Frank Herrmann spent much of his life as a book publisher; but a strong interest in the working of the art market and the history of collecting led him to compile first, The English as Collectors and later, Sotheby's: Portrait of an Auction House. That firm asked him to join their management in the late 1970s and he became director in charge of overseas operations. In 1983, he started his own auction house for antiquarian books, Bloomsbury Book Auctions, where he is still active. Recently described as 'the formost authority on the history of the British art market', he has written many articles on collecting and is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries. Together with his wife he has assembled one of the largest private collections of early nineteenth-century British ceramics. He now devotes much of his time to supporting a number of institutional libraries.