Bookseller George Herget Dies Of Blood Poisoning
09-13-1994 Times Picayune

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George Herget, a lawyer-turned-bookseller with a passion for
Wagnerian opera, died Sunday at Charity Hospital of blood
poisoning. He was 58.

Mr. Herget, a Baton Rouge native, operated a secondhand
bookstore bearing his name in New Orleans for 16 years. Although
the Magazine Street shop, with an inventory of about 25,000
volumes, was a business, Mr. Herget said he valued it because it
became a gathering spot for people who enjoyed reading and
discussing books.

"I'm very comfortable with books and very much at home with
people who love them as I do," he said in a 1988 interview. "I
guess that's really why I'm here."

Though Mr. Herget's shop carried a wide-ranging inventory,
perhaps its most noteworthy feature was several shelves stocked
with books on Richard Wagner, the German composer best known for
"The Ring of the Nibelung," a four-night, 15-hour operatic
extravaganza.

Mr. Herget was, as far as anyone knew, the only U.S. bookseller
to specialize in Wagner literature.

But his obsession went beyond his shop. Whenever an American
opera company performed the complete "Ring" cycle, Mr. Herget
could be counted upon to be there, too, selling books about
Wagner to audience members.

"I don't think what I do would work with any other composer," he
said several years ago before sending a shipment of books to New
York for a Metropolitan Opera production of the Wagnerian cycle.
"People just aren't as obsessed with other composers."

With Wagner providing the background music, customers often
stood in the aisles at Mr. Herget's shop to discuss favorite
literature or curled up in an old barber's chair to read. One
couple, saying they felt at home in the shop, decided to get
married there.

Because of such moments, Mr. Herget said, the bookshop was much
more than a business.

"You usually think about it in terms of what books can give you,
what a wonderful world they can open up for you," he said. "I've
always loved books - reading them, owning them, living among
them, just having them around. We always had lots of books at
home, and I was a real bookworm when I was a child. I seem to
recall having a bookplate that read: 'As for me, give me a
book.' "

Mr. Herget had a bachelor's degree from Princeton University and
a law degree from Louisiana State University. After a year in
the Army, he practiced law for four years in Baton Rouge, where
his father was a judge.

Then he decided to change vocations. He found a setting in the
3100 block of Magazine Street and opened his shop in 1978.

In his bookstore, he said, he often felt as if he were
conducting a nonstop open house.

"Friends often ask me why I never go out on Saturday nights," he
said. "It's because I've been entertaining all day long."

Mr. Herget had been president of the Magazine Street Association
and treasurer of the Friends of the Cabildo, the New Orleans
Gulf South Booksellers Association and the Tennessee WilliamsNew
Orleans Literary Festival.

Survivors include a sister, Catherine Herget Zimmerman, and a
brother, John Taylor Herget.

Funeral arrangements, which are incomplete, are being handled by
Rabenhorst Funeral Home of Baton Rouge.