The orgy of literary treasures bought at Sotheby’s auction

Hold on to your hats: Things are about to get hot around here. Hot, that is, for people who love books, who covet literary rarities and whose pulses race at the thought of holding a first edition of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby� in their very own hands.

Sotheby’s held an auction of literary items on Tuesday, and it was a wild success. Items by David Foster Wallace and 16th century French writer Michel de Montaigne both sold for more than $100,000 more than their estimated prices. Here are some of the notable, breathtaking sales of the day.

An early short story by David Foster Wallace, “Little Expressionless Animals,� and 21 letters that moved between literary critique and personal updates were a surprise hit with buyers. “I’ve been abusing drugs like a fiend and getting damn little writing done,� he wrote in one 1986 letter. The lot, estimated to sell for $10,000 to $15,000, went for $125,000.

A rare 16th century French feminist (and erotic) polemic by Louise Labé went for an astonishing $485,000, after having been estimated to sell for just $3,000 to $5,000. Published in 1555, it was her only book, and no copies have come up for auction since 1976. This copy was handsomely bound in the late 19th or early 20th century.

Contemporary American essayists all seem to point to Michel de Montaigne as the father of their art; that enthusiasm has carried over to collectors. A first edition of Montaigne’s “Les Essays,� published in 1595, sold for $125,000 -- far more than the $10,000 to $20,000 estimate.

A first edition of “The Great Gatsby� by F. Scott Fitzgerald that was owned by writer Malcolm Cowley sold for $112,500, within the estimated range. A lesser-known Fitzgerald book, “Flappers and Philosophers,� sold for $118,750, about twice the estimated $40,000 to $60,000. Why was the short story collection so valuable? “Few jackets from any early printings survive in honest and unrestored condition as here,� Sotheby’s catalog explains.

One of the most spectacular items for sale was William Faulkner’s Nobel Prize. Estimated at $500,000 to $1 million, it went unsold, as did other high-priced Faulkner lots. Faulkner collectors picked up items in the auction for moderate prices: a first edition of “Absalom, Absalom!� for $13,750, a hand-edited manuscript of his tribute to Albert Camus for $28,125, and uncorrected galley proofs of “As I Lay Dying� for only $4,375, below the estimated sales cost.

Collectors who acquire rarities may never be able to fully experience them. What, for example, does one do with a never-played 78-rpm record of James Joyce reading from “Ulysses� at the Paris bookstore Shakespeare in Company? (Certainly not play it -- although it would be so tempting.) The shellac record was signed and dated by Joyce himself in 1924. It sold for $43,750, more than double the $15,000 to $20,000 estimate.

“The reason I didn’t write you about the book is because it is hard enough to write it without writing about it,� Ernest Hemingway wrote in 1931 to his friend, journalist Guy Hicock. That letter was one of six by Hemingway that have never been published. The book he was working on was “Death in the Afternoon�; the letters sold for $31,250.

Other items sold at the auction included first editions of books by John Steinbeck and Zelda Fitzgerald’s novel “Save Me the Waltz�; an autographed copy of Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird�; an early edition of the screenplay of “Dr. Strangelove� with writer Terry Southern’s handwritten edits; a typed letter signed by Albert Einstein and a photograph of Gertrude Stein posing in front of an American flag.

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