Thoreau Pencil and Complete Modern Library Lead Final Strutz Library Auction
Heritage Auctions
A pencil manufactured by J. Thoreau & Co
The 266-volume complete Modern Library and a Thoreau & Co pencil are among the lots in the third and final Heritage Auctions sale from the library of North Dakota attorney and bibliophile William A. Strutz.
The September 10-11 event follows the sales of earlier sections of the Strutz library that went under the hammer in June and December 2024.
One of the most intriguing lots is a pencil manufactured by J. Thoreau & Co which was founded by Henry David Thoreau’s father. “During his years at Harvard and shortly after graduating, the young Henry worked at his father’s company, where he invented a special graphite formula that made Thoreau pencils renowned nationwide,” said Francis Wahlgren, Heritage Auctions’ International Director of Rare Books & Manuscripts. “He attempted to sell them to finance the publication of his first book A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers. It is remarkable to imagine Thoreau using pencils just like this to draft his many works.”
Another headliner is the 266-volume complete Modern Library assemblage in fine condition, with all but four of the works retaining their original dust jackets. Founded in spring 1917 by publisher Boni & Liveright, the Modern Library was intended to provide inexpensive editions of literary works to the American public including older classics and modern works alike. It was purchased in 1925 by Boni & Liveright vice-president Bennett Cerf who stewarded the publishing company for the next 34 years in partnership with Donald S. Klopfer and saw it through its reorganization as Random House, Inc., in 1936. During this time, the availability, mass distribution and affordable prices made Modern Library books staples to those with interest in serious literary works.
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Heritage Auctions
Select titles from the 266-volume complete Modern Library
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Heritage Auctions
James Agee's Havana Cruise manuscript
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Heritage Auctions
Christopher Morley’s The Haunted Bookshop
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Heritage Auctions
The four-book lot of H.P. Lovecraft first editions
Other highlights include:
a dozen lots of manuscript material from novelist and journalist James Agee, including various notes on and incomplete drafts of unpublished works, letters and a mimeographed 36-page typescript draft of his 1937 Havana Cruise complete with corrections and annotations in ink and pencil
the 'Books into Film' lot, a group of nine first editions of works that have been adapted for screen or stage, including author-signed works Howard Fast's Spartacus, Arthur Hailey's Airport, Ernest Thompson's On Golden Pond, and Walter D. Edmonds' Drums Along the Mohawk
a copy of Christopher Morley’s The Haunted Bookshop (1919) with its rare dust jacket
an advance reading copy of the first edition of Michael Shaara’s Civil War novel The Killer Angels (1974)
numerous first editions including a four-book lot of H.P. Lovecraft works, a seven-volume lot of C.S. Lewis books and a group of three presentation-copy Sinclair Lewis titles
