Benjamin Moore Norman

Benjamin Moore Norman (December 22, 1809 – February 1, 1860) was an American book dealer and writer who benefited from the success of John Lloyd Stephens's book, Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas and Yucatán. He was a beneficiary of a public offer by the author to return to the Maya region and further his studies. He initiated, on his own and anticipating Stephens, a trip to the Yucatan Peninsula and wrote about it.

Early life

Benjamin Moore Norman was born on December 22, 1809, in Hudson, New York to William E. Norman, local bookseller. When his father died, the younger Norman left his clerkship in New York City to take over the family bookstore. Shortly after, he left Hudson for Philadelphia, only to move to New Orleans in 1837, which would be his permanent home for the rest of his life.

Career

In December 1841, he had made progress on Stephen's by writing on the topic of the Maya Civilization in the Yucatán Peninsula. He traveled through the peninsula visiting Valladolid, Chichén Itzá, Uxmal, and San Francisco de Campeche. In this last location Norman was interviewed by Justo Sierra O'Reilly who, much later, characterized him in his newspaper, The Yucatán Register(vol 1, page 342), in the following way:

"Dressed in linen pants and jacket, putting on steel framed glasses and somewhat scrawny and sickly, as he is, he flew on wings of his avarice to the coasts of Yucatan...he returned to New York and published a book, Rambles in Yucatán which is the most foolish and ridiculous book we have read lately...his estimates were not unsuccessful though as the newly coined traveler won his 8 to 10,000 dollars, mocking the credulity of his readers."