"The books include handwritten love letters of the English romantic poet John Keats and an Oscar Wilde novel, De Profundis, which was written as a letter while Wilde was imprisoned for his romantic relationship with Lord Alfred Douglas."
"The books, which also include a signed first edition copy of James Joyce's Finnegans Wake, were stolen from the Whitneys' Long Island home in the 1980s during a period of non-stop home construction."
"They reappeared in Manhattan in January 2025, when an individual who inherited them from his grandfather attempted to sell them to two separate rare book dealers."
"In 2026 a New York Supreme court judge authorized them to be turned over to the Whitney family."
The Manhattan District Attorney will return 17 rare books, stolen in the 1980s from the Whitney family, to their heirs. The collection includes handwritten letters by John Keats and Oscar Wilde's De Profundis. The books were discovered in January 2025 when an heir attempted to sell them, prompting rare book dealers to alert law enforcement. A New York Supreme Court judge authorized their return to the Whitney family in 2026, marking a significant recovery of literary history.
Read at www.amny.com
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