Late UWS Writer Phillip Roth's Possessions Are Up For Auction

UPPER WEST SIDE, NY — Hundreds of belongings of the late Upper West Side writer Phillip Roth are set the hit the auction block, giving Roth's fans a chance to own a keepsake of the author.

Connecticut-based auction house Litchfield County Auctions is hosting the estate sale on Saturday, July 20, but online bids are also welcome, according to the auctioneer's website. More than 728 items are included in the sale, but some are pulled in from collections that were not owned by Roth.

Items that belonged to Roth included in the sale include several of his typewriters, a Yogi Berra-edition baseball bat and more mundane items such as a stereo system, a wicker armchair and a rolling suitcase, according to the auction website.

Roth, who has 85 when he died last year, was born in New Jersey but spent his final years living on the Upper West Side. In a career that spanned more than 50 years and included books such as "Goodbye, Columbus," "Portnoy's Complaint," and "The Plot Against America," the writer almost every literary prize imaginable – except the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Read Patch's full Roth obituary here.

The upcoming auction isn't the first time Roth's property has been up for sale following his death. The writer's Upper West Side apartment hit the real estate market back in February.

Roth lived in a West 79th Street condo after combining two of the building's units in 2004, the Wall Street Journal reported. Roth's connection to the home began in 1989 when he bought a unit in the West 79th Street building to use as a writing studio, according to the report. After a messy divorce, Roth used the space as a pied-à-terre while living full-time in Connecticut. When Roth returned to the city, he bought the unit next to his writing stdio and combined the apartments into their current form, the Journal reported.