Rare books swiped from NYC royalty miraculously found after 40 years

A stack of rare books worth millions of dollars was finally returned to the heirs of New York City royalty Monday — decades after they were snatched by a mysterious bookworm, the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office said.

The 17 historic works — valued at nearly $3 million — once belonged to socialites John Hay Whitney and his second wife, philanthropist Betsey Cushing Whitney, before they were reported missing from Whitney’s estate on Long Island in 1989.

It would take nearly 40 years for the tomes — which included love letters from British poet John Keats and a signed copy of James Joyce’s “Finnegan’s Wake” — to suddenly pop up when a man tried pawning them off to two Manhattan book-sellers in January 2025.

“Whether it’s a museum or a gallery, we are the capital … in authenticity,” Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg said at a press conference. “This type of legal activity shouldn’t happen anywhere, and we’re not going to let it happen in Manhattan.”

Whitney was a tycoon who once published the New York Herald Tribute and was president of the Museum of Modern Art.

The wealthy scion, also a former ambassador to the United Kingdom, was an avid art collector who inherited hundreds of rare works from his mother, the poet Helen Hay, and eventually stored pieces from his prized collection at the family’s sprawling 400-acre Greentree estate in Manhasset, LI.

But more than two dozen rare copies from the library were reported missing during an inventory check conducted between John Whitney’s death in 1982 and 1989, Manhattan prosectors said — prompting the family to contact the Nassau County Police Department.

The case of the theft started to unravel in January 2025 when a man tried to peddle 17 of the stolen titles to B&B Rare Books and Adam Weinberger Rare Books in Manhattan.

The mysterious seller claimed that he inherited the books from his late grandfather before both dealers contacted law enforcement when they learned that the books were listed on the Art Loss register.

It’s unclear how the unidentified man’s grandfather got the books, but the grandson is not considered a suspect in their theft because he he even wasn’t born at the time they were stolen, according to Matthew Bogdanos, head of the Manhattan DA’s Antiquities Trafficking Unit.

Bogdanos said no thief has yet been identified.

“This is New York, and that work of art, that antiquity, that rare book, must be legal,” Bogdanos said, referring to the Big Apple as the “art capital of the world.”

Among the 17 looted books recovered was a bound collection of 37 love letters penned by 19th century poetic romance titan Keats to his fiancee Frances “Fanny” Brawne — including eight original handwritten letters that are currently valued at more than $2 million.

A signed, numbered first-edition copy of Joyce’s famed “Finnegan’s Wake,” published in 1939, was also stolen — in addition to Oscar Wilde’s jailhouse letters “De Profundis” that are valued at around $2,000, according to officials.

In total, at least 28 books were stolen from the Whitney estate between 1982 and 1989, according to the DA’s office.

Peter di Bonaventura, the grandson of John and Betsey Whitney, said his family was shocked to learn the books had been recovered after they went missing for so long.

“It’s a wonderful thing that you’ve been able to recover these books that were in my family going back to my great grandparents,” di Bonavetura said.

The heirs of the Whitneys said they plan to auction off the books and donate the proceeds to charity.

The investigation into the other 11 missing books remains ongoing.