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Cormac McCarthy’s $254,500 typewriter

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Cormac McCarthy’s typewriter sold at auction today for 254,500 bones, more than 12 times the estimated cost of $15,000-$20,000. And the thing barely works!

Functionality isn’t the point, of course: Provenance is. It’s notable that McCarthy has written all of his 10 novels on this exact typewriter, including a National Book Award winner and a Pulitzer Prize winner. These days, many writers use computers -- but those don’t last quite as long as McCarthy’s machine, which he bought used in 1963.

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And then there’s timing: In 2008, the film version of McCarthy’s ‘No Country for Old Men’ took four Oscars. And ‘The Road,’ which Oprah picked for her book club, became a film that began playing in theaters Thanksgiving weekend.

Were the other items up for auction so well-positioned? Not quite so extravagantly. A rundown of those we drooled over this morning -- and their final prices -- follow.

Tamerlane and Other Poems’ by Edgar Allan Poe. Estimated cost: $500,000-$800,000. Sold for $662,500.

One of the first eight printed copies of ‘A Christmas Carol,’ inscribed by Dickens to a friend on Dec. 17, 1843. Estimated cost: $120,000-$180,000. Sold for $290,500.

A first edition of Walt Whitman’s ‘Leaves of Grass,’ bound in green and gilt, printed for the author. Estimated cost: $80,000-$120,000. Sold for $218,500.

A first edition of ‘The Origin of Species’ by Charles Darwin. Estimated cost: $80,000-$120,000. Sold for $146,500.

A first edition of Jane Austen’s ‘Emma,’ published in three volumes. Estimated cost: $60,000-$80,00. Sold for $104,500.

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A first edition of ‘Pride and Prejudice’ by Austen, in three volumes. Estimated cost: $40,000-$60,000. Sold for $52,500.

A first edition of ‘Jane Eyre’ by Charlotte Brontë. Estimated cost: $40,000-$60,00. Sold for $40,000.

A first American edition of ‘Moby-Dick’ by Herman Melville. Estimated cost: $25,000-$35,000. Sold for $32,500.

A first edition of Ernest Hemingway’s first book ‘Three Stories and Ten Poems.’ Estimated cost: $15,000-$20,000. Sold for $30,000.

A first edition of Lewis Carroll’s ‘The Hunting of the Snark,’ inscribed by the author Charles Dodgson. Estimated cost. $20,000-$30,000. Sold for $21,250.

A first edition, first printing of ‘Walden: or, Life in the Woods’ by Henry David Thoreau. Estimated cost: $7,000-$10,000. Sold for $20,000.

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Mark Twain’s ‘The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,’ first American edition. Estimated cost: $18,000-$24,000. Sold for $18,750.

Vladimir Nabokov’s ‘Pale Fire,’ inscribed and with a butterfly hand-drawn and hand-colored by the author. Estimated cost: $8,000-$12,000. Sold for $13,750.

Two books: ‘The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes’ and ‘The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes’ by Arthur Conan Doyle, both first editions. Estimated cost: $4,000-$6,000. Sold for $9,375.

Elizabeth Barret Browning’s ‘Poems,’ first edition, inscribed by the author to writer John Ruskin. Estimated cost: $4,000-$6,000. Sold for $7,500.

A first edition of William Faulkner’s ‘Light in August,’ hardcover with dust jacket. Estimated cost: $1,000-$1,500. Sold for $4,750.

The original serialized version of Dickens’ ’Bleak House’ in 20 parts. Estimated cost: $3,000-$4,000. Sold for $3,750.

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After the jump: what didn’t sell.

The original of ‘The Original of Laura’ by Vladimir Nabokov. Estimated cost: $400,000-$600,000. Not sold.

A first edition of James Joyce’s ‘Ulysses,’ published by Shakespeare & Co. in Paris in 1922. Estimated cost: $200,000-$300,000. Not sold.

‘The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club’ inscribed by Charles Dickens to Hans Christen Andersen. $200,000-$300,000. Not sold.

A handwritten manuscript page from ‘The Pickwick Papers,’ edited and signed by Charles Dickens. Estimated cost: $90,000-$120,000. Not sold.

A first edition of ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’ by Harriet Beecher Stowe. Estimated cost: $10,000-$15,000. Not sold.

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-- Carolyn Kellogg

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