The Ardis A. Welch Collection

We at UniqReads are proud to announce the arrival of The Ardis A Welch Collection to our store.

Ms. Ardis Welch was born in 1937 to a college educated housewife and her husband, an illustrator who worked for the Audubon Society on the famous Field Guides. Due to an unfortunate accident early in her life that restricted her movements, she became addicted to books, history and travel in particular. An avid bibliophile, she decided to learn as much as she could in every subject she found interesting. Working in the printing industry  as it changed from type printing to digital gave her a unique opportunity to see how one detail could change history. In the mid 1990s Ms. Welch decided to become an author, writing about her most beloved place and time: Medieval Romania. She has written two “bodice ripper” period romances, a time travel screen play, a historical novel and a non fiction history of Juztina Szilágyi  of Hungary, the wife of Vlad Tepes of Walachia. Her love of history and desire to learn more caused her to join the Society for Creative Anachronism, where she refined her childhood skills as a calligrapher and medieval style needlepoint.  She has taught classes on the history of Medieval Cartooning in the Bayeux tapestry, women’s roles in  Early Medieval Babylon and women in Medieval Russia.  In the early 2000s Ms. Welch hiked the fjords of Iceland.

And everywhere she went, she has brought home books.

We at Unique Reads are proud to offer a selection of her 10,000 book collection to the interested public. Most of her collection are decades out of print and have been treated kindly. Except for one small detail: hand written notations. All of the books in her collection contain talking points, reference notes to other books on the subject (most out of print) as well as commentary on the authors perspective. These are not whimsical ramblings, but lecture notes from an independent scholar. We believe that this, along with the sheer size and breath of the collection, makes this a Unique Collection.

As such over the next few months books from this collection will be listed for sale on our site. In the descriptions the phrase “previous owner notations on margins” will appear. Also in every book is a sticker with her address. Ms. Ardis would love to hear your opinions of the book and her commentary. Feel free to snail mail her a letter.