Mabel Zahn (1890-1975). Philadelphia bookseller and from 1955 the president of the firm of Charles Sessler. From a description of the Charles Sessler records at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania,
“When owner Charles Sessler died in 1935, responsibility for its operations was divided between J. Leonard Sessler and Mabel Zahn. Zahn was in charge of rare books, manuscripts, and prints, servicing many important collectors and institutions, such as Charles J. Rosenbloom, Richard Dietrich, the American Philosophical Society, the Free Library of Philadelphia, and the Delaware County Historical Society. After J. Leonard Sessler's death in the 1950s, Zahn directed the shop until she passed away in 1975.”
See also mention of Zahn under the essay entry on "Bookselling" in the Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia. An anecdotal mention of her at the time of her final illness appears in the Philadelphia Inquirer of 10 January 1975. (She would at this time have been about 85 years old; she is described in this column as “[k]nown throughout the book collecting world” and as having “appropriately enough, skin of an opaque parchment color.”) Newton's allusion to “Dere Mabel” refers presumably to the once-popular 1918 humorous book by Edward Streeter, Dere Mable: Love Letters of a Rookie.
Zahn's death announcement in the 11 January 1975 number of the Inquirer notes that in lieu of flowers, the family instead asks for donations to the Rare Book Department of the Free Library of Philadelphia.
Sales of her books at Freeman's Auctions in Philadelphia seem to have brought good prices; a note in the Antiques column of the Inquirer of 19 December 1975 notes that Clarence Wolf of the George S. MacManus Co. had bought all but one of the proof sheets and presentation copies of books by A. Edward Newton, many evidently inscribed to Zahn.
