Raptis Rare Books was recently featured in Palm Beach Illustrated Magazine. View the full article here.

The Raptis Rare Books Collection is a Palm Beach Bibliophile’s Dream

The Raptis Rare Books Collection

1. Moby Dick by Herman Melville, 1851, $65,000. Melville’s classic tale of captain Ahab’s white whale flopped upon release, and he eventually gave up writing professionally in order to earn a living as a customs inspector.
2. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, 1885, $10,000. Ernest Hemingway once described Twain’s Huckleberry Finn as the book that inspired all modern literature.
3. Etiquette: The Blue Book of Social Usage by Emily Post, 1922, $5,000. A must-read for any natty Palm Beacher, Post’s guide to proper decorum was an instant best-seller, one that has been updated throughout the decades to address modern etiquette issues.
4. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, 1925, $100,000. The Great Gatsby barely made a blip on the literary radar during its initial release, but its fate turned around during WWII when it was distributed to soldiers as a free paperback.
5. Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein, 1974, $20,000. Every copy of this collection of kid-friendly rhymes is a gem, but the first edition available at Raptis Rare Books features an additional poem handwritten by the bard himself.