In 1977, Bernie Rhodenbarr made his debut in Burglar’s Can’t Be Choosers. In 1995, he had his seventh appearance in The Burglar Who Thought He Was Bogart. And eight years later, in late 2003, a woman in O’Fallon, Illinois, bought the original manuscript of Bogart.
Last fall, I’m sorry to report, she passed away. And last week her daughter got in touch, and we arranged that I’d find a new owner for the manuscript. I’ve just posted it on eBay, with a minimum opening bid of 99¢.
If you’re a collector, well, note that this is a unique item, the copy-edited manuscript that went to the printer and was returned to me after publication. It’s signed on the title page, and there are pencil corrections throughout. I’ve been assured that I could best monetize the item by donating it (or even selling it) to a university library, but I’d much rather it go to someone who wants to own it rather than disappear into an institution’s archives.
There’s no reserve on this. The high bidder gets it, period. But I have a feeling it’s going to run you more than 99¢…
Larry! You, you (dang it, what’s the male version of temptress? It’s gotta be better than tempter). You, devil, you!
I am now watching that auction.
So am I, Jaye.
I’m probably not in the income bracket to bid on this (well, I can afford .99c, but as you say, it may go a little higher). I wanted to comment, though, to thank you for signing a copy of “A Drop Of The Hard Stuff” for me last year, and for inscribing it “A day late and a dollar short” (I arrived from Scotland the night after you’d been signing in NY, and managed to persuade Mystery Books to sell me the limited edition for a dollar off, by paying a dollar extra for the regular hardback) .
And for all the rest of us nickel and dimers, I can’t recommend “Afterthoughts” too highly – very enjoyable stuff.
Thanks, Michael. And yes, I’m afraid it’s past the 99¢ level already. (But that’s still the price of the Afterthoughts eBook…)
Dear Mr. Block,
I just finished teaching a class called “Literary Lions of Western New York” and one of the sessions
dealt with your fiction. It was most enjoyable to look at your work from a WNY local perspective, spotting the occasional Buffalo reference, as in your Step by Step memoir. My favorite instance is the street in White Plains that Keller always visits in the Hit Man books — Taunton Place; only Buffalonians would find that hilarious. My question is whether or not any of your manuscripts have been placed in any WNY libraries. The Buffalo and Erie County Public Library has the manuscript of Huckleberry Finn and I had the opportunity to view the typescript of Sloan Wilson’s “Man in the Gray Flannel Suit,” a novel written while Wilson was working at UB. Also, SUNY at Buffalo has the George Kelly collection of American pulp detective fiction in its rare books department, surely an
appropriate repository for some of your manuscripts.
I’m loving the LB blog; thanks for keeping in touch with your grateful and vastly entertained readers.
Mike Harris
Mike, thanks. There are some Buffalo streets referenced in a couple of the Ehrengraf stories, too; the city’s never named, but the evidence suggests it must be Buffalo.
Far as I know, none of my manuscripts are in libraries, in Buffalo or elsewhere—except for a few very early ones that went to the University of Oregon.
“Your chance to own a piece of Bernie” – so I rush over to ebay…
“We can ship only to US addresses.”
I’ll sit back and watch from the UK then…
Apologies, John. A while back we stopped filling overseas orders at LB’s Bookstore. The headaches and red tape were too burdensome for a small-volume operation like ours. Sorry!
You need a UK agent! It can’t be just the two of us surely!
Damn you! Now I have to obsess!
Price is already way out of my league anyway – 30 bids and there’s still 9 days to go.