Book About the Mouse That Travels the World

The Most Expensive Books in the World

Read this the adjacent time yous're tempted to complain about the price of hardcovers at Barnes & Noble.

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manuscript 'The Tales of Beedle the Bard' SANG TAN/AP/Shutterstock

The Tales of Beedle the Bard

JK Rowling'southward first book since the conclusion of the Harry Potterserial fetched a huge chunk of change. Published in Dec 2007,Beedlewas the complete book of fairy tales that play a crucial part in the last installment of theHarry Potterserial. JK Rowling produced seven separate handwritten copies ofBeedle, filled with illustrations she herself had drawn. These books were incredibly beautiful: leather-jump, with silver and moonstones decorating the comprehend. Rowling gave vi of these "Moonstone Editions" tofriends and people who worked on the Harry Potterbooks, but 1 went up for auction on Amazon. 1 mega-fan paid $3.98 1000000 for it, and Rowling donated the proceeds to a children'due south charity. While far from the most expensive volume on this listing,Beedlewas the priciest volume ever purchased that was written and published in the twenty-first century. If you own one of these rare books, you're sitting on a gold mine.

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Treatise of Fruit Trees ED BAILEY/AP/King/Shutterstock

Traité des arbres fruitiers

The championship of this eighteenth-century French handbook translates to "Treatise of Fruit Trees." The book was written by botanist Henri Louis Duhamel du Monceau and contained 5 separate volumes filled with detailed illustrations. This manuscript went for 3.4 one thousand thousand euros (about $4.five 1000000 U.South.) at a 2006 auction. Aye, someone spent four-and-a-half meg dollars for a book about fruit trees.

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Gutenberg Bible Uweázucchi/Epa/Shutterstock

The Gutenberg Bible

This was the offset-always edition of the Skilful Volume to exist produced using moveable-type impress, with Johannes Gutenberg's printing press (hence the proper name). Despite being mass-produced, the Gutenberg Bible is notwithstanding incredibly rare and valuable, as its $v.4 one thousand thousand toll tag makes clear. Only 48 copies of the original 1450s-printed batch remain today. The buyer of this copy was Maruzen Co. Ltd., a major Japanese bookseller. At the time, 1987, information technology set the record for the most expensive volume ever purchased.

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shakespeare's first folio Jerome Favre/Epa/Shutterstock

The First Page

This collection of William Shakespeare'south plays is widely considered 1 of the most pregnant treasures in literary history. Formally titled "Mr. William Shakespeare'southward Comedies, Histories & Tragedies," the folio contains all but four of the Bard'due south dramatic works. Of the 750 copies originally published seven years after his death in 1623, only 228 remain. Paul Allen, the co-founder of Microsoft, snatched 1 upwardly at Christie's, an sale house in New York City, in 2001. It toll him a cool $6.2 million. If you love books but don't want to pay exorbitant amounts, here are some websites that permit you read great books for free.

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the canterbury tales Paul Vicente/EPA/Shutterstock

The Canterbury Tales

This enduring drove of stories from the Eye Ages by fourteenth-century poet Geoffrey Chaucer fetched a hefty sum of money in 1998—7.v meg dollars, to be exact. The 17,000 lines ofThe Canterbury Tales tell the story of a motley coiffure of pilgrims who appoint in a storytelling contest while on their way to visit a holy shrine. Only 12 original copies notwithstanding exist today. One ended upwardly in the hands of London book dealers, who purchased it for 4.6 million pounds. In 1998, that amount was equal to about 5-and-a-half one thousand thousand U.S. dollars. If you do the math (in that location are 24 dissever tales), that's approximately $230,000 per tale.

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Britain Birds of America Lefteris Pitarakis/AP/Shutterstock

Birds of America

Betwixt 1827 and 1838, naturalist John James Audubon published a serial of exquisite prints depicting hundreds of different North American bird species. Together, the 435 illustrations course the complete first edition ofBirds of America, of which at that place are just 119 remaining copies. Another reason for the bird book'southward massive value is the fact that 6 of the bird species depicted are now extinct. In 2010, the near expensive copy ofBirds of Americawent for $11.5 million at Sotheby's Sale House in London. 2 other copies of the volume too raked in big coin in the twentieth century: an $8.8 million copy in 2000 and a $7.ix one thousand thousand copy in 2012.

