Allison Bartlett - The Man Who Loved Books Too Much - The True Story of a Thief, a Detective, and a World of Literary Obsession

“I understand what his father deprived me of,” Cora said sadly. “My youngest.”

It was the one theft she did not shellac with misunderstood intentions.

If Cora or Tina had aided Gilkey with his stealing, they were not saying. I knew from my reading, though, that book thieves have often enlisted the help of family members. In one case, in Denmark in 2003, Copenhagen police found a trove of rare books, documents, and maps in the basement of a sixty-eight-year-old woman. She was the widow of a philologist who had worked in the Danish Royal Library’s Oriental Collection. Between the late 1960s and 1978, it turned out, he had moved books off the library’s shelves and onto his own. Police grew suspicious of the woman, her son, and her daughter-in-law when they attempted to sell several books, including the only existing copy of a 1517 volume belonging to the Royal Library, through Christie’s in London. Among the books stolen were works by John Milton, Martin Luther, Immanuel Kant, and the astronomer Tycho Brahe. At the time of the theft announcement in 2003, only 1,800 of the 3,200 missing books had been recovered, and at least a hundred had already been auctioned, including a first edition of Thomas More’s Utopia , which sold for the equivalent of $244,500 . 1

Cora and Tina asked if I’d like to see some photos of Gilkey when he was young. They were organized somewhat randomly, so that a photo of Gilkey at age six might be next to one when he was a teen, opposite a page of older siblings’ baby pictures. The pastel sixties mingled with the round-cornered seventies and flat-finished eighties.

“Do you want to see his father’s picture?” Cora asked. She led me to the hallway, papered with portraits of their large family. The resemblance between John and his father was faint. His father had a lighter complexion, a fuller face. Cora and Tina showed me through the rest of the house. They pointed out some of Gilkey’s prized possessions, including an oil painting of flowers.

“John wanted to make sure you saw that,” said Cora, “so we put it up here.”

So Gilkey had been setting the stage for my arrival. He wanted me to see him as someone who appreciated the finer things in life.

We turned a corner in the narrow hallway. “This is John’s room,” said Cora. “Come inside. And look at these books here!”

Tina joined us. She held up a slick new coffee-table book on wine that sat on his dresser atop several other large new books.

I looked around and felt urgently that I shouldn’t be there, in Gilkey’s bedroom. His shoes were neatly lined up on the floor and artwork he had collected hung on the walls. Ceramic frogs, which they told me he had also collected for years, sat on his shelves. I made a move to leave, but his mother motioned toward the closet, which she opened.

“See how he keeps his things? Neat,” she said. “And look, more books!”

Yes, more books. Stacks and stacks of them below and above the jackets, shirts, and pants that hung from the rod. Their spines faced the back of the closet, as if in hiding. This seemed the most private, most intimate corner of Gilkey’s room, but instead of looking inside to see if I recognized any of the books he had stolen, I turned away. It was like being invited to view a ghastly scar, something awful but riveting. I was afraid of what I would find if I drew the books from the pile, what degree of crime, and what responsibility I might bear in knowing the books were there. Later, I would curse my lack of courage.

IN DECEMBER, I met Gilkey at Café Fresco. The interview didn’t last long. I had a few questions, some facts to confirm, but soon thereafter, a janitor plodded by with her roaring vacuum cleaner. The noise made audiotaping impossible, so I suggested we end the interview and meet again soon. We both started to pack up, and I turned off my tape recorder. Gilkey held up a paperback to show me.

“I checked this out of the library,” he said over the drone of the vacuum, “so that they wouldn’t notice a pattern.”

I didn’t recognize the title. I also didn’t understand. “What do you mean?” I asked.

“I usually check out classics,” he said.

“And?” I asked, still confused.

“See,” he said, “I took three dust jackets off classics, you know, to send to their authors for autographs.”

I was no longer confused.

“And a map,” he added. “I cut one out of a book.”

So much for not stealing from the library.

It was bound to happen. Imagine a jewel thief walking into Tiffany’s and having all but the most valuable diamonds, sapphires, and emeralds sitting on velvet-lined trays out in the open. So it must be for a book thief walking into a library, especially since first editions can still be found in the open stacks.

When Gilkey told me about taking a map and dust jackets from the library, it was the first time he had confessed recent thefts to me—the others he’d pulled off years before. I assumed the dust jackets were not valuable, but what if I was mistaken? And what about the map? I had read about a New England map expert who had been charged with slicing millions of dollars’ worth of ancient maps from libraries’ collections. I doubted that Gilkey’s nicked map was from a very valuable book, but again, what if I was wrong? Was this the kind of treasure I had been hoping to uncover? I wasn’t sure what to do with it. I hadn’t expected to take on the role of confessor, and I worried about the implications. Was I obligated to inform the police? What about the library? And which library? If I decided not to share this information yet, how would librarians and book dealers respond once they found out?

I consulted a couple of friends who are lawyers. After providing the caveat that they weren’t criminal attorneys, they told me they were fairly sure that I had no legal obligation to inform authorities unless the crimes had or would physically endanger someone. Later, my literary agent’s attorney echoed their opinions.

But what about ethical responsibility? The difference between the two was as blurry as my role, which had shifted from observer to participant in Gilkey’s story. Did I owe this information to dealers, who had been so helpful with my research? But if I notified them of these thefts, wouldn’t Gilkey keep all future and possibly more significant thefts from me? Furthermore, would he then never tell me where the misbegotten books were stashed? I found myself teetering between selfishness and benevolence: either reveal the secrets Gilkey had shared with me, probably losing access to him and possibly sending him to jail, or keep them to myself and be unjust to his victims. I tried to reassure myself that such consequences were not directly my responsibility.

Two months later, still undecided about what to do with this information, I called the FBI. I read that they had been involved in cases of rare book theft and I wanted to learn how many they pursued annually, which types of cases they took on, what sorts of trends they encountered, and so on. I was granted a telephone interview with Bonnie Magness-Gardiner, who heads the Art Crime Team responsible for rare book theft investigations. I explained what I was interested in and why. She was not able to provide me with statistics regarding the total number of rare book thefts in recent years, but said that the agency became interested in cases involving interstate transportation of stolen books worth over $5,000 that were uniquely identifiable.

“Then,” she said, “it could become a matter for the FBI,” adding, “but there’s a five-year statute of limitations.”

I remembered the $9,500 set of travel books Gilkey stole in New York and, crossing state lines, brought into California.