A first edition copy of Mary Shelley’s 1818 “Frankenstein: or The Modern Prometheus” rampaged through Heritage Auctions recently, selling for $843,750 in late June. The sale was part of The William A. Strutz Library, Part I, Rare Books Signature Auction that totaled $5,655,439.
Image courtesy of Heritage Auctions
Chief among the event’s historic lots was an extraordinary inscribed copy of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby that realized $425,000, now the world’s most valuable copy. Not far behind was what is now the most valuable Hobbit in the world, a presentation copy of J. R. R. Tolkien’s novel that realized $300,000. Henry David Thoreau’s Walden; or Life in the Woods also set an auction record, selling for $275,000.
Image courtesy of Heritage Auctions
William Strutz acquired his first-edition copy of Mary Shelley’s 1818 Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus in 1975 and had the foresight to obtain the only known copy in the original pink boards in private hands. The other two known copies in pink boards reside in the Pforzheimer and Berg Collections at the New York Public Library.
Strutz’s breathtaking library, built within his home in Bismarck, N.D., consisted of some 15,000 books, which the attorney began assembling while in college in the late 1950s. He focused on books of great literary significance, in superb original condition and with important provenance, which accounted for the profusion of presentation and association copies found in this auction — the first of a series of auctions Heritage will hold throughout this year and next.
Image courtesy of Heritage Auctions
Strutz, who said he collected because he was “a reader,” wanted more than just a copy of the book. He sought out copies held by their authors, books presented from one notable to another. As a result, Strutz assembled what Francis Wahlgren, Heritage Auctions’ International Director of Rare Books & Manuscripts, calls “one of the most important collections of English and American literature that has come on the market in decades.”
Image courtesy of Heritage Auctions
Strutz’s copy of 1925’s first printing of the first edition of The Great Gatsby, which boasts a superior dust jacket featuring perhaps the most famous book cover of all time: Francis Cugat’s painting Celestial Eyes hovering over an illuminated cityscape. Inside, the author wrote a note for its recipient: “For D. L. Shelton / from his Sincerely / F Scott Fitzgerald / Feb 1927.” Before Thursday, no other copy of The Great Gatsby had ever broken the $400,000 barrier.
Click HERE to see full results of the auction.
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