The Most Expensive Book You Can Buy in Portland
Image: Courtesy Powell's Books
Like all things, books are worth the price someone is willing to pay—and it’s mostly a question of finding the right buyer.
Some general parameters for what gives books value: scarcity is perhaps the largest driver of a rare book’s price. If a book was not expected to be a big hit, a first-edition copy possesses a degree of knew-them-when clout. (Early Cormac McCarthy novels are an example.) Author signatures also drive value, more so if the author didn’t sign many books.
Rare books come in countless subcategories—which dealers and collectors will quibble over—but a major divide is antiquarian (think historical artifact) versus modern rare books (a commercially produced hardback). To the layperson, rare first editions look just like any other older book, which makes it fruitful to hunt through estate sales for treasures hiding in plain sight. “I scout like crazy,” says Timothy Wheeler, owner of Red Fox Rare Books, a Portland-based online rare book store. In fact, the most totally-normal-looking first editions regularly command the highest price tags. You want first editions, not library copies, special book club runs, or even ornate, special-edition small runs. And the less read the better, so it’s a pristine token of the past.
If an author’s career was at a high point when the book was published, garnering a large initial print run, the book is far less rare, and thus not particularly valuable. Hemingway’s Old Man and the Sea is one such example, as are most of Stephen King’s books, unless they’re autographed, because King isn’t in the habit of doing that.
Review copies (which are pre-publication copies given to media) and books with a significant previous owner (called “association” copies) are also sought after. For example, after Joan Didion’s death, her Hemingway paperbacks fetched $13,000 at auction, their value inflated only by her ownership. Previous owners can be surprising. “We once had a book with the bookplate of Benito Mussolini,” says Kirsten Berg, Powell’s Rare Book Room specialist. “The artwork was a beautiful drawing of a field of flowers.”
Who buys these exorbitantly priced tomes? “For the most part people just fall in love with a book and buy it,” says Berg. “Sometimes tears of joy are shed. We keep lots of Kleenex available.” Which brings us to the most expensive book in Portland:
The MOST EXPENSIVE Book in Portland
Image: Courtesy Powell's Books
History of the Expedition Under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, to the Sources of the Missouri, Thence Across the Rocky Mountains and Down the River Columbia to the Pacific Ocean
Bradford & Inskeep, Philadelphia, 1814 | Powell’s Rare Book Room | $350,000
This comes from none other than famed dynamic duo, Billy and Meriwether. Past the rather full-throated title, the book opens with a direct address from Thomas Jefferson, outlining the goals of the storied westward expedition. More than two centuries ago, 1,400 or so copies were produced. Powell’s acquired one of 23 known surviving copies at auction. It’s set in original binding and contains all original maps, making it worth about as much as a 2023 Lamborghini Huracán STO.
Other Pricey Books in Portland
Image: Courtesy Red Fox Rare Books
Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy
Random House, New York, 1985 | Red Fox Rare Books | $4,000
McCarthy’s 1985 historical Western epic was the author’s fifth novel. Today, it’s widely recognized as an important piece of American literature, but when it was first published, public reception was timid, with a first press limited to around 10,000 copies. This copy is devoid of any special provenance or signatures. “It’s essentially off the shelf,” says bookseller Timothy Wheeler. By contrast, a signed first edition inscribed to McCarthy’s long-time friend, who is suspected as the inspiration for a character in one of his other novels, John Sheddan, is currently listed on the online reseller AbeBooks for $48,000.
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Chatto & Windus, London, 1932 | Crooked House Books | $6,500
“I don’t really think many new collectors want to start off with Brave New World,” jokes Scott Givens, proprietor of Crooked House Books in Northeast Portland. Many of us read this 1932 dystopian novel in high school, and aren’t running back to test Huxley's speculations against present day reality. First editions from the London publisher Chatto & Windus are the ones you want, with the navy cover depicting an ominous fragmented globe. Givens says he purchased his copy from another collector, and the specific copy doesn’t hold much of a story outside of the one on its pages. It’s unsigned; if it were, it could be worth $25,000.
