Description:
For over 40 years, the advice for any avid book collector about to travel to Chicago was, "In Chicago, stop at Nedwick's".Chicago bookseller Jerrold Nedwick (1895- 9 September 1966), was unique.People always sought out Jerry for his books and his company. Idealistic, earthy, enthusiastic and always friendly and helpful, he had over 60,000 books in his possession, and when, on December 15 1960 he decided to close his shop on 423 S. Wabash Av., literally thousands of them were stacked from floor to ceiling in his gorgeous but un-restored 14-room, nine-fireplace mansion at 2013 S. Prairie, built by LeRoy Beers in 1894 for William Henry Reid, who had made a fortune running supplies on the Mississippi during the Civil War and had later become one of the founders of the Bank of America. The Bookstore O’Gara and Wilson of Chicago that at one time Saul Bellow had called the best bookstore in America, can be traced back to ints connections with Jerrold Nedwick, because it was under Jerry thatJoseph O’Gara served his apprenticeship, before purchasing Woodworth’s, a well-known establishment in the Hyde Park neighborhood where generations of University of Chicago professors and students did their book buying.O’Gara then joined forces with Doug Wilson, his apprentice-turned partner.The cirrent owner, Wilson, has moved O’Gara and Wilson to Chesterton, Indiana, a small town near the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore where it proudly carries on the grand tradition of used bookselling. Wayne Yenawine, director of libraries at the University of Louisville bought the entire collection1966 from his estate. The university library identified the volumes, in honor of the great rare book man, as "The Jerry Nedwick Collection".More information can be found in Donald C. Dickinson's book, Dictionary of Antiquarian Bookdealers, Westport, 1988.
