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

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For him that stealeth, or borroweth and returneth not, this book from its owner . . . let him be struck with palsy, & all his members blasted. . . . Let bookworms gnaw his entrails in token of the Worm that dieth not, & when at last he goeth to his final punishment, let the flames of Hell consume him forever.

—Anathema in a medieval manuscript from the Monastery of San Pedro in Barcelona

I have known men to hazard their fortunes, go long journeys halfway about the world, forget friendships, even lie, cheat, and steal, all for the gain of a book.

—A. S. W. Rosenbach, twentieth-century book dealer

Prologue

At one end of my desk sits a nearly four-hundred-yearold book cloaked in a tan linen sack and a good deal of mystery. My friend Malcolm came across the book while carrying out the sad task of sorting through his brother’s belongings after he committed suicide. On the sack was a handwritten note that began, “To whom it may concern,” and went on to explain that several years earlier, a friend had withdrawn the book from a college library where she worked and had accidentally taken it with her when she moved away. He wrote that she had wanted the book to be returned to the library anonymously, but that he hadn’t had time to do so. Gingerly, Malcolm lifted the large, heavy tome with gleaming brass clasps from its sack. “Isn’t it beautiful?” he said as he handed it to me. My first thought was: Yes, beautiful. My second: It’s stolen.

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