Hans Peter Kraus (October 12, 1907 – November 1, 1988), also known as H. P. Kraus or HPK, was an

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

n-born

book dealer Book collecting is the collecting of books, including seeking, locating, acquiring, organizing, cataloging, displaying, storing, and maintaining whatever books are of interest to a given collector. The love of books is '' bibliophilia'', and some ...

described as "without doubt the most successful and dominant rare book dealer in the world in the second half of the 20th century" and in a league with other rare book dealers such as

Bernard Quaritch Bernard Alexander Christian Quaritch ( ; April 23, 1819 – December 17, 1899) was a German-born British bookseller and collector. The company established by Bernard Quaritch in 1847 lives on in London as Bernard Quaritch Ltd, dealing in rare ...

, Guillaume de Bure and A.S.W. Rosenbach. Kraus specialized in medieval

illuminated manuscripts An illuminated manuscript is a formally prepared document where the text is often supplemented with flourishes such as borders and miniature illustrations. Often used in the Roman Catholic Church for prayers, liturgical services and psalms, the ...

incunables In the history of printing, an incunable or incunabulum (plural incunables or incunabula, respectively), is a book, pamphlet, or broadside (printing), broadside that was printed in the earliest stages of printing in Europe, up to the year 150 ...

(books printed before 1501), and rare books of the 16th and 17th centuries, but would purchase and sell almost any book that came his way that was rare, valuable and important. He prided himself in being "the only bookseller in history...to have owned a

Gutenberg Bible The Gutenberg Bible (also known as the 42-line Bible, the Mazarin Bible or the B42) was the earliest major book printed using mass-produced movable metal type in Europe. It marked the start of the " Gutenberg Revolution" and the age of printed ...

and the Psalters of 1457 and 1459 simultaneously," stressing that "'own' here is the correct word, as they were bought not for a client's account but for stock."

Early life and career in Europe

Kraus was born on October 12, 1907, in

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

. After working for R. Lechner in Vienna and Ernst Wasmuth in

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and List of cities in Germany by population, largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European Union by population within ci ...

, he started his own rare book business in 1932, which prospered despite the Depression. In 1938, after the

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) ** Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ge ...

annexation of Austria The (, or , ), also known as the (, en, Annexation of Austria), was the annexation of the Federal State of Austria into the German Reich on 13 March 1938. The idea of an (a united Austria and Germany that would form a " Greater Germany ...

, Kraus was arrested for being Jewish and sent to the Dachau concentration camp. After several months, he was transferred to

Buchenwald Buchenwald (; literally 'beech forest') was a Nazi concentration camp established on hill near Weimar, Germany, in July 1937. It was one of the first and the largest of the concentration camps within Germany's 1937 borders. Many actual or sus ...

. After eight months in Buchenwald, he was released, returned to Vienna and ordered to leave Austria within two months. Kraus abandoned his business and stock of 100,000 books, although he had previously shipped some books and valuables to Switzerland, and traveled to Stockholm, Sweden. He arranged to have his mother join him there; she arrived just two days before

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

began. In September he obtained a visa and sailed for

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

, arriving on October 12, 1939, where he arrived with the 1494 Vérard Columbus letter gaining him his first piece of publicity as a bookdealer in America: a newspaper column on the Columbus letter arriving on Columbus Day. Within two weeks of arrival, he met Hanni Zucker, also from Vienna, whom he subsequently married.

Career in the United States

Kraus restarted his rare book business in New York, which soon began to prosper. His first important sale was to

Lessing J. Rosenwald Lessing Julius Rosenwald (February 10, 1891 – June 24, 1979) was an American businessman, a collector of rare books and art, a chess patron, and a philanthropist. Biography Born in Chicago, Lessing J. Rosenwald was the eldest son of Julius R ...

, a major book collector, who ultimately donated his collection of early printed books to the

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library ...

