Madeline Faith Kripke, book collector
Madeline Faith Kripke a book collector who held one of the world's largest collections of dictionaries died on April 25, 2020, due to complications of COVID-19.
Madeline Kripke was born on September 9, 1943, in New London, Connecticut, to mother Dorothy Karp Kripke and father Myer S. Kripke, a rabbi. Kripke's brother was philosopher Saul Kripke, and her sister was Netta Kripke Stern. She graduated with a bachelor's in English from Barnard College.
In fifth grade, she recalled receiving a Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary from her parents, which she said "unlocked the world for me". Kripke acquired a collection of approximately 20,000 dictionaries in her two-bedroom apartment. The oldest dictionary in her collection was a Latin dictionary published in 1502 by Ambrogio Calepino. Sh...
