{"id":271,"date":"2026-05-13T02:36:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-13T02:36:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/geoffcain.com\/blog\/fluxus\/?p=271"},"modified":"2026-05-13T03:23:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-13T03:23:13","slug":"loeb-editions-and-a-great-penthouse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/geoffcain.com\/blog\/fluxus\/2026\/05\/13\/loeb-editions-and-a-great-penthouse\/","title":{"rendered":"Loeb Editions and a Great Penthouse"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jacqui called me into her office to read an article in the New York Times about Maurice Templesman’s penthouse being for sale<\/a>:<\/p>\n

The longtime Manhattan penthouse of Maurice Tempelsman, the Belgian-born diamond magnate who was Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis\u2019s companion for more than a decade, is now on the market, nearly nine months after his death.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I thought it was a gorgeous place even for $5.5 million, so I was wondering why she wanted me to read the article. Huge rooms, great views and the deck outside has the same square footage as the apartment. Then J was watching me as I read it. I said “okay, I get it this place is gorgeous…” and she said “Go on, keep reading…” and then I scrolled down to this picture:<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a><\/p>\n

And then I saw it, I gasped. Jacqui smiled – she got me good. My jaw was on the ground. The green books are the Greek and the red ones are the Latin. I think the few white colored ones are first editions from 1910 or so. It looks like the inhabitant of this humble abode had the complete Loeb editions of classical literature. These are some of my favorites. Some of the translations are clunky but a decent crib, and the texts are fairly reliable.<\/p>\n

A picture from a bedroom has a dozen of the Greek:<\/p>\n

\"Loeb<\/a>
\nOf course, I would love to know what texts warrant being in the bedroom.<\/p>\n

I have fifty of these. The complete collection is something over 560 the last time I checked. They are published by Harvard University where the profits are used to fund student scholarships.\u00a0 I have a very select collection based on my literary interests (Dante, Chaucer, Ezra Pound, etc.). I am no scholar – I prefer the Loeb over the Oxford because I am not a specialist. I don’t think I have paid full price for these except maybe for a few. I would comb the used bookstores in San Francisco and Berkeley for them. I never had money for this either so I would often trade for them. Later, when J and I were both working, I had more of a budget but the general rule was that discretionary funds were available as long as it was less than a Chanel lipstick (a somewhat mercenary measure I think). I was overjoyed when they would raise the price of their makeup now and again. I think with tariffs being what they are, a Chanel lipstick now goes for $50 and a Loeb edition is around $30.<\/p>\n

I ran into a great quote from the Loeb website<\/a> from Virginia Woolf on these books. In 1917\u00a0Virginia Woolf\u00a0wrote (in\u00a0The Times Literary Supplement<\/i>):<\/p>\n

The Loeb Library, with its Greek or Latin on one side of the page and its English on the other, came as a gift of freedom… The existence of the amateur was recognised by the publication of this Library, and to a great extent made respectable… The difficulty of Greek is not sufficiently dwelt upon, chiefly perhaps because the sirens who lure us to these perilous waters are generally scholars [who] have forgotten… what those difficulties are. But for the ordinary amateur they are very real and very great; and we shall do well to recognise the fact and to make up our minds that we shall never be independent of our Loeb.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I loved seeing these pictures because I think it helps J keep my collection of books in perspective. In theory, I have what I like to call a “working library” – the books are there to support on-going projects and interests. I don’t think I have lived up to that lofty goal because I have a lot of books that are currently focused on art and Europe in the 18th century for a couple of novels I am working on and then I have books that are just props for various gags: like a copy of “All About the Fonz.”<\/p>\n

I have a few philosophical texts which are probably one of the most difficult things for me to even think of tackling in Greek or Latin. Philosophical terms are so specialized that really getting it requires access to a superior dictionary which is another thing all together. The one thing left in the Loeb library that I am interested in is the new editions that will be coming out of the Greek Anthology. The old version had all the sex taken out or translated into Latin instead of English.<\/p>\n

Anyhow, if I was in New York, I would wheedle my way into a showing of this place just to check out what else this guy was reading!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jacqui called me into her office to read an article in the New York Times about Maurice Templesman’s penthouse being for sale: The longtime Manhattan penthouse of Maurice Tempelsman, the Belgian-born diamond magnate who was Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis\u2019s companion for … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[73,72,69,70,71,68],"class_list":["post-271","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-literature","tag-bibliophilia","tag-books","tag-classical-literature","tag-greek","tag-latin","tag-loeb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/geoffcain.com\/blog\/fluxus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/geoffcain.com\/blog\/fluxus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/geoffcain.com\/blog\/fluxus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geoffcain.com\/blog\/fluxus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geoffcain.com\/blog\/fluxus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=271"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/geoffcain.com\/blog\/fluxus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":276,"href":"https:\/\/geoffcain.com\/blog\/fluxus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271\/revisions\/276"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/geoffcain.com\/blog\/fluxus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geoffcain.com\/blog\/fluxus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geoffcain.com\/blog\/fluxus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}