"In the recent history of American music, there's no figure parallel to Lehrer in his effortless ascent to fame, his trajectory into the heart of the culture — and then his quiet, amiable, inexplicable departure." — Buzzfeed

Across a scant 37 songs — the totality of his output — Tom Lehrer looked back to the humor of Tin Pan Alley while drawing on the sophistication of contemporary Broadway to craft a musical corpus filled with classic songs whose titles alone can still (to those in the know) draw stifled laughter: "Poisoning Pigeons in the Park," "(I'm Spending) Hanukkah in Santa Monica," "The Masochism Tango," "New Math," "The Vatican Rag," "Smut." (Your cataloguer would go on, but it seems silly to list every one of his songs.) Despite the fact that Lehrer largely retreated from the public eye at the height of his fame in the 1960s (to teach math and musical theater at UC Santa Cruz for more than 40 years), his work endured through the likes of The Dr. Demento Show and other more informal nerd networks, as well as eventually the internet where his mix of irony, dark humor, and daredevil composition seemed tailor-made for the social media age (indeed, a video of Daniel Radcliffe singing "The Elements" went viral a number of years ago). Lehrer's influence is extensive, most obviously in the work of "Weird Al." But They Might Be Giants, Tenacious D, The Lonely Island, Flight of the Conchords, and numerous other musical acts (I'm looking at you, Bo Burnham) owe the composer a debt.

This collection, from Lehrer's personal library (almost all of them bearing either his ownership signature or label), includes: 1) The ephemeral IBM SONG BOOK (likely given to him by college friend Lewis Branscomb who went on to become an executive at the company) with Lehrer's ownership signature and date (1953) to cover. 2) Two books on Stephen Sondheim (including the songbook for FOLLIES), whom Lehrer knew for most of his life (having attended a Jewish summer camp in upstate NY together). Sondheim later introduced Lehrer at his first public performance in more than 25 years, calling him a "miracle" (Lehrer meanwhile quipped about Sondheim: "I always wondered what happened to him"). 3) Two books by a Lehrer family friend, noted composer Irving Caesar ("Tea for Two"), both signed, one inscribed to a fourteen-year-old Lehrer in 1946: "To Tommy Lehrer. A few copies for copyright have been struck off and this is one of them. I do hope you enjoy and approve of these songs..." Caesar was a friend of Lehrer's father and was responsible for introducing Lehrer to numerous record labels around NYC (sadly to no avail; Lehrer would eventually self-finance his debut LP). 4) Eight additional songbooks, including several works by Oscar Hammerstein, Gershwin (LADY IN THE DARK), Andrew Lloyd Webber (with whom Lehrer shared a producer, Cameron Mackintosh), as well as songbooks for FIDDLER ON THE ROOF and CABERET. And 5) Two letters to Lehrer from two-time Grammy-award winning children's singer-songwriter Barry Louis Polisar (whom Lehrer once praised as a "delightfully subversive antidote to Mr. Rogers") along with related promotional materials, one of Polisar's songbooks, and another children's book — both warmly inscribed to Lehrer. A detailed inventory is available.

A revealing collection of a working songwriter and an American treasure.

Read more: Smith and Badejo, "Looking For Tom Lehrer, Comedy's Mysterious Genius," buzzfeed.com, April 9, 2014.