Stephen Sondheim had an extensive collection of game- and puzzle-related books in his library. While many were lost in a fire in 1995, others survived such as these books on cryptic crosswords. Some, like the one signed by Will Shortz, were gifts of the author.
Excerpt from the book Matching Minds with Sondheim, recounting moments in the 2024 Sondheim auction:
Starting with the first lot, Costanzo and his colleague Joanne Porrino Mournet, Doyle’s president, moved through the lots without pause (swapping turns every hundred) at a rate of about one lot every one-and-a-half minutes. One remote bidder later described the experience thus: it was “like being at the Kentucky derby… At one point I had to literally disconnect from reality and sleep for an hour to recover.” While fast-paced, the auction could also feel like a baseball game: nothing much of interest would happen for long stretches and then, suddenly, everyone was on high alert. This often occurred with bidders battling over unexpected items. For example, lot 30’s “Group of S Themed Desk Articles” closed at a bid of $7,500. Lot 169’s “Pine Niche de Chat” (a wooden cat bed) opened with dueling bids of $1,000 and eventually closed with a bid of $6,500 (which led someone in the room to jest, “Look, I made a cat!”). Drawing gasps from the crowd, two lots composed of Sondheim’s thesauruses, dictionaries, and books on crossword puzzles each closed at $20,000 (to which Costanzo uncharacteristically took a moment to joke, “Back up the thesaurus truck!”).
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