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 to the wholesale publishing business, Robert H. Dodd entered into a separate partnership with Livingston under the name of Dodd & Livingston. Livingston's remarkable memory for minute details and his ability to recognize peculiarities in volumes with which he was unfamiliar had long been an important asset which did much to give the house its preëminent position among American dealers in rare old books. These qualities combined with the instinctive confidence which every one who dealt with him felt in his frankness and sincerity, gave the new firm an unassailable position. His visit to London in 1911 strengthened personal friendships with nearly every English collector of consequence, and put him in the way to become the best known book seller on either side of the Atlantic.

By a curious fatality, it was on the day the Titanic sank, April 15, 1912, that Livingston collapsed under his own weight, with a broken thigh, at his home in Scarsdale. Six months before, he had slipped on wet leaves in the garden and broken a leg and arm, which healed unsatisfactorily. After the second accident, the doctors sought for the cause.