Alabama Booksmith

A native of Alabama, Don Roberts lives in San Francisco, where he works as an editor.

One of his greatest achievements as an editor was The Diaries of Adam and Eve, by Mark Twain. The American legend rewrote a remarkably contemporary Adam and Eve. In tackling the first three chapters of Genesis, Twain creates a story of The First Couple who are psychologically familiar to even 21st Century Americans. He wrote the Diaries as a tribute to his own marriage, so they are also his most heartfelt and personal work. Between 1893 and 1906, he attempted six versions; only these satisfied him and were published in his lifetime.

Don's latest book is Rockwell Kent: The Art of the Bookplate, in which Don serves as skillful midwife to the rebirth of a once-famous polymath and gadfly. During the first half of the twentieth century Rockwell Kent's (1882-1971) notoriety rested on his reputation as a brilliant conversationalist, author, adventurer, and political activist. He was also a first-class provocateur.

What most do not know about Kent, and what Roberts' rectifies with this beautifully rendered book, was his gift as an accomplished illustrator of bookplates. Over a span of half a century Kent designed more than 160 bookplates for the famous and not-so-famous. Each bookplate reflected its owner's personality and ethos, and Kent considered each design to be "a personal matter", almost as a doorway to the life of ideas and imagination. Roberts shows that the seemingly mundane matter of a bookplate can give rise to a strange, but beautiful, communion between artist and client.

---