First published in 1962, this is the autobiography of Emma Bailey, America's very first woman auctioneer. Describing events from the 1940's through to the 1960's, Bailey delightfully tells of her experiences in a field long dominated by men, in an era when it was still highly controversial for women to go out into the workforce.

Wealthy Maggie Verver has everything she could ever ask for - except a husband and a title. While in Italy, acquiring art for his museum back in the States, Maggie's millionaire father, Adam, decides to remedy this and acquire a husband for Maggie. Enter Prince Amerigo, of a titled but now poor aristocratic Florentine family. Amerigo is the perfect candidate. Delighted, Maggie then reciprocates by choosing a partner for her widower father: childhood...

"What is the purpose of a map? Nell Young's whole life and greatest passion is cartography. Her father, Dr. Daniel Young, is a legend in the field and Nell's personal hero. But she hasn't seen or spoken to him ever since he cruelly fired her and destroyed her reputation after an argument over an old, cheap gas station highway map. But when Dr. Young is found dead in his office at the New York Public Library, with the very same seemingly worthless...

Roland Mitchell has devoted his life to studying the life and works of 19th-century writer Randolph Henry Ash. When Roland discovers a provocative letter to an unnamed woman, he begins a quest for information. Along with fellow academician Maud Bailey, Roland discovers an unconventional love story that echoes through their own modern lives.

When wealthy octogenarian Geza Marton hires art expert Helena Marsh to buy back his family's Titian painting, Helena flies to Budapest to close what she expects will be a reasonably simple sale. But nothing is ever simple in this beautiful, flawed city where corruption abounds. Helena discovers that there are multiple bidders for the painting, including some dangerous Slavs. Soon there are also dead bodies, and a complicated history that leads her...

Describes how Electra Havemeyer Webb founded the Shelburne Museum, drawing on her own unique art collection, featuring a unique assortment of weathervanes, Amish quilts, Shaker furniture, carousel animals, and cigar-store Indians, to create a comprehensive showcase of American folk art.

What leads one person to collect stamps and another coins, one fine art and another butterflies? Who can say? But one thing is certain: those who've got the collecting bug care passionately--sometimes violently--about the objects of their obsession. No one covets like a collector; and as you will find in the pages of this brand new anthology from MWA Grand Master Lawrence Block, a truly dedicated collector will ignore the other nine commandments,...