. Over the years, Kraus bought and sold major medieval illuminated manuscripts, incunables and assorted rare books and manuscripts. Among his most important sales were the Anhalt Gospels, the finely illuminated

Hours of Catherine of Cleves The Hours of Catherine of Cleves (Morgan Library and Museum, now divided in two parts, M. 917 and M. 945, the latter sometimes called the Guennol Hours or, less commonly, the Arenberg Hours) is an ornately illuminated manuscript in the Gothic ar ...

now reunited with its other half at the

Morgan Library The Morgan Library & Museum, formerly the Pierpont Morgan Library, is a museum and research library in the Murray Hill neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. It is situated at 225 Madison Avenue, between 36th Street to the south and 37th S ...

, the Arthur Houghton copy of the Gutenberg Bible for $2.5 million, three copies of

Caxton Caxton may refer to: Places * Caxton Street, Brisbane, Australia * Caxton, Cambridgeshire, a village in Cambridgeshire, UK ** Caxton Gibbet, a knoll near the village * Caxton Hall, a historic building in London, UK * Caxton Building, a historic ...

's first edition of the Canterbury Tales, and the original manuscript of the proclamation of the

Louisiana Purchase The Louisiana Purchase (french: Vente de la Louisiane, translation=Sale of Louisiana) was the acquisition of the territory of Louisiana by the United States from the French First Republic in 1803. In return for fifteen million dollars, or app ...

, signed by

Thomas Jefferson Thomas Jefferson (April 13, 1743 – July 4, 1826) was an American statesman, diplomat, lawyer, architect, philosopher, and Founding Father who served as the third president of the United States from 1801 to 1809. He was previously the natio ...

, He also purchased the enigmatic

Voynich manuscript The Voynich manuscript is an illustrated codex hand-written in an otherwise unknown writing system, referred to as 'Voynichese'. The vellum on which it is written has been carbon-dated to the early 15th century (1404–1438), and stylistic ana ...

in 1961 for $24,500, and after seven years of unsuccessfully attempting to sell it for as much as $160,000 ultimately donated it to the

Beinecke Library The Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library () is the rare book library and literary archive of the Yale University Library in New Haven, Connecticut. It is one of the largest buildings in the world dedicated to rare books and manuscripts. Es ...

Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Sta ...

. Kraus also sold the magnificent manuscript Giant Bible of Mainz to Lessing J. Rosenwald who donated it the Library of Congress. Early in his career, Kraus initiated a practice of buying up entire libraries or collections at a discounted price and then selling the items individually or in smaller groups, carefully researched and catalogued, for a great profit. He continued that practice after he moved to the United States, for example, buying in 1949 some 20,000 volumes of the Prince Liechtenstein library for a "rock bottom" price, the entire Frederick Adams collection of early communist, radical and anarchistic literature and ephemera, and in 1977 the remainder of the great manuscript collection of the 19th-century bibliomaniac

Sir Thomas Phillipps Sir Thomas Phillipps, 1st Baronet (2 July 1792 – 6 February 1872), was an English antiquary and book collector who amassed the largest collection of manuscript material in the 19th century. He was an illegitimate son of a textile manufacture ...

, which after the better part of a century of auction sales, still consisted of 2,000 manuscript volumes and 130,000 manuscript letters and documents.

Pre-dating the Gutenberg Bible?

In 1952, Kraus purchased a copy of an extremely rare incunabula, the Constance Missal, then known in only two copies. Bearing no date, it was printed with type nearly identical to, but seemingly more primitive than, that used in the 1457 and 1459 Psalters, and some scholars believed that it might be the first printed book, pre-dating the Gutenberg Bible. Kraus sold it as a major bibliographical prize to the

. Several years later, Allan Stevenson, by a brilliant and painstaking comparison of the different states of wear in the watermarks in the Constance Missal with those in dated books, conclusively established that it was printed in 1473, nearly 20 years after the Gutenberg Bible. Despite the definitive proof to the contrary, Kraus still professed that, "Speaking for myself, I believe that the Constance Missal is earlier than the Gutenberg Bible."

