Marilyn Monroe’s Personally Owned Copy of The Miracles of Your Mind
A copy of Dr. Joseph Murphy’s The Miracles of Your Mind (San Gabriel, California: Willing Publishing Company, 1953) from the personal library of Marilyn Monroe, bearing a Christie’s auction bookplate affixed to the inside front cover.
This volume is extensively annotated throughout, with underlined passages and handwritten notes on nearly every page, reflecting Monroe’s deep engagement with the text. Particularly compelling is an inscription reading “Sid,” possibly referencing her close friend, Hollywood columnist Sidney Skolsky, offering a rare and personal glimpse into the private world in which Marilyn read, reflected, and applied these ideas.
The Library of Marilyn Monroe
Marilyn Monroe’s personal library comprised more than 400 volumes spanning an extraordinary range of subjects, a testament to both her intelligence and her deeply curious nature. For those who truly know Monroe, this breadth comes as no surprise. These were the books of a serious and inquisitive reader. Literature, art, drama, biography, poetry, politics, history, theology, philosophy, and psychology lined the shelves of her home.
Among the first editions were her own copies of defining twentieth-century works, including Jack Kerouac’s On the Road, Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man, and William Styron’s This House on Fire. From Tolstoy to Twain, her library embraced the great voices of world literature, with titles such as The Great Gatsby, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, James Joyce’s Dubliners, Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises, and Albert Camus’s The Fall. Alongside these classics were books on gardening, multiple Bibles, and beloved children’s stories, including her personal copy of The Little Engine That Could.
The volumes in Monroe’s library remained in their original bindings, most commonly cloth or paper wrappers, and were preserved in good condition. Many retain intimate traces of her engagement with the text, including pencil markings, annotations, inserted bookmarks, and loose slips of paper.
Every book sold from Marilyn Monroe’s library at the landmark 1999 Christie’s auction bears a posthumous bookplate identifying its provenance. Proceeds from the sale benefited Literacy Partners, extending Monroe’s lifelong commitment to reading and self-education beyond her own lifetime.
The Personal Property of Marilyn Monroe
October 1999
Collector’s Note
This copy of The Miracles of Your Mind is among the more heavily annotated volumes in Monroe’s library. Underlined passages and handwritten notes appear on nearly every page, indicating sustained and repeated engagement with the text rather than casual reading. The volume also contains an inscription of the name “Sid,” possibly a reference to Hollywood columnist Sidney Skolsky, a close friend of Monroe’s.
The annotations are the primary point of interest here. Many books in Monroe’s library show traces of her reading — pencil marks, inserted slips of paper, dog-eared pages. This one goes further. The density of her notes documents a reader working through the material actively, returning to it, and applying it. That distinguishes it from other volumes in the collection and gives it particular value as a record of her inner life.
Monroe’s library as a whole reflects wide ranging intellectual interests. This title falls within a subset of her reading concerned with psychology, self-understanding, and personal development — subjects she engaged with seriously throughout her adult life.
Scott Fortner
Marilyn Monroe Collection
Founder & Owner
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