Ralph A. Brown

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Ralph Arthur Brown was born in Highbury, London, on 23 March 1889 and died in 1958. He was educated at the Wesleyan School in Kentish Town and at Queen Mary, University of London training as a pharmaceutical chemist.

Sadly, he could not take up his post-graduate studies at Heidelberg University due to the failure of his father's business. Instead he entered the world of Fine Arts. After joining Gooden & Fox of Pall Mall and serving with the British Army in the First World War, he joined the Fine Art & Antiquarian Booksellers, B.F.Stevens & Brown^[1] in 1921. B.F.Stevens & Brown was established by Benjamin Franklin Stevens in 1864.

Brown liked nothing better than 'putting the right thing in the right place' and tirelessly worked with his American Librarian counterparts in this regard. He was a dedicated literary agent & fine art dealer, archivist, and diplomat.

He was intermediary in the matching of various artifacts from the estate of Sir Edmund Andros, first Govenor of New York, with the City. The Royal Warrant from King Charles II with attached Great Seal of England, authorizing Sir Edmund to take over the Dutch City of Nieuw Amsterdam henceforth to be known as New York, was acquired by the New York Historical Society.

Other precious artifacts to pass his hands included the original manucripts of R.D. Blackmore's Lorna Doone; Ruskin's Stones of Venice; Thackeray's Virginians; Shelley's Notebooks, Caxton's printings and various copies of Shakespeare's First Folio.

However, his greatest triumph was probably the negotiation of the sale of the Harmsworth pre 1641 books to the Folger Shakespeare Library. In one stroke this elevated the Washington Library to eminence in the field of Elizabethan literature.