 & 146 Latin Americana, and No. 154 Women (1983). It is telling of the times that she is not credited within. She worked there for about five years before she went out on her own as a rare book dealer in 1984. I have Dorothy’s working copies of Jenkins’s influential Basic Texas Books (1983, 1988). She is acknowledged for her assistance and for reading the draft of the manuscript. The 1988 edition is inscribed, “For Dorothy Sloan, with high personal respect and regard – your genuine love and enthusiasm for the world of books has made all of us in the book world admire you. We miss having you at the Jenkins Company. John H. Jenkins, Publication Day.”
Sloan’s first catalogue under her name appeared in December 1984. It is dedicated to “the memory of Warren R. Howell, who taught me to love rare books.” Designed by William Holman with a cover reproducing a Mexican-themed painting by her friend the artist Theresa Avini, it contains 213 books and maps for sale. The offerings are primarily related to Texas, California, ranching, Western exploration, Mexico, Latin America, and women’s studies– a template of subjects that would dominate her catalogues and auctions as an independent bookseller. A few highlights included a Frederick Catherwood folio Views of Ancient Monuments in Central America, Chiapas and Yucatan (1844), a rare Hernán Cortés letter to the King and Queen of Spain, Santa Anna’s own copy of Suárez y Navarro’s Historia de México y del general Antonio López de Santa-Anna. . . 1821 hasta 1848 (1850), the earliest known town plan map of any place in Texas (San Antonio, 1722), a second edition of Molina’s Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana (Mexico: 1571), an exceptional archive of Anaïs Nin letters, and many other less expensive but no less interesting items both well-known and newly resurrected through Sloan’s research.
Between 1984 and the early 2000’s,
Sloan produced twelve numbered bookseller catalogues. This relatively modest
number is deceptive as her Catalogue 10, The Library of Dudley R. Dobie,
appeared in five parts over many years, including Part I, the J. Frank Dobie
Collection (1993), Part III, The Library and Work of Carl Hertzog
(2000), and Part IV in three volumes of the Ranching Catalogue through
the letter “L”. Her daughter Julie (Jasmine) was heavily involved in cataloging
during the early years. After my relatively brief stint with Dorothy, Valerie
Urban became her assistant. I have encouraged Valerie to record her own
memories of the time.
Sloan’s catalogues stand apart not only for their scholarly descriptions and content, but also for their high-quality production. Dorothy utilized the services of the Austin fine press printing community in the production of all her catalogues, notably David Holman of the Wind River Press, and W. Thomas Taylor. Eric Beggs did much of the photography.
Most of her bookseller catalogues contained items from various acquisitions. But single-owner collections offered in Catalogue 5 The Library of Dr. Paul Burns (1988) and Catalogue 11 The Library of William H Morrow (1994) set the stage for Sloan’s transition into auctions.
Let’s pause for a moment and explore an interesting sidelight. Amid growing her independent business, Sloan inadvertently ignited the greatest firestorm in Texas rare book dealing history. Her biblio-intuition about a suspect copy of the rare original printing of the Texas Declaration of Independence would have far reaching implications for her former boss Johnny Jenkins and the wider rare book world. W. Thomas Taylor tells the story in his well-known Texfake (1991). He begins,
When Dorothy Sloan and William R. Holman approached the desk [at the University of Texas Barker Texas History Center] one morning in late June 1987, they were carrying a document that no doubt became the focus of attention. It was the original broadside printing of the Texas Declaration of Independence, which had been consigned to Sloan, a dealer in rare books, by a collector in Dallas. The collector wanted to sell the document; Sloan very much wanted to buy it. But responding to the sixth sense an experienced dealer develops when holding and examining a document, she was uneasy about it. She wanted to compare the collector’s copy with the copy in the Barker Center’s Vandale Collection, and she asked Bill Holman, a retired librarian with thirty years’ experience with rare books, to accompany her. Holman is also a distinguished book designer and printer, with a keen eye for typographic nuance.
