Philadelphia Rare Books & Manuscripts Company Announces Death of David M. Szewczyk

Bibliophile and co-propietor of The Philadelphia Rare Books & Manuscripts Company (PRB&M), David M. Szewczyk has died unexpectedly while recovering from a short illness.

Born and raised in Philadelphia, David enjoyed a long career of scholarly research and involvement in the rare book trade. After a Master's degree in Spanish and history, David worked as a volunteer cataloguer at Indiana University's Lilly Library. before researching his dissertation for a year in Mexico as a Fulbright scholar and going on in 1973 to work at the Rosenbach Foundation as its chief manuscripts cataloguer.

He established PRB&M as a antiquarian rare bookselling operation in 1984 and joined the Antiquarian Booksellers Association of America in 1985, working out of a lovely two-storey, 5,000 sq ft house at Frankford Arsenal from 2006 which he renovated with co-propietor Cynthia Davis Buffington. Operating until earlier this year, it specialized in early books of Europe and the Americas, U.S. and Latin Americana, original manuscripts, Mexico and New World languages, travel, cookery, law, and religion. In 2001 PRB&M added a side business, SessaBks (named after the shop's much loved cat Sessa), concentrating on used, affordable books. 

Fine Books & Collections had a long and happy relationship with David and we offer our condolences to his family and friends.