John Valentine, 1895-1955, was an American businessman, bookseller, and book collector. He was born on February 22, 1895 in Chicago, Illinois. During World War I he enlisted in the ambulance corps and traveled around Europe. After the war he was named the vice consul at Naples, Italy. While in Italy, he acquired his love for rare books after discovering a set of Wordsworth first editions on the island of Capri. In 1924, he moved to Decatur, Illinois where he became a feature writer at the Decatur Daily Review. His time in Decatur sparked an interest in collecting Americana, especially materials related to Stephen Decatur and Abraham Lincoln. Valentine would go on to donate his Stephen Decatur collection to Millikin University, and he became the business partner of Ralph G. Newman, the founder of the Abraham Lincoln Bookshop in Chicago. Valentine was also known for amassing one of the largest collections of Franklin D. Roosevelt materials in the world. In 1947, he moved to Glendale, California where he continued his work in collecting and bookselling. He worked on several periodicals related to his FDR collection throughout his life, and in 1948 he published a Stephen Crane bibliography. He died in California on December 29, 1955.