Manhattan District Attorney Alvin L. Bragg, Jr., has announced the return of 17 rare books to the heirs of John Hay and Betsey Cushing Whitney. The books, which were stolen from the couple’s Long Island home in the 1980s, include works by John Keats, Oscar Wilde, James Joyce, and the Brothers Grimm.
John Whitney, who died in 1982, served as publisher of the New York Herald Tribune, president of the Museum of Modern Art, and Ambassador to the United Kingdom. Betsey Whitney, who died in 1998, was known for establishing the Greentree Foundation in 1983.
The couple were noted art collectors: their holdings featured works by 19th- and 20th-century European and American masters. After John’s death, most of their collection was donated to institutions, including the Museum of Modern Art, the National Gallery of Art, and the Yale University Art Gallery.
John Whitney inherited hundreds of rare books from his mother, the poet Helen Hay Whitney. Between 1982 and 1989, at least 28 of the volumes were stolen from the Whitney estate; the family first realized they were missing in 1989.
In 2015, an unnamed individual attempted to sell 17 of the volumes to two Manhattan book dealers, who notified law enforcement after seeing the books listed on the Art Loss Register. The D.A.’s office subsequently executed search warrants in 2025 and 2026, recovering all 17.
The books include Household Stories of Grimm (1882) by the Brothers Grimm, with 12 original pen and pencil drawings by Walter Crane, estimated to be worth approximately $10,000; a signed copy of Finnegan’s Wake by James Joyce ($6,000); and a bound collection of 37 love letters written by the poet John Keats to his fiancée Fanny Brawne, with eight of the original handwritten letters bound in ($2 million).
The recovered books are collectively valued at nearly $3 million. An investigation into the whereabouts of the 11 remaining volumes is being handled by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Antiquities Trafficking Unit.
