UGLY DUCKLING

He was born in a provincial town of the Russian Empire and died in a New York apartment fifty-seven years later. In between he was a chemist, a conspirator, a prisoner, a fugitive, and one of the most successful booksellers in London.This is his own account of it, written late and written carefully.
From a fortress cell in Warsaw to a settlement in eastern Siberia; from a back room in Whitechapel to the quiet reading rooms where a century's great collections changed hands without anyone raising their voice.
He learned early what a book is worth.
He learned later what it costs to want one.
He also learned that the surest way to make a thing valuable is to be the only person alive who knows where it has been.A memoir of exile, appetite, and the trade in other people's history.