Some book collectors just can't get enough of their favorite author. Completists, especially, often do not stop with every title their favorite author is known to have published (in every edition and every known language). If original manuscripts exist, they pursue those as well. And once they have exhausted bibliophilic avenues, they frequently seek out realia associated with their favorite author.
Realia refers to [t]hree-dimensional objects from real life, whether man-made (artifacts, tools, utensils, etc.) or naturally occurring (specimens, samples, etc.) -- an author's favorite hat, perhaps, or a walking cane he or she used in later years, or the author's typewriter. The Irish book collector who purchased the desk at which Charles Dickens wrote Great Expectations and a number of other late works (depicted below) thought $850,000 (seven times its original auction estimate) was a bargain for such a piece of literary history:
Other book collectors, also, have thought nothing of expending substantial sums on author realia. Cormac McCarthy's unassuming little Lettera 32 Olivetti typewriter, which the author bought for $50 back in 1963, was auctioned off at the end of last year for $254,500 (twenty times the original auction estimate):
If one's favorite author went on to achieve fame in other areas as well, the sums proferred for realia not only may reach stratospheric heights, but also may attract quite negative reactions from folks who think such realia belongs somewhere other than in your private library. When Mohandas Gandhi's pocket watch, spectacles and other small realia were auctioned off last year for $1.8 million, the sale generated a firestorm of protest from India, where many citizens consider virtually anything associated with Gandhi to be almost sacred:
Of course, not all author realia sells for such substantial sums. The William IV writing desk that Agatha Christie used to write many of her best-selling novels, for example, was auctioned off last year for the bargain-basement price of only £2,500:
As with books and manuscripts penned by one's favorite author, the challenge with collecting author realia may well be finding some place to put it all....
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