The Lessons of a Lost Career

A bachelor professor dies and what's left are books.

Scores of boxes, the science-fiction paperbacks Harold Overton devoured, dictionaries of the ancient languages he studied, books on linguistics, the fat fantasy sagas he'd lend to friends and receive back, untouched.

What's left are collectibles. The statue of St. Augustine that greeted visitors to his suburban home; the carved wooden walking stick he'd brought back from Kenya; the page of a medieval manuscript he'd found at a

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