Sale catalogs

Kraus regularly issued printed catalogs of books for sale, which contained extensive detailed descriptions of the books and manuscripts. Totaling at least 223, they are prized today as reference works. Some of the catalogs contained full color illustrations of bindings and illustrations, and a few were issued hardbound. Kraus had "the largest and most complete reference library of books on the subject of bibliography ever put together by a book dealer anywhere."

Businessman and collector

Kraus quite understandably was very proud of his success as a businessman, amassing a fortune from the rare book and manuscript trade. He described his "philosophy of success in business" as: "Push on, hit hard, follow through." Besides being the only dealer to own, as inventory, the Gutenberg Bible and the 1457 and 1459 Psalters at the same time, he "owned most of the major incunabula," and "bought and sold more Caxtons than any other living bookseller." His autobiography is full of stories where he bought some rare manuscript or book at a low price and turned around and sold it for a much greater price. He also lamented a number of instances where he narrowly failed to secure some book or collection including some of the

Dead Sea Scrolls The Dead Sea Scrolls (also the Qumran Caves Scrolls) are ancient Jewish and Hebrew religious manuscripts discovered between 1946 and 1956 at the Qumran Caves in what was then Mandatory Palestine, near Ein Feshkha in the West Bank, on the ...

, or where he sold a very rare item too cheaply. Kraus acknowledged that his autobiography might leave the reader with "the impression that

e was E, or e, is the fifth letter and the second vowel letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''e'' (pronounced ); plu ...

interested only in making money." However, he had a deep love of books and was himself a serious collector. One area of particular interest for Kraus was books relating to

Sir Francis Drake Sir Francis Drake ( – 28 January 1596) was an English explorer, sea captain, privateer, slave trader, naval officer, and politician. Drake is best known for his circumnavigation of the world in a single expedition, from 1577 to 1580 ( ...

. He eventually wrote a biography of Drake, based on materials in his collection, a collection that he later donated to the Library of Congress. Kraus also put together a collection of important manuscripts concerning colonial

Spanish America Spanish America refers to the Spanish territories in the Americas during the Spanish colonization of the Americas. The term "Spanish America" was specifically used during the territories' imperial era between 15th and 19th centuries. To the e ...

, particularly Mexico, including a letter from Amerigo Vespucci. Kraus donated that collection to the Library of Congress in 1969. In 1978 Kraus published his autobiography ''A Rare Book Saga''.

Journals and reprints

Over the years, Kraus purchased large collections of technical and academic journals, which he was able to resell to libraries at great profit. In New York, he opened a second business, Kraus Periodicals Inc., to specialize in the sale of runs of scholarly journals, and soon made an en bloc purchase of over 300,000 issues. Later, after he had received multiple orders for the same journals, Kraus formed a business that reprinted scientific and scholarly journals and reference books.

End of the business

Kraus died on November 1, 1988, in

Ridgefield, Connecticut Ridgefield is a town in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States. Situated in the foothills of the Berkshire Mountains, the 300-year-old community had a population of 25,033 at the 2020 census. The town center, which was formerly a borough ...

, after which the business was carried on by his widow Hanni and their daughter and son-in-law, Mary Ann and Roland Folter. The business subsequently closed, and its remaining inventory and reference works were sold by

Sotheby's Sotheby's () is a British-founded American multinational corporation with headquarters in New York City. It is one of the world's largest brokers of fine and decorative art, jewellery, and collectibles. It has 80 locations in 40 countries, an ...

.William S. Reese
The End of H.P. Kraus

References

Works

''Sir Francis Drake: A Pictorial Biography'' by Hans P. Kraus
Online presentation for the Collections at the

External links

H. P. Kraus Library Auction
- video on the end of his business and his reference library

From the Collections at the

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kraus, Hans P. 1907 births 1988 deaths Austrian Jews American bibliographers American booksellers American people of Austrian-Jewish descent Austrian bibliographers Austrian booksellers Austrian businesspeople Austrian emigrants to the United States Book and manuscript collectors Businesspeople from New York City Writers from Vienna Dachau concentration camp survivors Buchenwald concentration camp survivors 20th-century American non-fiction writers 20th-century American businesspeople