Stephen Blumberg

Stephen Carrie Blumberg (born 1948 in Saint Paul, Minnesota) is best known as a bibliomane who lived in Ottumwa, Iowa. After being arrested for stealing more than 23,600 books worth in 1990 (equivalent to about $M in ), he became known as the Book Bandit and was recognized as the most successful book thief in the history of the United States.

Blumberg's arrest came as a result of his friend, Kenneth J. Rhodes, turning him in for a $56,000 bounty he negotiated with the Justice Department. Rhodes and Blumberg had known each other since the mid-1970s. A known criminal, Rhodes accompanied Blumberg on several of his road trip collecting sprees. He said he would never sell them because he thought that would be dishonest. He envisioned the items would be returned to the rightful owners after his death, or at least to another repository that could care for them. Despite these claims, Blumberg was convicted in 1991 as guilty, without reason of insanity. After serving a -year sentence, Blumberg was released and resumed his collecting and stealing habits.

Upon meeting Blumberg in the FBI's stacks after his arrest, John L. Sharpe III from Duke University's library commented about his brief conversation with Blumberg that,

In 1997, Blumberg was convicted again of burglary of antiques. He was again arrested in July 2003 for burglary of a house in Keokuk, Iowa. He was subsequently convicted in early-2004. He was again arrested in June 2004 for burglary in Knoxville, Illinois. This violated his probation for the 2004 conviction in Keokuk, Iowa, for which he was again arrested.

Collection Some of the more precious objects Blumberg stole include a first-edition copy of Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin; A Confession of Faith, the first book published in Connecticut; 25 boxes of rare materials outlining the early history of Oregon; and the Bishops' Bible, a 16th-century volume. Blumberg claimed he put together 100 incunabula in three years, including the 1493 Nuremberg Chronicle bound in ivory calfskin. He also attempted to collect the full Zamorano 80, a list of rare books established in 1945 by a group of prominent book collectors in a Los Angeles book club named after Don Augustin Zamorano, California's first printer.