Books lined the walls of the late Howard K. Smith's Bethesda living room -- more than a thousand hardbacks, exquisite leather bindings and classic titles neatly juxtaposed on dark wooden bookshelves, lending to what Longfellow called "sequestered nooks and all the sweet serenity of books."
Smith, a pioneer of TV journalism who died Feb. 15, 2002, was noted for his erudite on-air presence. That distinguished look, that distinctive voice. For more than four decades he left an imprint on a generation of Americans, reporting World War II as one of CBS's "Murrow Boys" under legendary newscaster Edward R. Murrow, then anchoring and commentating at ABC.
At Quinn's, Dale Sorenson, left, and Andrew McLean marvel at Howard K. Smith's vast collection; top right, LBJ's "To Heal and to Build"; and the Kennedy and Nixon books.
(Photos Nikki Kahn -- The Washington Post)
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Lesser known was his passion for collecting fine and rare tomes that shaped a personal library, which goes on the auction block tonight at 6:30.
The Smith library is a remarkable collector's browse, one that reveals the man. No beach reading. Not many modern bestsellers. No remainder-table dwellers. Not a cheap paperback to be had.
But there's more leather here than on a cattle ranch -- lush paneled calfskin spines and bindings, antiquated and contemporary, detailed gilt arabesques, red and green morocco labels, marbled end leaves, wrapping a wealth of classic and brainy works that span five centuries.
"It is sumptuous. By that I mean it is attractive and it has substance," says Dale Sorenson, director of Waverly Auctions, a subsidiary of Quinn's Auction Galleries in Falls Church, where 237 lots from the Smith collection are expected to attract a crowd of serious readers, autograph collectors and historians. And decorators who buy leather-bound beauties simply to create a classy faux-cerebral space.
Sorenson appraised the collection as among the two or three finest he has handled in 27 years of book, autograph and manuscript sales. "In terms of the quality and preponderance of leather, and in content, this is major," he says. He expects it to bring $60,000 to $80,000.
Smith and his wife, Benedicte Traberg Smith, who now lives on Marco Island, Fla., apparently began collecting rare books about the same time they began collecting antiques, while living in postwar London. When they moved to Washington in 1957, their Bethesda home served as a showcase for a collection that is 15 to 20 percent first editions and numerous signed volumes.
Did Smith read these books? "Well, there were a lot of bookmarks, but most of these books, I think not," says Sorenson, who has examined every volume.
Many are old as the hills, some still wearing their original or period handcrafted binding. About 40 percent Smith had rebound by Sangorski & Sutcliffe, the esteemed bookbinding house outside of London.
Sorenson scans alphabetized titles on a shelf that contains works of Rudyard Kipling, T.E. Lawrence, Abraham Lincoln and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. He pulls a volume of "The Works of John Locke" from an 1823 set bound in early sprinkled calfskin. Admiring the book, he says, "Something like this, he didn't get rebound."
Then he picks up an item he clearly has less reverence for. "You look at something like this and then look at something like that," he says of the ordinary, clothbound book of no aesthetic worth titled "Official Proceedings of the Democratic National Committee 1960."
Still, some of the most coveted books here aren't the leather-bound darlings. They're the signed editions. And with the exception of the limited-edition, 25-volume Mark Twain set signed in the first volume (estimated at $1,500 to $2,000), most connect to the historic events Smith covered.
The "star of the sale," Sorenson says, combines the 1960 books by John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon ("The Strategy of Peace" and "The Challenges We Face") that Smith had rebound in handsome matching half-burnt orange leather with marbled boards. He had bound into both books' pages a photograph of himself moderating the first Kennedy-Nixon presidential debate, which historians consider a seminal TV event that played a decisive role in Kennedy's election. Smith got Kennedy and Nixon to inscribe and sign their books.
