Abebooks has identified what it thinks might be “the most unusual” item on its site: Edith Wharton’s baby rattle. For just $16,500 (£10,500), interested parties can purchase the “sterling silver and coral” rattle, engraved Edith, which the seller says Wharton gave to Lucienne Belugou, daughter of her close friend Leon Belugou, on her christening in 1920. (There’s “100% solid provenance” on the item, adds the bookseller.)
But wait: this is only the “most unusual item to be listed for sale on AbeBooks since Eugene O’Neill’s underpants in 2013”. Apparently worth $1,750, the pants “are pale blue, size 32 with the initials “E O’N” stitched into the waist-band”, and were left behind in Marblehead Neck, Massachusetts, when the writer moved on.
Abebooks points to other items of literary curiosity its booksellers are selling, including Truman Capote’s birth certificate, which would set you back $35,000. But even if money were no object, I find myself strangely unmoved by the prospect of owning things which once belonged to writers, even writers I adore. I’m not even interested in owning first editions – just the words are fine for me, I don’t need them to be the prettiest or oldest or most expensive or rarest version of themselves.
And rattles, pants and birth certificates – they’re all so mundane and ordinary, humanising these literary titans, pulling them out of their hallowed spots in the canon and turning them into people who label their underwear. And they’re odd, yes, but they’re not as odd as JD Salinger’s toilet: back in 2010, the “used toilet commode” was put on eBay for $1m, “uncleaned and in its original condition”. No word emerged on whether or not it sold.
