Robin Bledsoe, bookseller, at right with customers…two members of the mounted police force…in the backyard of her bookshop in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Robin
As I close my bookshop and open a new chapter in my bookselling career, Norm has asked me to say a few words about my almost half century of selling horse books.
Ever since I received Somebody’s Pony for Christmas 1952, I’ve cherished and collected horse books. After earning an M.A. in art history and starting a publishing career, I began selling out-of-print books in my two fields of interest, horses and art. I named the business Blue Rider Books after a group of German artists who often painted horses. I found some books in nearby book barns, ran some classified ads, mailed out a list, and so it all began—100-plus catalogues, dozens of trade fairs and horse shows, and tens of thousands of books ago.
During the many years that I worked as an art book editor, bookselling was part-time and mostly mail order. I rented a tiny space in Harvard Square, Cambridge, and I still number among my customers the polo book collector who was the very first visitor to that “shop.” In 1983 I left publishing and opened a full-time shop with a colleague, Harvey Mendelsohn, who specializes in architecture books. After my bookseller father died, I renamed the business Robin Bledsoe, Bookseller, in homage to the family name.
Where have I found books? Everywhere from department store displays and rundown horse sheds to palatial antiquarian book fairs and elegant private libraries. The hunt has taken me across the U.S. and to Canada, England, Ireland, France, and Germany. My special interests have been Paul Brown, the horse in New England, and 19th-century books and ephemera, but I’ve looked for anything that I thought my customers would like.
Who are my customers? I’ve provided paperbacks to kids clutching fistfuls of pennies and 16th-century veterinary manuscripts to rare book libraries. In the pre-Internet days, collectors dropped everything to order from a catalogue. One carriage book collector phoned while navigating her 6-horse van through Chicago, one well-known horseman phoned between rounds in a hunter class he was judging, and one western trainer phoned while atop the horse he was teaching to neck rein. As far as I know, no one ever phoned from the hunt field. But the customers who’ve filled the special place in my heart are the hundreds who’ve said over and over, “You have that book? I’ve been looking forever for it! You’ve made my day!”
And now our wonderful landlord of thirty-seven years is retiring and selling the building. All the books must find new homes. They’re all on sale—check out the details on my website. The hunting books are on special discount.
I’m deeply grateful to my customers for their ongoing goodwill, generous sharing of equestrian knowledge, and loyalty to an independent bookseller. It’s been my real pleasure to place good horse books in good hands for so long, and I plan to carry on from home, with a focus on older books, ephemera, and all those books I’ve never got around to cataloguing.
“A learned Arab has told us that paradise on earth is to be found on the back of a horse, in the pages of a book, and in the arms of one’s beloved. A book about horses should, then, rate as one-and-a-half terrestrial paradises, at least.” —George Gaylord Simpson
Norm
Robin’s shop at 1640 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, Massachusetts (near Harvard Square) will remain open through the end of this year. Health-safety protocols are observed. In general, Robin offers new and old books in all equestrian subjects except handicapping. If you find yourself in the area this December, visit her two book-filled rooms and find the book you need—or the ones you didn’t know you wanted.
The shop inventory is extensive. Robin seeks out the obscure, the uncommon, and the overlooked in all fields, from all periods, and in all languages. Over the years she has supplied thousands upon thousands of books to thousands of collectors, libraries, and horsemen and women around the world.
I have known Robin for at least forty years, going back to when I still lived near my native Boston. I remember visiting her shop numerous times, where she was then selling books on a part-time basis as Blue Rider Books. By the time she morphed into Robin Bledsoe, Bookseller she was the leading active expert on horse books in the Boston/Cambridge area. Imagine what she’s learned since.
With art history degrees from both Wellesley College and Columbia University, Robin is a fountain of knowledge. I would urge anyone to consult with her on any questions about horses and foxhunting in literature and art. If you want to browse her website, set aside some time! It’s all there under linked categories. Find foxhunting books under “Browse,” then “Hunting, Hounds, Country Life, Field Sports.”
I started browsing and couldn’t stop. Many old first edition are offered at forty percent discounts. For foxhunters at the Blue Ridge Hunt (VA), there’s a leather bound book dated 1760 by Thomas Fairfax: The Complete Sportsman; or, Country Gentleman’s Recreation.
For foxhunters in and around Middleburg, Virginia, there’s the 1943 Foxcroft School yearbook, Tally Ho. For fans of Marshall Hawkins’ hunting photography there’s Master James L. Young’s A Field of Horses: The World of Marshall P. Hawkins, 1988.
Norfolk Hunt (MA) members can acquire Allan Forbes’ historic Sport in Norfolk County, 1938. Gordon Grand fans will find Colonel Weatherford’s Young Entry: Being an Account of the South Dorchester Ratters and Other Genteel Diversions Suitable for Children, Derrydale Press, 1935 and The Southborough Fox and Other Colonel Weatherford Stories, Derrydale Press, one of 1450 copies signed by Grand. David Gray first editions of Derrydale Press Gallops series and Mr. Carteret, as well. Numerous A. Henry Higginson, Alexander Mackay-Smith, Stanley Reeve first editions, some signed and numbered, some inscribed.
For those who remember the Old Groton Hunt, there’s Samuel E. Peabody’s The Groton Hunt, 1947. All these at a forty percent discount! There are seven full computer screens of old books in current inventory!
Thank you, Robin Bledsoe, for being a longtime finder of and resource for old sporting books and for being always ready and willing to share your extensive knowledge. Robin may be reached by email.
Posted November 25, 2020