Heller's Desk For Sale
Coming up this week Bonhams' Fine Books and Manuscripts sale on December 15, a desk owned and used by Joseph Heller, complete with coffee ring stains to the top. From the picture, the twentieth-century wooden desk does look a bit worn, but considering that the celebrated author owned it for about thirty years, let's call it a writer's patina. It is believed that Heller wrote at least some of the following works sitting at this very desk in his East Hampton, New York, home: God Knows (1984); No Laughing Matter (1986); Picture This (1988); Closing Time (1994); Now and Then: From Coney Island to Here (1998); and Portrait of an Artist, as an Old Man (published in 2000). Heller died in 1999. His desk will be offered without reserve and is (conservatively) estimated to reach $1,500-2,500. Lamp included. Reminds me of Melville's lap desk Bonhams had not so long ago. That one sold for $34,160.
