Stealing Rare Books

A 60-year-old Iranian book collector was recently convicted of slicing pages out of century-old books to add to his collection. The unassuming reader escaped with many priceless pages, including a $44,000 map produced in the court of Henry VIII.

Financial Times profiled the fascinating world of 21st Century book thieves this weekend. The article contains dramatic arrests, exotic libraries, book thief catching tips, and some impressive figures about successful heists.

Here’s the story of a brazen 30-year-old book thief who stole from the Mont Sainte-Odile monastery in France (pictured via): “When [Stanislas] Gosse was finally caught red-handed in May 2002, he was trying to get away with three suitcases containing 300 books — at which point he admitted everything. Police raided his flat and found 1,100 historical and religious books and manuscripts meticulously arranged, catalogued and, in some cases, restored. Nothing had been sold.” (Via BookNinja)

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