Truman Capote's Possessions Head to Auction, Incl. In Cold Blood Relic

Nearly 400 lots of Truman Capote's belongings are heading to auction, The New York Times reported on 12 October. The memorabilia comes from the collection of his friend and biographer Gerald Clarke.

Among the items is a paperweight made of stones from the Clutter family farm outside Holcomb, Kansas, the site of the 1959 murders at the centre of In Cold Blood, according to the same report.

The sale, titled The Magpie and the Swans: The Possessions of Truman Capote, is scheduled for 21 November and run by New York-based Cornell Auctions, according to AL.com. Faribai reports that an online preview and bidding are slated to begin on 26 October.

The collection also includes decorative paperweights, a bronze frog inkwell and a signed copy of To Kill a Mockingbird, per Faribai. AL.com adds that the copy is inscribed by Harper Lee to Capote.

Capote's paperweight habit has a traceable origin: Clarke tells the Times that after Colette gave him a white rose paperweight, Capote "became addicted to paperweights and collected so many of them." Architectural Digest notes that some pieces, made with flowers preserved in resin, were crafted by Capote himself.

In Cold Blood is Capote's non-fiction novel reconstructing the Clutter family murders and the fate of killers Richard Hickock and Perry Smith, first published in 1966. As Wikipedia records, Capote travelled to Kansas accompanied by his childhood friend Harper Lee, and the pair interviewed residents and investigators.

That makes the inscribed Lee volume a literal link between two of American literature's best-known friendships and the research trip that produced the book. AL.com confirms Lee accompanied Capote to Kansas to research the Clutter murders.

Capote died in 1984 at 59, and many of his belongings were left to Clarke, Architectural Digest reports. His life has since been dramatised in the 2005 biopic Capote and the 2024 miniseries Feud: Capote vs. the Swans.

This is not the first time his effects have drawn bidders. The Guardian reported in 2016 that his ashes were put up for sale in Los Angeles, as part of the estate of Joanne Carson.

The 2026 sale is a different proposition: a documented collection with a direct line to the writer's friend and biographer. For the book itself, Want the full verdict?

Read our review of In Cold Blood.