Highly regarded by his contemporaries as a poet, journalist, humorist, and raconteur, Eugene Field also built a reputation for himself as a bibliophile--although he did not accumulate a notable collection of books or establish a great library. His significance to the history of book collecting lies in his having successfully popularized book collecting as an avocation and in having helped create a middle-class ideal of civic and self-improvement based on books. His own writings, widely distributed during his lifetime through newspaper, magazine, and book publication, remain collectible for their sharp, affectionate, and witty portrayals of bibliophilia.

Eugene Field was born in Saint Louis, Missouri, the eldest of the two surviving children of Roswell Martin and Frances Reed Field, both of whom were natives of Vermont. In his later years Field claimed he had two birth dates--2 and 3 September 1850--so if friends forgot the first day they could celebrate...