They carefully compared the two documents, and all seemed fine until Holman laid one copy on top of the other. At that moment he noticed that on the collector’s copy the type area was perceptibly smaller—2 to 4 percent, he estimated. Combined with the fact that the printing of the collector’s copy was noticeably fuzzy compared with the crisp blackness of the copy in the university’s collection, this caused Holman to conclude that the collector’s copy was probably a fake.
This discovery set off a chain reaction that eventually exposed numerous forgeries of rare Texas documents and their sales involving dealers Jenkins, Dorman David, auctioneer Bill Simpson, as well as other witting and unwitting participants. In the resulting fallout, both Sloan and Tom Taylor resigned from the Antiquarian Booksellers Association of America (ABAA), the national trade organization, unhappy with the lack of response to the scandal.
I’m fortunate to have Sloan’s copy of Texfake in my collection. Taylor has inscribed it, “For Dorothy – a fellow-traveller from the beginning—now let’s hope this is the end.”
Her transition from bookseller to auction catalogues was the result of both frustration and accepting reality. Dorothy did not have enough working capital to buy and sell the rare material that she wanted. But consignment had worked well, albeit sporadically, with her regular catalogues. Auctions on the other hand were relatively clean cut—all or most of the items were sold in one go and then she could start over fresh. Also, the auction format appealed to consignors because of the nature of competitive bidding and possibly higher prices. From 1994 to 2016 she held twenty-four live auctions. Dorothy herself served as auctioneer of many of the sales. She was initially not comfortable in front of a group, and her early, somewhat halting style of auctioneering slowly evolved into a polished, relaxed presence.
In a major early coup, her second auction comprised the library of mighty California collector Henry H. Clifford (1910-1994). She had first met him at John Howell—Books. There is a photo in the Los Angeles Times of Dorothy sitting with and bidding for Henry Clifford at the third session of the famous Estelle Doheny sale in 1988. (Her heavily annotated Doheny auction catalogue recording Clifford’s bids is preserved in my collection.)
Sloan’s three-part auction of Clifford’s library was held from October 24-26, 1994, at the Biltmore Hotel, Los Angeles. The total for the three sales realized almost 2.1 million dollars (roughly 4.5 million in 2024). The first part contained Clifford’s complete Zamorano 80 collection based on the bibliography of the same name. The Zamorano 80 publication (1948) identified important California books selected by a committee of the biblio-oriented Zamorano Club of Los Angeles. The Club is named after Augustin Zamorano (1798-1842), the first printer in California. Some of the books were relatively easy to acquire but many were scarce or rare. One famed item, The Life and Adventures of Joaquin Murieta, the Celebrated California Bandit. By Yellow Bird [John R. Ridge] (1854) is recorded in only two copies, one being the Cowan-Wagner-Streeter-Beinecke copy at Yale. The Clifford “Yellow Bird” sold for $69,000.
The auction catalogue itself mirrors the quality of her bookseller catalogues, finely printed and augmented with plates, some in color. The descriptions are extensive, and the preliminary material reprints an essay by Clifford himself on collecting, a biographical sketch, and a history of the Zamorano Club. Part II of the Clifford Collection, California & the West, was sold on Oct. 25, 1994, and Part III, California Pictorial Letter Sheets, Oct. 26, 1994. This last was issued in a fine press folio format of 275 copies, fully illustrated and produced and printed by W. Thomas Taylor and David Holman. It remains a key reference work.
For the next decade, Sloan averaged more than one major auction a year, bringing to market an exceptional array of rare books, maps, and documents from various consignors, all catalogued and marketed to Sloan standards. One major sale represented her special interest and expertise in cartography: Auction Ten, Cartography and Views with an Emphasis on Texas and the West including the Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Stuart B. Gleichenhaus, took place in Houston on March 2, 2001. This stunning, color-illustrated catalogue with an introduction by Robert S. Martin comprised 365 lots.
