About Us

Since 1971 we have been buying, selling, and appraising rare books, manuscripts, and prints in the history of science, medicine, and technology. We are among the world’s leading experts in these fields. In addition to our inventory for sale, we offer our clients a lifetime of experience as dealers, appraisers, bibliographers, collectors, publishers, and scholars of the history and traditions of collecting the history of science and medicine. We also offer an unparalleled level of advice, personal attention and service. Whether you are a beginning or experienced collector we invite you to contact us and discuss which services we can provide for you.

About Jeremy Norman

Jeremy Michael Norman began his career in the antiquarian book trade in 1964 at the age of nineteen, working as the assistant to the packing clerk at John Howell—Books, the venerable Dickensian bookshop that used to exist near Union Square in San Francisco. Designed in the style of Bernard Maybeck, this shop had been founded by John Howell in 1912. During the five and one-half years that Jeremy worked there, the shop was operated by John Howell’s son Warren, one of the last great antiquarian booksellers to deal across the entire spectrum of antiquarian books and manuscripts on all subjects.

Returning to college to avoid the Vietnam War, Jeremy received his B. A. from the University of California , Berkeley in 1969, majoring in history with an emphasis in the history of science. In 1971 he started Jeremy Norman & Co., Inc. in San Francisco on the second floor of a building next to John Howell—Books. Here is a link to a photo of Jeremy in his late 30s at 442 Post Street, next to a wood sculpture by Stan Dann of the old company logo.

In 1990 we moved to much larger and grander premises at 720 Market Street. Here are links to three different photographs of that office: Market St. #1, Market St #2, Market St. #3.

In 2001 we moved to our current location in Novato.

One of the world’s leading specialists in rare books and manuscripts on the history of medicine, science, and technology, Jeremy is the author of the fifth edition of the standard annotated bibliography of the history of medicine and biology: Morton’s Medical Bibliography (1991), and the co-author, with Diana Hook, of The Haskell F. Norman Library of Science and Medicine (2 vols., 1991), which became a standard reference work on classics in these fields. In addition to buying and selling rare books and manuscripts on all aspects of the history of medicine, science, and technology, Jeremy does many appraisals of related material for purposes of insurance, estates, and donation to non-profit institutions.

Related to the history of computing and the Internet, in 2002 Diana and Jeremy published Origins of Cyberspace: A Library on the History of Computing, Networking, and Telecommunications. In 2005 Jeremy published From Gutenberg to the Internet: A Sourcebook on the History of Information Technology. Since publication of that book Jeremy has widened his research on the history of information and media in From Cave Paintings to the Internet: Chronological and Thematic Studies on the History of Information and Media, now a website titled History of Information.

Jeremy collects rare books and manuscripts on the history of prehistory and the history of aerodynamics and rocketry, as well as aspects of the history of the bibliography of science and medicine. The mathematician, historian of science, book collector and book thief, Count Guglielmo Libri is another of his special interests, and the subject of his book published in 2013. Jeremy and Diana are currently collaborating on an annotated descriptive bibliographical narrative volume on the history of prehistory entitled Discovery of Human Origins.

Jeremy has a large working library on the history of media supporting From Cave Paintings to the Internet, and also collects prints, antique maps, paintings, and Native American art. His next books will be Discovery of Human Origins and A Companion to Andreas Vesalius's De humani corporis fabrica -- a supplement to the five volume Richardson and Carman translation which we published.

About Diana Hook

Diana Hook received her B.A. in Classical Literature from the University of California at Santa Cruz in 1977, and her M.L.S. in 1978 from Columbia University, where she participated in Dr. Terry Belanger’s Rare Book School (now at the University of Virginia). She began her career at the Library Company of Philadelphia, then moved to the Bay Area to take a cataloguing position at John Howell—Books, where she remained until shortly before the bookshop closed in 1984. In August 1984 she was hired by Jeremy Norman to compile a bibliographical catalogue of his father’s library of rare scientific and medical books. This was published as The Haskell F. Norman Library of Science & Medicine in 1991. In 1993 she took over the position of rare book cataloguer at Jeremy Norman & Co.; all of the JN&Co. catalogues from no. 28 on have been largely her work. She collaborated with Jeremy on Origins of Cyberspace: A Library on the History of Computing, Networking, and Telecommunications (2002).