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Gospels of Henry the Lion Shutterstock

The Gospel of Henry the Lion

Only merely chirapsia out the birds in this listing of expensive books is a panthera leo… Henry the Lion, to be verbal. Henry the Lion was the Knuckles of Saxony from 1142 to 1180 (Saxony, in case y'all were wondering, is a German land). He commissioned the production of a gospel book for display on the altar of Brunswick Cathedral. The text was a masterpiece, 266 pages long with fifty Romanesque illustrations depicting scenes from all 4 gospels. The book concluded up back in the hands of the German authorities effectually 800 years after when it was purchased at a 1983 London auction for $11.7 million. Today, the complete manuscript has a home in Wolfenbüttel, Deutschland'due south Herzog Baronial Library. To ensure its safe, it is just put on display once every two years! Check out the most expensive things thieves take ever stolen.

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the Rotheschild prayer book Mark Chilvers/The Independent/Shutterstock

Rothschild Prayer Volume

These are some pricey prayers: this Flemish drove of Christian texts, psalms, and images cost its heir-apparent $13.4 meg. It was compiled in the early 1500s and features the works of a myriad of Flemish scholars, which fill 254 split pages. In 1999, an Australian man of affairs named Kerry Stokes purchased information technology from Christie'due south in New York. Stokes loaned information technology to the National Library of Commonwealth of australia in Canberra, where it remains today. These items are about to get way more than expensive.

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The Bay Psalm Book Sotheby's/Shutterstock

Bay Psalm Book

Religious texts proceed to fill this list of expensive books, with the Bay Psalm Book standing the tendency. This 1 stands out from its fellows, though, considering of its distinction as the first book ever printed in the British colonies that would become America. In 1640, 20 years after the Pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock, the Bay Psalm Book emerged from printers in Cambridge, Massachusetts. There are approximately eleven copies yet intact today, mostly in the possession of libraries and universities. Ane copy, though, has belonged to American businessman David Rubenstein since 2013, when he bought it at a Sotheby's sale for $xiv.ii million. Check out the most expensive movie props ever bought.

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St. Cuthbert Gospel Kirsty Wigglesworth/AP/Shutterstock

St. Cuthbert Gospel

This small-scale version of the Gospel of John is one of the earliest surviving examples of Western bookbinding. Created in the eighth century, it spent years in the coffin of its namesake, St. Cuthbert, before condign the property of an English Jesuit school. In the years leading upwardly to its 2012 purchase, it was on loan to the British Library. The book measures merely five-and-a-half by 3-and-a-half inches. It may be pocket-sized, but its cost tag sure isn't; the British Library raised over $ten.7 million to buy it for good at an auction.

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Magna Carta Justin Lane/EPA/REX/Shutterstock

The Magna Carta

The Magna Carta, the thirteenth-century lease that laid the foundation for the time to come of the police as nosotros know it, is 1 of the most famous texts in history. Naturally, it earns a high spot on this list. The text was ane of the earliest to lay out the concept of basic human being rights and limit the powers of a king. Today, merely seventeen copies predating 1300 survive. Ane sold for a whopping $21.3 million at a 2007 auction. The identity of the heir-apparent is most likely David Rubenstein, who is besides the lucky (or perchance just wealthy) possessor of the Bay Psalm Book. His reasoning for spending so much money? He thought it "very important" that there be a re-create of the Magna Carta in the Us. It's widely believed that the certificate helped inspire the Declaration of Independence.

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Leonardo da Vinci's Codex Leicester RICHARD DREW/AP/Shutterstock

The Codex Leicester

You lot might know this author's proper noun: Leonardo da Vinci. You might know the buyer's name equally well: Bill Gates. The electric current tape for the most expensive book of all fourth dimension belongs to this 72-page notebook filled with the Renaissance genius's notes and theories. In the early 1700s, the Codex was purchased by the Earl of Leicester, hence its name. In 1980, an art collector bought it from the Leicester estate, and none other than Bill Gates bought it from the collector in 1994. The Codex set Gates back a cool $30.8 million. Gates decided to share his purchase with the globe, and did it in the most Nib Gates fashion possible: he scanned the pages of the book and turned them into a Windows 95 screensaver. Adjacent, check out the near overdue library books that always made it back to the library.

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