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

In a distinctive Dutch accent, Hesselink described how several years earlier, a man had called him and asked if he would be interested in some very rare items, including a Book of Hours and letters from several American presidents. Hesselink was interested, but as soon as he saw the books, he became suspicious. He lives in the countryside outside Amsterdam, “in the middle of nowhere,” yet here was a man from New York who had traveled that great distance to sell him books that could have been sold easily in the United States.

“This was already fishy,” said Hesselink, who said he became more cautious than usual.

He looked at all the materials and made an offer, which the man immediately accepted. This, too, was strange, he said. In order to stall, Hesselink told the man that because the banks had already closed, he could write a check, knowing that the man would prefer cash, and then suggested they meet the next day, when Hesselink would be able to offer it. Immediately after the man left, Hesselink contacted colleagues in the United States to see if they knew of any stolen books that resembled what he had just been offered. It took only hours to discover that all of the materials had been stolen from Columbia University. Hesselink contacted Interpol, the FBI, and local Dutch authorities, and they set up a sting for four o’clock the next day in the town’s public square.

The story seemed straight out of a mystery novel, and my favorite detail was yet to come: That night, Hesselink and his son cut stacks of newspaper into rectangles the size of gilder notes and put bundles of them—the “payment”—into a plastic garbage bag. At four the next day, the man arrived in Utrecht’s central square with his bag of loot. Police, in bullet-proof vests, had surrounded the area. Hesselink suggested that the man accompany him to Hesselink’s car, where the payment was. After a number of Keystone Kops-style blunders by local police, they managed to arrest him. Prosecuting him would turn out to be even more problematic. 17

I asked Hesselink if he was frightened while handing over the bag of “money,” since the man could have been armed and the police might not have acted fast enough, but he said he was calm. I was impressed. This was not, after all, a seasoned detective, but a rare book dealer playing James Bond for a day. I left the hallway where we’d talked and headed back into the fair, with yet another story to add to the growing collection in my notebook. The excitement I felt hearing them, acquiring them, was akin, I guessed, to the excitement the most satisfied of collectors were feeling at the fair.

If there had been any thefts that opening day, I figured that the fair manager would have got wind of them, so I stopped by his office to find out. He assured me not only that were there no thefts that day but also that they were uncommon at fairs. I wasn’t sure I should believe him. One of the things Ken Sanders had already told me is that part of the challenge in addressing the problem of rare book theft is the reluctance of many people to publicize it. It is irrelevant how cunningly the books may have been stolen; the assumption among the trade, and perhaps even more so among rare book librarians (whose books may have been donated), is that the victim wasn’t vigilant enough. Book dealers, who have been known to conduct millions of dollars’ worth of business through handshakes, sometimes feel that announcing losses would put them at risk of being blacklisted. “Once you’re tainted by theft,” McKittrick had explained to me, “you’re toast.” Because they are often entrusted with valuable, beloved books that collectors have hired them to sell, they don’t want to risk being seen as vulnerable.

I had brought a slim notebook to the fair and already wished I’d brought a thicker one. Every dealer had a different story to tell. The only thing I heard more than once was, “Every rare book is a stolen book.” The Nazis were rampant pillagers of collections, dealers explained, as were the Romans, who stole whole libraries from the Greeks, and Queen Christina of Sweden, who collected a vast booty during the Thirty Years’ War. 18But they were referring also to thieves who act on their own behalf. Whether by the hands of conquerors or corrupt collectors, valuable books go missing, and unless a thief tries to sell a book to a reputable dealer or institution shortly after swiping it, they told me, there’s a good chance that no one will be able to track it down. Eventually, perhaps a year later, a decade later, a century later, the book is sold to someone who has no knowledge of its past, no idea of its tainted provenance. It is impossible to track the history of ownership of every book. This, I assumed, is something any clever book thief has figured out.

I turned a corner and spotted Ken Sanders’s booth. I was eager to see the face of the impressive storyteller. He did not blend in with the rare book fair crowd any better than I. Sanders has an ample paunch, a thinning ponytail, and a long black-and-white beard that he strokes and twists between his thumb and fingers. His eyebrows form sharp inverted V’s over his eyes, making him look curious or indignant; I would soon learn that he very often is one or the other. While he has a suffer-no-fools way about him, if you’re interested in a book or a story, he has all the time in the world. He calls himself the “Book Cop.” His friends call him “Bibliodick.”

We sat in two chairs at the edge of his booth and talked about how things were going at the fair.

“In a fair like this,” he said, “I’m a bottom-feeder. Not like those up on Park Avenue.”

That’s what Sanders called the aisles up near the front of the fair, which is prohibitively expensive for all but the high-end rare book dealers. Sanders, who told me he attends six to eight fairs a year, is an egalitarian and prefers the San Francisco fair, where a dealer’s booth location is decided by lottery. “A lot of New Yorkers hate it,” he said. “They’d rather have it be all elite. I like the mixture.” I mentioned the rumor that Al Pacino was shopping for books, but he was uninterested. He said that twice, at previous fairs, he had spoken to longtime collector Steve Martin (once, while almost backing into Diane Keaton), but hadn’t realized who Martin (or Keaton) was until his daughter, Melissa, exasperatedly informed him, twice.

I asked how things were going.

“We started unpacking at nine A.M. yesterday,” said Sanders. “Other dealers will help you unpack to see what you’ve got. So much depends on your knowledge, though.”

He told me about a book he saw one dealer sell to another for $200 that morning, then watched the dealer resell it for $3,500 that afternoon. One dealer had recognized value where the other had not.

We hadn’t been sitting for more than a couple of minutes when Sanders told me about the first New York fair he exhibited at.

“Ten minutes into opening night, I lost a thousand-dollar book. And my friend Rob Rulon-Miller lost a book by Roger Williams worth thirty-five thousand. The two of us marched over to the Nineteenth Precinct, which is literally out the back door of the Armory. You can imagine a New York police precinct. And the two of us in suits over there. I let Rob go first.”

Sanders explained that dealers are used to police scoffing at news of a stolen book, especially when it’s worth a lot of money. “People pay that for a book ?” they ask skeptically.

“Me, being the smart one,” continued Sanders, “I let Rob break the ice and explain to the sergeant on duty that we were there to report book thefts. When Rob gives him the details, the sergeant looks up at him, disbelievingly, and says, ‘Roger Williams ? You talking about one of the guys who founded Rhode Island?’ He actually knew who the man was. I was very impressed. Then he says, ‘You let someone walk away with a first-edition Roger Williams ?!’ And he looked at Rob like: You’re some kinda moron, right? After that, I decided my thousand-dollar book wasn’t worth making a fuss about.”