Museum Collections

Edmond Bonaventure was born in Alsace and educated at the School of Engineers in Chalons. He served as a member of the Fourteenth Artillery in the Franco-Prussian War. He came to the United States in 1871 and worked as a civil and mechanical engineer in New York until 1873. In the panic of that year he lost his business and was forced to sell some of his fine collection of rare books. This led to the establishment about 1878 of his bookstore under the Astor House in Barclay Street.