Source : Dora Hood

Source Title Dora Rideout Hood Bookseller
Description

Dora Rideout Hood was one of the most notable booksellers Canada ever produced. She was born in 1885 and married physician Frederick Hood in 1918. Dr. Hood died in 1927, so Dora purchased a small mail order book business to supplement her income in 1928. The following year, she began producing catalogues, listings from which are shown under her name in this database.

Dora operated her dealership from her home at 730 Spadina Avenue in Toronto. Her specialties were Canadiana and Americana. She sold to collectors, large and small, libraries and institutions. She was a charter member of the Canadian Booksellers Association. In 1954, she sold the "Book Room," as her business was known, to Dr. William S. Wallace, retired Chief Librarian at the University of Toronto. The business changed hands several more times before it finally closed in 1982, while Mrs. Hood died in 1974.

Dora Hood wrote a book about her experiences in the book world, entitled The side door: twenty six years in my Book Room, published in 1958. It provides stories and anecdotes about notable authors and collectors and her own life as a bookseller.
Scope of Text

Contained in this listing are catalogues produced by Dora Hood's Book Room from 1929-1963.
Total Records in AED 85126
  • Forum Auctions
    Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
    28th May 2026
    Forum, May 28: Book of Hours.- Heures de nostre dame a l'usaige de Romme, Paris, Antoine Chappiel pour Germain Hardouin, [1504]. £6,000-8,000
    Forum, May 28: Colonna (Francesco). La Hypnerotomachia di Poliphilo, second edition, Venice, Sons of Aldus Manutius, 1545. £15,000-20,000
    Forum, May 28: The Christ Child holding a crystal orb and surrounded by banderoles with devotional exhortations, on a leaf most probably from a Book of Hours, [Southern Netherlands, last decades of the fifteenth century]. £2,000-3,000
    Forum Auctions
    Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
    28th May 2026
    Forum, May 28: Jackson (Shirley). The Haunting of Hill House, first English edition, signed presentation inscription from the author to Claude Fredericks, 1960. £2,000-3,000
    Forum, May 28: Lennon (John). In His Own Write, first edition, first impression, signed by the author, 1964. £3,000-4,000
    Forum, May 28: Doves Press.- Keats (John). [Poems], one of 200 copies on paper, Doves Press, 1914. £5,000-7,000
    Forum Auctions
    Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
    28th May 2026
    Forum, May 28: Rodrigues (João Barbosa). Sertum Palmarum Brasiliensium, 2 vol., first and only edition, Brussels, 1903. £8,000-12,000
    Forum, May 28: Newton (Sir Isaac). Philosophiae naturalis principia mathematica…editio ultima, auctior et emendatior, Amsterdam, Sumptibus Societatis, 1714. £8,000-12,000
    Forum, May 28: Kepler (Johannes). Ad Vitellionem paralipomena, wuibus astronomiae pars optica traditur, first edition, Frankfurt am Main, 1604. £5,000-7,000
    Forum Auctions
    Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
    28th May 2026
    Forum, May 28: Tagliacozzi (Gaspare). De Curtorum Chirurgia per insitionem, libri duo, first edition, Venice, Gasparo Bindoni, 1597. £7,000-10,000
    Forum, May 28: Lootsman (Jacobsz). The Lightning Colomne, or Sea-Mirrour, containing the Sea-Coasts of the Northern, Eastern and Western Navigation..., 1670. £8,000-12,000
    Forum, May 28: Ribelles y Helip (José), Attributed to. An album comprising 33 finely executed watercolours of Spanish costume, bull-fighting scenes, and other genre subjects, [circa 1830]. £10,000-15,000