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S otheby’s four-day auction of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis’ estate was a frenzy. Chairs and silk cushions sold for tens of thousands of dollars, and even lamps, photographs and painted model airplanes were purchased far above auction estimates. “Everything in that sale did well,” says Selby Kiffer, International Senior Specialist in Sotheby’s Books and Manuscripts Department. “But the books did fantastically well.”
“We don’t know what Jackie thought about furniture items or picture frames,” Kiffer continues. “But there was a good chance a book was something she held in her hands and read. It’s something that makes the previous ownership of books interesting.”
Provenance – or the history of an object’s ownership – can have a huge impact on the value of a book. In the case of Kennedy Onassis’ library, several books related to fashion sold for over $15,000, while another group of books about Washington, DC, sold for $5,100. Similarly, books that might be worth $50 on their own suddenly can cost six figures if they come from, say, George Washington’s personal library and have his signature and book plate.
It’s not just celebrities whose libraries matter. Among collectors, books from famous libraries can also command a premium. Robert Hoe III was a printing-press producer and notable bibliophile who owned not one but two Gutenberg Bibles during his lifetime. “It’s still exciting for a collector to have a Hoe copy,” Kiffer says. It’s the same phenomenon with a book from the library of Jean Grolier, namesake of the Grolier Club, the oldest and largest society for bibliophiles.
“If you have a book like Mark Twain’s copy of Shakespeare, you know that was something he held and read.”
Unlike other factors impacting an object’s value, such as condition and editions, there’s something particularly sentimental about collecting books based on their provenance. Say there are two identical copies of Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass up for sale, but one of them belonged to Henry David Thoreau and was signed by him. That second book feels different and more important because of its ownership.
“It’s a way of distinguishing one copy from another and giving it some sort of added value,” Kiffer says. But it also showcases the factor that makes books different from other objects in someone’s home: what we read shapes how we think.
Since the musical Hamilton became popular, Alexander Hamilton’s celebrity has only grown. “Prices for his treasury and law reports have increased,” Kiffer notes, “but so have books from his law practice.” On the auction market, old reference books typically have little to no value. “If they’re 100 or 200 years old, they’re just outdated books – not old enough to have antiquarian value and too old to be useful as a reference.” And yet Hamilton’s law reference books provide a view into the mind of a Founding Father, giving insight into the information he had at his disposal and how he might have used the knowledge available to him.
There are many academic studies looking at the libraries of famous people for this very reason, Kiffer says. To know what someone wasn’t just reading but thought important enough to keep in their library – and perhaps even annotate – is to know something intimate about their mind. Books and manuscripts, including letters and diaries, are some of the most personal objects we can hold from historical figures.
A work of art might have hung in a notable person’s home, Kiffer notes, but it’s possible that the owner never touched it. “If you have a book like Mark Twain’s copy of Shakespeare, you know that was something he held and read.” That gives it immense value, even if the book itself is not exceptionally rare or in good condition. This is why provenance can come with such a high price tag.
