Edgar Allan Poe’s first book, Tamerlane and Other Poems, didn’t impress folks at the time, but it’s a rare find at auctions today for antique book buyers. Christie’s is selling a beat-up copy of the book which it says could sell for half a million or more, a record for American literature. Twenty years ago, another copy of the same book sold for $250,000, which is the current record price for this kind of thing.
Oh, the irony. Poor Poe, in his lifetime, didn’t have enough money to buy coal to keep his dying wife warm. Now a single copy of his first book is worth a fortune. There is no justice in this world.
Just imagine how much Wolf Time will go for in another hundred years.
Yeah, maybe as much as $111. 😀
I assume one of you would affirm that my mother should not have tossed one of Poe’s first books out into the hog lot along with all my older brother’s Elvis 45s???!!!
I had always enjoyed reading Poe, from 5th grade upward. A rich, great-uncle knew this and gave me an old Poe on one birthday. It appeared to us to be an original. Later the great-uncle confirmed this…
Mom had these little fits off and on..like breaking up my prized ukulele over my head… so one day, when my brother had not done as instructed…. it’s a long story…you get the idea…. And now I see I’d blocked it out of my mind for all these years….. Thanks Phil!
All these years I thought mine was the weird side of the family.
AH! Lars…the stories I could tell you….