Ruth Mortimer

Ruth Mortimer (September 16, 1931

Early life and education Ruth Mortimer was born on September 16, 1931, in Syracuse, New York, to Donald Cameron Mortimer and Lillian Ruth Burk During her first three summers at Smith, Mortimer worked as a proofreader for the Lawyers' Co-operative Publishing Company in Rochester. After Smith, Mortimer worked for a year as a pre-professional librarian at the Brooklyn Public Library; during this time, she also took courses in French at the Columbia University School of General Studies. and were "a monument of good typography [and] their author's learning and industry" according to the Independent. In these catalogues Mortimer showcased a breadth of knowledge on illustrators and placed specific focus on the visual artistry of the books within.

In Mortimer was honored as a Rosenbach Fellow in Bibliography in 1984-1985 lecturing on "L 'Art de Bien Batir: French 16th Century Architecture Books."

Mortimer also served on the councils of the Renaissance Society of America and the Grolier Club. The institution's collection of rare books was eventually renamed the Mortimer Rare Book Collection after her. 1984-5: Rosenbach Fellow in Bibliography, University of Pennsylvania

Catalogue of books and manuscripts / Harvard College Library, Department of Printing and Graphic Arts Pt. 1. French 16th century books Vol. 1 (1964) Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press Catalogue of Books and Manuscripts / Harvard College Library, Department of Printing and Graphic Arts Pt. 2 Italian 16th Century Books Vol. 2 (1974) Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press The Selma Erving Collection: Modern Illustrated Books (1977) Northampton, Mass.: Smith College Museum of Art [with Colles Baxter and John Lancaster] A Portrait of the Author in Sixteenth-Century France (1980) Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill The Last Castle (1985) Northampton, Mass: Hypatia Press [with Dorothy L. Sayers and Naomi Morrissette] [Preface by] The Bewildering Thread (1986) Wallingford, Pa.: ELM Press [with Enid Mark and Sarah Black) [conception and supervision by] Fifteen Women Book Collectors (1990) New York: The Grolier Club [with Marie Elena Korey] Mortimer, Ruth. “St. Catherine of Siena and the Printed Book.” The Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America 86, no. 1 (1992): 11–22.