Stephen Carrie Blumberg (born 1948[1] in Saint Paul, Minnesota) is best known as a bibliomane who lived in Ottumwa, Iowa.
His compulsion to collect books developed in childhood when he became interested in many of the beautiful, but run-down Victorian homes in St. Paul he walked past on his way to school.
Blumberg began removing doorknobs and stained glass windows from the old houses that were slated for destruction as part of a revitalization project in St. Paul.
[2][3][4] Blumberg's arrest came as a result of his friend, Kenneth J. Rhodes, turning him in for a $56,000 bounty he negotiated with the Justice Department.
He was hospitalized numerous times during his adolescence where twelve psychiatrists diagnosed him variously as schizophrenic, delusional, paranoid, or compulsive.
Dr. Logan reported during the trial that Blumberg intended to preserve or rescue the materials he stole from what he believed was destruction.
Some of the more precious objects Blumberg stole include a first-edition copy of Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin; A Confession of Faith, the first book published in Connecticut; 25 boxes of rare materials outlining the early history of Oregon; and the Bishops' Bible, a 16th-century volume.
Blumberg claimed he put together 100 incunabula in three years, including the 1493 Nuremberg Chronicle bound in ivory calfskin.