Gilkey, whose love for books became an obsession

At a crowded world book fair some 30 years ago, a friend walked up to me at the OUP stall and asked me to come outside. At a neighbouring stall, he had been browsing through a book, when the pressure of the crowd propelled him towards the exit. Before he realised he found himself outside the stall with an unpaid for book in his hand. He sheepishly asked me if I could quietly return the book to the rightful owners. Knowing the neighbours well, I did so and they were profoundly grateful. Most publishers and booksellers do keep a vigilant eye on their stocks but there have been cases of books making unauthorised exits from stalls.

Allison Hoover Bartlett in her book, The Man Who Loved Books Too Much, writes about John Charles Gilkey, whose love for books became an obsession. But Bartlett had in her own possession a valuable, antiquarian book that needed to be restored to its owner, a library. Her friend Malcolm’s brother had died recently, and among his possessions was a sack containing a book with a hand-written note. The brother’s friend had withdrawn the book from the college library where she worked and had accidentally kept the book when she had moved away. Now the brother’s note said that she had always wanted to return the book to the library anonymously. The brother wanted Malcolm now to return the book and in turn, had brought the book to Bartlett.

A glimpse at the heavy book (it weighed 12 pounds) with its ornate brass clasps was enough to send Bartlett into ecstasy. It was a book in German with a sprinkling of Latin and Bartlett had to take the help of a rare book dealer who knew German to get an idea of its contents. It was the Krautterbuch, a book of botanical medicine by Hieronymus Bock, a botanist and physician. After the book burnings in the Middle Ages, knowledge of traditional medicine had been lost. So the Krautterbuch’s publication in 1630 was valuable as it described the traditional ways of healing and was revolutionary for its time. The illustrations in the book had all been hand-painted not only hiking up its value but also proof of its authenticity.

Going through the book with her German-speaking friend, Bartlett found remedies for all sorts of maladies, ranging from asthma to schizophrenia as well as minor ailments. For “bad smell in the armpit” a long list of ingredients was recommended: pine needles, narcissus bulbs, bay leaf, almonds, hazelnut, chestnut, oak, linden and birch, though it did not specify how they were to be used. Dried cherries were recommended for help with kidney stones and worms. Dried figs with almonds helped with epilepsy. Bartlett’s own favourite was the recommendation for low spirits — wine!

To be fair, Bartlett tried to return the Krautterbuch to the library mentioned in the note. She found to her astonishment that the library had no record of the Krautterbuch, the librarian firmly said it was not one of theirs. Bartlett learnt that this was not uncommon. Many missing books simply went unnoticed and in some cases, zealous librarians removed all record of it both to protect their turf and ward off unwelcome questions.

So the Krautterbuch sat lovingly on Bartlett’s desk for three years, lovingly perused, each page with a story to tell. But the Krautterbuck hooked Bartlett on to rare books and to stories of their theft, many not reported. Book thieves were scholars, clergymen, librarians, collectors and of course those who pillaged libraries with impunity as members of a conquering nation. But it was individual book thieves who interested Bartlett. Some who stole for individual gain and profit by trading and others who simply stole out of a love for books. The most notorious among the latter was John Charles Gilkey, who stole about $200,000 worth of books, and along with Gilkey was entwined the story of Ken Sanders, a rare book dealer, a self-appointed “bibliodick” (book detective) and his relentless efforts to catch Gilkey.

Bartlett found that due to Sanders’ efforts, Gilkey was now in prison, so she resolves to meet Sanders at the New York Antiquarian Book Fair. This was her visit to a fair where dealers had set up stalls to deal with rare and antiquarian books and Bartlett resolved to learn more about antiquarian books and those that dealt with them.

Ken Sanders was born in 1951 in a lapsed Mormon household at Salt Lake City, Utah. Surrounded by believers at school, he learnt enough about religion to “stay the hell away from it”. Reading was more an article of faith for him. “My dad joked that when my mom gave birth to me, I was clutching a book”. From an early age he devoured every book from the school library, including Dracula and Frankenstein from the adult section. As a child, he started collecting comic books, a trait that he would later share with his nemesis Gilkey. Sanders’ favourite character was “Spiderman”. “He had powers but he was messed up. What awkward kid wouldn’t be attracted to him?” A visit to Southern California with his grandparents ostensibly to Disneyland but more to see Bernard Smith’s “Acres of Books”, a bookstore that stretched seemingly to infinity transformed him. He plucked up courage to ask Smith about Lewis Carroll, Edgar Allan Poe and Maxfield Parrish. Impressed, Smith even lets him into the rare book room where he leafed through Poe’s The Raven. Each poem was illustrated by the 19th-century French illustrator Gustave Dore. It was for $17 and 50 cents. He bought it along with Parrish’s The Arabian Nights and Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland illustrated by Gwynedd Hudson. He was irrevocably hooked and started an antiquarian and rare books business in Salt Lake City.

Gilkey was born in 1968 in Modesto, California. His collection of books began with Richie Rich comic books. The allure for Gilkey was the fantasy of great riches and instant gratification. He committed his first crime at the age of nine or 10 where he quietly shoplifted a baseball catcher’s mitt. To his chagrin, he later discovered it was a lefty whereas Gilkey was right-handed. Gilkey visited his first antiquarian book fair in 1997 and was entranced. He was in awe of the books and felt he could own them. He selected three first editions: The Dunwich Horror by H.P. Lovecraft, Ira Levin’s Rosemary’s Baby and Isak Dinesen’s Seven Gothic Tales. He paid for the books with bad cheques and a maxed-out credit card. Gilkey’s major life in crime began when he got a temporary job at the Saks Fifth Avenue Store in New York during the holiday season. Working at Saks gave Gilkey an unique opportunity to note down customer’s credit card numbers. Gilkey soon realised he had a gold mine but did not use these numbers straightaway in case the transactions could be traced back to Saks. He waited a full month and then called rare book dealers to acquire his prized possessions. In every case, the credit card numbers would be approved for payment. In this way, he acquired $10,000, $50,000, $100,000 worth of rare books. He realised his collection could run into millions of dollars. Finally, the book dealers hired Sanders to track Gilkey. Sanders used a sting operation to trap Gilkey when he came to pick up a delivery from a dealer.

When Bartlett went to interview Gilkey in prison, Sanders had one last request. “Ask him to tell you the location of his storage unit where he hides the books. It must be near his home in Modesto”. Of course, Gilkey did not divulge the location and a major chunk of his “collections” were never found!

The writer is a senior publishing industry professional who has worked with OUP and is now a senior consultant with Ratna Sagar Books