I want, I want

Woudhuysen features American lawyer Robert S. Pirie. Pirie combined considerable wealth with good taste; he was very sociable, generous with his time and liked to share his enthusiasms and knowledge. His family had made money in department stores in Chicago and used it to buy silver, porcelain and pictures, some of which Pirie inherited. But books and manuscripts were what really excited him. He became interested in them while at Harvard, where he met the celebrated bibliographer William A. (Bill) Jackson. The greed for books was complemented and fed by his successful career first as a lawyer and then as a banker. He kept his library at the back of the New York house in a double-storey room; the main collection was arranged around the ground- floor walls, the reference works kept in a gallery above them.