Michael Vinson lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico, has worked in rare books for over thirty years, and has had his own rare book business for twenty-five. A perennial question from seat mates on airline trips: What's the most expensive book you've ever handled? A quarter-million dollars.
I am currently writing a book about John H. Jenkins, Jr. the Texas rare book forger who was shot mysteriously and found in the Colorado River in Texas. Writing about rare book criminals is actually fun; I get to combine my love of rare books and my love of detective work as I try to piece his life together for a biography.
The University of Oklahoma Press has just agreed to publish this biography. It will appear as a trade paperback in the spring of 2020, with the working title: Bluffing Texas Style: The Arsons, Forgeries, and High Stakes Poker Capers of Rare Book Dealer Johnny Jenkins.
Michael loves to hike and explore the wild outdoors in both summer and winter, and often climbs to the summit of Deception Peak. He also loves the San Antonio Hot Springs in the Jemez Mountains of New Mexico.
He has a Master's degree from the University of Chicago (with a specialty in the History of the Book), another Master's in American History, and most recently a Master's from the University of Cambridge (with a dissertation on comparisons of Christianity and Judaism in second-century Roman Syria).
Michael has authored research which has been published in the Utah Historical Quarterly ("From Housework to Office Clerk: Utah's Working Women, 1870-1900," Fall 1985, pp. 326-335); an article on a previously unknown society formed by Benjamin Franklin in the Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography ("The Society for Political Inquiries: The Limits of Republican Discourse in Philadelphia on the Eve of the Constitutional Convention," April, 1989, pp. 185-205); an exhibition catalogue published by the DeGolyer Library at Southern Methodist University (Motoring Tourists and the Scenic West, which was chosen as one of the Fifty Best Western Books of 1989 by the Rounce and Coffin Club). Michael also appeared as an appraiser in the first season of the Antiques Roadshow.
