Jerome Melvin Edelstein (1924-1996) was a bibliographer, librarian, writer, and educator who had a long and varied career in book collecting and publishing. He worked in book and archival collections as an assistant service librarian and later assistant chief of the Rare Book Division at the Library of Congress from 1953 to 1962, then moved to California to become a medieval and renaissance bibliographer at the University Library of UCLA in 1962. He was also the librarian for special collections at New York University before returning to UCLA as the humanities bibliographer at the University Library. Additionally, Edelstein served as the chief librarian of the National Gallery of Art and in 1986, served as senior bibliographer and resource coordinator at the Getty Research Institute for the History of Art and the Humanities.

On top of his book collecting and archival work, Edelstein was also an educator who taught European history, analytic and historical bibiography, literature of the fine arts and humanities, and rare book librarianship at institutions such as Johns Hopkins, UCLA, the Catholic University of America, and Brown University. Furthermore, he wrote several books and articles about book collecting, fine printing, poets and authors, and other bibliophiles. He was also a member of organizations such as the American Antiquarian Society, the Bibliographical Society of America, and the American Printing History Association.

A close friend of Edelstein's in the book collecting, publishing, and printing community was Jacob Zeitlin, a rare book seller in Los Angeles. Included in Edelstein's extensive publishing work is a bibliography for the Primavera Press, which was founded by Zeitlin. To celebrate Zeitlin's 65th birthday and 40th year in the book trade, Edelstein put together "A Garland for Jake Zeitlin," a collection of writings from over a dozen friends in the field, including Lawrence Clark Powell, Ward Ritchie, and Elmer Belt.