In 2003, she sold the Californiana collections of Daniel G. Volkmann, Jr. Volkmann had purchased the Henry Clifford copy of “Yellow Bird” and other items at the 1994 Clifford sale. Volkmann, with the acquisition of “Yellow Bird,” achieved the collecting pantheon of assembling only the fourth complete set of the Zamorano 80 (the others being Streeter, Beinecke, and Clifford.) This would be Sloan’s second memorable auction involving the subject. She could have easily (and much less expensively) revised her Clifford Zamorano 80 auction catalogue to sell the Volkmann collection. Her decision to do something special instead resulted in a biblio-masterpiece. She had two highly regarded California historians and bibliographers, Gary Kurutz and Michael Mathes, write lengthy new descriptions of the Zamorano 80 items, updating the scholarly and historical importance of each and referencing new discoveries and insights. The result is a sale catalogue rarely matched for its combination of material, descriptions, information, and production value. It simultaneously became the definitive guide to the subject area.
Unique copy inscribed to me by Dorothy at the auction.
Also signed by Kurutz, Mathes, Volkmann, & Bill Reese
As an interesting aside, the total realized for the Clifford Zamorano 80 collection in 1994 was $603,106, and for Volkmann’s collection almost ten years later $883,608. The “Yellow Bird” rose from $69,000 in 1994 to $86,250 in 2003. I rescued a VHS recording of the Volkmann auction from her dilapidated storage shed after her death. I had the VHS digitized. The recording was in only fair shape, but no matter. For over two hours I relived the auction as she bantered with, cajoled, enlightened, and entertained an almost exclusively male crowd (including myself), drawing much laughter and most importantly, many bids.
After the Volkmann sale, she typically had a major auction once a year, often held to coincide with the West Coast ABAA Book Fair. The auctions occurred in various venues including a Voyages & Travels sale (Cat. 17) at Heritage Book Shop in Los Angeles in 2006, and later that year a sale of Western Americana (Cat. 19) to benefit the Buffalo Bill Historical Center in Cody, Wyoming, which took place at the Center itself. Other auctions were held in San Francisco, Austin, and Llano, Texas.
Her bookselling career after 2009 began to slow precipitously. In December 2009 she held a huge auction Mostly Americana: Featuring High Spots of Texas, the West, Borderlands & Mexico (Cat. 22) consisting of 576 lots. The catalogue itself resembles a phone book in size, all items catalogued to her exacting standards. It was dedicated to her son Anthony Sloan (1970-2009), who had died suddenly that May due to an undiscovered heart condition. She never quite recovered from this crushing blow. I attended the auction in person and immediately noticed that she had a somber cast that belied her spirited personality. This cast never fully dissipated. Two more auctions followed in 2013 and 2016 and another, long delayed, was in the works at the time of her death.
Dorothy’s last years were beset with personal challenges. After her son’s death, there was a withdrawal into a semi-reclusive life in a house on Lake Buchanan, near Austin, reflected in erratic behavior with those both close to her and the larger world, vividly recalled by recipients of puzzling, angry, combative emails and phone calls, until insidious dementia became apparent, and her keen mind fragmented. Ironically, as the dementia progressed, her final days were peaceful according to her daughter, the demons finally at rest. Unmoored from her beloved books, she mercifully did not live long. She died on March 14, 2021.
Dorothy Sloan’s innate book sense often outpaced her business acumen. But this is not an uncommon occurrence in the rare book trade. When the chips were down, this book sense came through for her in the form of a private sale, a successful catalogue, or a resounding auction, all done her way, without compromise or cutting corners. Then she would exhale, savor the moment, tend to her roses, maybe give someone a piece of her mind, and begin again. She was undoubtedly one of the greatest rare book dealers of her generation.
Postscript: In a sentimental mood after writing this essay, I reread my emails with Dorothy. We stayed in sporadic touch over the years. In 2015 she wrote to me, “I notice from time to time that you are still involved in the rare book world, and that is great. It is addictive, and for the most part not a problem (provided one has enough money). I do not have money and I never did! But oh, the books. I am satisfied.”
This essay was first published (without illustrations) in my book The Relentless Pursuit of Rare Books (2025).
Additional information:
Here is a link to an interview with me about Dorothy Sloan by Susan Halas in Rare Book Monthly (Dec. 2022). The interview also contains a youtube link to a talk I gave to the Florida Bibliophile Society in 2021 about Sloan.
