Maker: Harper & Row 
Original Price: $1.99*
Worth Today: $20,000*

Maurice Sendak was an illustrator and author. He was most famous for writing, Where the Wild Things Are, which has gone on to become one of the most famous children’s books of all time. Sendak also wrote In the Night Kitchen, Outside Over There, Nutshell Library, Chicken Soup with Rice, and more.

There was a spike of renewed interest in the author in 2012 after he passed away, and vendor Abebooks.com confirmed to news outlets that it sold a signed first edition of Where the Wild Things Are, published in 1963, for $25,000 in May of that year.