About Us

BORG ANTIQUARIAN is an outgrowth of years of reading and collecting by yours truly, James M. Borg, Ph.D.

As a lifelong collector (b. 1943), I know how important it is to have excellent working relationships with clients. 

My boyhood collecting began with comics; then advanced to mysteries and Sci-Fi. 

During high school in Wisconsin, "My Life as a Bookworm" exploded into war stories. 

At the University of Michigan, I became enthralled by Literature, Existentialism, Religions, and History.  Then came law school and business.

After serving as an Army officer during the Vietnam War, I earned my MA and Ph.D. in English from Northwestern.

My dissertation was on Elizabeth Barrett Browning. I collected her and other authors from the Elizabethans to Moderns.  Later, I added a major in history and several teaching certifications. 

Such scholarly and collecting interests led to acute “Bookaholism.”

During the 1970’s and 80’s, as “James M. W. Borg, Inc.” - with indispensable and talented assistants - we sold rare books and manuscripts to many happy collectors. scholars, and major libraries. I was especially gratified to sell my large collection of Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning to the Armstrong Browning Library at Baylor University.

We handled many remarkable items: a folio of Shakespeare; major collections of Romantic and Victorian authors (to include unique items like a provenanced lock of Keats' hair; a Persian dictionary owned by Edward Fitzgerald, translator of the Rubaiyat; a traveling writing desk used by Charles Dickens; and cartoons of India drawn by Rudyard Kipling); a bejeweled Kelmscott Chaucer; important letters by Women of Letters (such as an unpublished vellum document signed & sealed by Queen Elizabeth I, & an unpublished poem by Emily Dickinson); poignant civil war letters (including Mary Surratt's last prison letter); manuscripts and artifacts (such as a set of John James Audubon's paintbrushes; an illustrated and seal oil-stained Greenland notebook by Rockwell Kent); and remarkable association copies by modern authors (a presentation copy with a wingèd nude drawn by John Steinbeck flitters into mind).

During the mid-80’s, I migrated into the corporate world as a management consultant and appraiser for Arthur D. Little, Inc., working for Fortune 500 corporations, libraries, and the IRS.

Periodically, I also taught literature and business communications at Northwestern and DePaul Universities.

More recently, I've been lecturing, studying, and trying to find time to read historical, biographical, archaeological, and religious material ranging from Stonehenge and Ancient Egypt ... through the American Revolution and Civil War ... to include Darwiniana, primatology, genomic research, and space exploration.

As "Borg Antiquarian," I thus have the pleasure of bringing an Exceptional Range of the Highest Quality books, manuscripts, artifacts, and collectibles to our many clients! 

But, as an 80-ish Senior--tempus fugit--so, I'm increasingly bemused by Ben Franklin’s epitaph:

The body of

B. Franklin, Printer

(Like the Cover of an Old Book

Its Contents torn Out

Stript of Its Lettering and Gilding)

Lies Here, Food for Worms.

But the Work shall not be Lost

It will (as he believ’d) Appear

In a New and More Elegant Edition

Revised and Corrected

By the Author.