$3 million in rare books stolen from Whitney estate in 1980's returned to heirs
The stolen books taken from the family’s Manhasset estate, Greentree, in the 1980s include works from literary giants John Keats, Oscar Wilde and James Joyce.
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A literary mystery that began inside a Long Island estate over 40 years ago has begun to unravel.
Seventeen stolen rare books, worth an estimated $3 million, were returned Monday to the heirs of John Hay Whitney and Betsey Whitney, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg announced.
The stolen books taken from the family’s Manhasset estate, Greentree, in the 1980s include works from literary giants John Keats, Oscar Wilde and James Joyce.
The books vanished from the estate between 1982 and 1989.
In 1989, the family discovered at least 28 volumes were missing from the Whitney estate. They alerted the Nassau County Police Department, but the books were not recovered in John or Betsey's lifetime.
In January 2025, a person tried to sell the rare books to two Manhattan dealers, claiming he had inherited the books from his grandfather.
The dealers proactively ran the titles through the Art Loss Register, and then contacted police .
In 2025 and 2026, authorities executed six search warrants, leading to the recovery of the 17 stolen volumes, which were turned over to the Whitney heirs after an order by a New York Supreme Court judge.
The Whitney family is among Long Island’s most prominent families.
John Hay Whitney was a decorated World War II veteran, publisher of the New York Herald Tribune, president of the Museum of Modern Art and ambassador to the United Kingdom. His wife, Betsey, was a philanthropist who established the Greentree Foundation.
He was also a passionate art collector, who inherited hundreds of rare books from his mother, poet Helen Hay.
Among the books recovered is a collection of 37 love letters written by Keats to his fiancée Fanny Brawne. The edition has eight of the original handwritten letters, including the first letter he ever wrote to her.
Upon her death, Brawne gave the letters to her children, who sold them at auction in 1885.
Their sale inspired Wilde to write a sonnet called "On the Sale By Auction of Keats' Love Letters."
