Elmore Leonard’s library, furniture to be sold in estate sale

What’s left behind when a writer dies? Well, his furniture, of course. The ottoman where he rested his feet after a day’s work. The big chair where he sat to read, the lamp nearby. And, of course, his books.

Elmore Leonard, the great crime writer, died Aug. 20 at the age of 87. Thursday morning at his home in the Detroit suburb of Bloomfield Hills and through the weekend, many of those possessions will be up for sale.

The estate sale at Leonard’s home at 2192 Yarmouth Road will include “First edition and/or signed books, furniture, lamps, linens, rugs, garden accessories, outdoor furniture and more,” according to the website EstateSales.net. Cash or credit cards only, the website adds, no checks.

The sale’s Web page includes 17 photographs of the author’s home (and presumably what’s on sale). There are bookcases, including one filled with hardcover copies of some of Leonard’s book, and a closet filled with table linens on hangers.

In September, less than a month after his death, a Detroit Free Press reporter toured the home and called the furniture “American traditional” and the architectural style of the home itself as “1940s Hollywood Colonial,” calling it “offbeat” in the otherwise unassuming neighborhood.

“From the cigarette smoke-stained wall by the writing desk to the tidy line of hangers that hold his trademark pressed blue jeans, the home of Elmore (Dutch) Leonard is so personal you might think he just stepped out,” Judy Rose wrote.

There’s no word if the writing desk is part of the estate sale, though much of the furniture in the large office where Leonard welcomed guests is.

Leonard wrote 47 novels between 1953 and his death, including “Get Shorty,” “Be Cool” and “Out of Sight.” In an obituary in The Times, Dennis McLellan wrote, “Leonard’s dozens of novels and short stories helped raise the genre of crime fiction to a literary level, winning a global audience...”

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hector.tobar@latimes.com