DALLAS, TX.- Heritage Auctions’ sojourn to the rare-books realm over the summer was one for the history books, with the initial offering of significant selections from William A. Strutz’s library setting numerous records and realizing $5.65 million. Another eagerly awaited Strutz auction will take place in December — but only after the October 10-11 Rare Books Signature® Auction, which features three books to rule them all.

Chief among the auction’s centerpieces is a pristine first edition of The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, one of the most precious possessions among book collectors on Middle-earth or anywhere else. That is especially true in recent years as evidenced by record sales of J.R.R. Tolkien’s tomes. With two weeks left before live bidding, these first editions — each in its rare first state dust jacket, each looking as pristine as when they first hit shelves in the mid-1950s — are poised to reach record-high realms.

This comes as no surprise to Francis Wahlgren, Heritage Auctions’ International Director of Rare Books & Manuscripts.

“Culturally, it’s enormously significant — thanks, of course, to the Peter Jackson films that turned the books into a brand,” Wahlgren says. “But because of the films, and now the Amazon series The Rings of Power, people have gone back to appreciate what an amazing work those books are. Tolkien crosses over, too, into the world of fantasy, comic books, science fiction — all categories with which Heritage is intimately familiar — and, as a result, the market for Tolkien has never been hotter.”

The same can be said for books on economics, Wahlgren says — “seriously,” he stresses, “perhaps because it’s something we’re all so attuned to these days. There’s enormous interest in the subject.”

Beginning with the beginning: Adam Smith’s 1776 An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, better known simply as The Wealth of Nations and available in this auction in three iterations. There’s the first edition published in Dublin; the second edition from Dublin (one of two volumes); and, most importantly, the two-volume first edition printed for Scottish printer and publisher William Strahan and London bookseller Thomas Cadell in 1776, as beautiful a copy as Heritage has ever had the privilege of offering.

“The Wealth of Nations is, without doubt, a book that changed the world. But it has been taking its time.”

So noted the late satirist P.J. O’Rourke in his essential 2007 tome On The Wealth of Nations, his deep dive into Smith’s An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, which is no less resonant nearly 250 years following its publication. Wrote the late O’Rourke, the book is only seemingly complex, but in the end, “Smith illuminated the mystery of economics in one flash: ‘Consumption is the sole end and purpose of all production.’ There is no mystery. Smith took the meta out of the physics. Economics is our livelihood and just that.”

Here, then, we should note that the starting bid for this first edition of An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations is $75,000.

Another prized piece in this auction is a first edition of Joseph Smith Jr.’s The Book of Mormon: An Account Written by the Hand of Mormon, Upon Plates Taken from the Plates of Nephi, which was published in 1830 and is considered “a volume of holy scripture comparable to the Bible” by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. This unrestored copy is in excellent condition.

But as Wahlgren notes, “It’s an important, critical, landmark book for any collector because of its influence. You will get people who collect books of thought, books that have changed the history of the world, and The Book of Mormon would have to be among them.”

Another star in this auction is The King of Horror, Stephen King, with more than 50 titles on the shelf for this event, among them an inscribed first edition of The Stand dated March 28, 1980. Wahlgren is particularly excited about the first editions of the deluxe lettered issues containing original artwork and the signatures of both the author and the artists, including this rare 2010 version of Full Dark, No Stars and 2007’s The Colorado Kid. Those signed, illustrated editions hail from a single collection.

“And this collection was meticulous,” Wahlgren says. “Our consignor was a condition fanatic and went out of his way to get the best and most limited editions available.” Now, they’re available for the first time in a single auction.