Those who knew George Watson Cole best agreed that he was an ambitious, talented professional. First as a teacher and lawyer, then as a librarian, bibliographer, and writer he made significant contributions to several disciplines. To all of these endeavors Cole brought intense intellectual curiosity, a high level of energy, and a strong belief in humanistic scholarship. When Margeret Stillwell dedicated her monumental study, Incunabula in American Libraries (1940), to Cole she referred to him as a "Friend of books and all the world of books, learned in all that touched the manuscript or printed word, insistent on thoroughness and accuracy in himself and others ... unselfish, untiring, unafraid."

Cole was born in Warren, Connecticut, on 6 September 1850, the only child of Munson and Antoinette Taylor Cole. Munson Cole provided his family with a steady but modest income as a shingle maker and a real-estate salesman. To supplement his income he...