A Book by the Bed
A first printing of A Grief Observed
The ask
A colleague's wife died last month after a long illness. He is a reader, and very private. I don't want flowers, and I don't want anything that asks him to respond. Something he can keep by the bed. Under $1,500.
The gift
A first printing of A Grief Observed (1961), the short account of mourning C. S. Lewis wrote after his wife's death and first published under a pseudonym. This copy keeps its original jacket and sits in a cloth slipcase made to fit. It is delivered quietly in the linen box, the card closed with a blind-embossed seal rather than wax.
Why it's extraordinary
It is a short book by someone who stood in the same place, and it asks nothing of the reader. It first appeared under another name, as private as he is.
The moment
It stays on the bedside table and is read in no particular order, a few pages at a time.
A curator replies within one business day.
