Description:

Getty J. Paul

Billionaire J. Paul Getty Delights in His Book Collection but Declines Charitable Request

 

Getty writes to Florida book “detective” Alla Ford about his collection of G. A. Henty adventure books that she has helped him assemble. He also declines her request to donate some books for a charitable purpose.

 

J. PAUL GETTY, Typed Letter Signed, to Alla T. Ford, July 17, 1963, Near Guildford, Surrey, England. 1 p., 8" x 6". Expected folds; very good.

 

Excerpt:

“I think I now have a full set of Henty. I wish I could be helpful in the donation of books but alas my charitable budget is already filled to overflowing and I cannot take on new projects. One of these days I may be in Lake Worth and, if so, I will hope to call on you and if you are in England you might come here to see my Henty collection, some of it coming from you.”

 

George Alfred Henty (1832-1902) was a prolific English novelist and war correspondent during the Crimean War and later wars. He wrote 122 works of historical fiction between 1867 and 1906, mostly for children. He was a strong proponent of the British Empire and the new imperialism of the late-nineteenth century.

 

Jean Paul Getty (1892-1976) was born in Minnesota, and in 1903, his father purchased mineral rights to 1,100 acres of land in Oklahoma. Within a few years, the elder Getty had established wells that were producing 100,000 barrels of crude oil per month. The family moved to Los Angeles, where J. Paul Getty attended Harvard Military School and Polytechnic High School. He became fluent in French, German, and Italian, and also learned Spanish, Greek, Arabic, and Russian. He attended both the University of Southern California and the University of California, Berkeley, but did not graduate. In 1914, he graduated from the University of Oxford, where he made friends with Edward VIII, future king. Later that year, his father gave him $10,000 to invest in oil field holdings in Oklahoma. Within a year, he was a millionaire. He was married and divorced three times during the 1920s and five times over his life. This series of marriages and divorces led his father to leave only one-third of his company to his son and the other two-thirds to his wife at his death in 1930. In 1934, J. Paul Getty’s mother convinced him to establish an investment trust to safeguard the family’s wealth. The trust gave him access to ready capital that he used to purchase Tidewater Petroleum stock. He acquired several oil companies and in 1967 merged them into Getty Oil. In 1949, he invested in mineral rights in Saudi Arabia and spent $30 million before gaining any return, but in 1953, it began producing millions of barrels of oil, making Getty one of the richest people in the world. Getty moved to Great Britain in the 1950s, and increased his personal fortune to between $2 and $4 billion.

 

Alla Tchikoff Ford (1910-1994) was born in the Ukraine, Soviet Union, and studied at Hunter College in 1928-1929 and at the Sorbonne in Paris from 1929 to 1931. She became a rare book collector, dealer, and “detective” in Lake Worth, Florida. She had a personal collection of more than 2,000 children’s books by 1960. Beginning in 1945, she discovered rare books for college libraries, professors, and bibliophiles like J. Paul Getty, an advisor to the Library of Congress, the head of the library at the University of Georgia, and a book columnist for the Chicago Tribune. She married Robert Graham Ford (1913-1985) in New York City in 1937, and they had two daughters before their divorce in 1958.

 

This item comes with a Certificate from John Reznikoff, a premier authenticator for both major 3rd party authentication services, PSA and JSA (James Spence Authentications), as well as numerous auction houses.

 

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