Word: discorsi
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...plot sounds like an ultra-British detective story. A collection of rare books initially valued at about $2 million, including a 1638 edition of Galileo's Discorsi, disappear from London's University College Library. A "Dr. French" approaches Quaritch's, a rare book dealer in London, with about 20 books that he wants to trade for a medieval manuscript. Quaritch's notices tracings of University College Library stamps and alerts the library. About the same time, librarians checking on the volumes discover that padlocks on the appropriate cabinets have been changed. All told, about 267 books...
Scene 2 takes place two weeks later in New York City. A man posing as a Princeton University professor offers the Discorsi and three other books to a New York bookseller for SI 1,000. Suspicious that such a rare book should just appear like that, the bookseller contacts authorities. Then, donning a bulletproof vest, he goes to lunch with the mysterious professor at the Princeton Club, ostensibly to consummate the deal. At the conclusion of the sale, undercover agents arrest Greek-born John Papanastassiou, 34, a Ph.D. candidate at Columbia University. At his Riverside Drive apartment, police cart...
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