Buy Buy, Baby: The $15,000 Book

"Buy Buy, Baby" is a Friday feature that explores unique luxury goods and what makes them special. Check back every week for more items to put on your wish list.

To say the life of Senator Edward Kennedy would make one hell of a book would be an understatement. To say that book would be worth $1,000, however, may require suspension of disbelief.

Yet Kennedy's publishing imprint, Twelve, has opted to print 1,000 leather-bound, electronically signed copies of True Compass and sell them for that price on the Hatchette Book Group's Web site. Twelve's parent company, Grand Central Publishing, is offering this edition even though a $35 version will be available on Oct. 6.

Like any collectible or piece of a celebrity's cult of personality, this book has a built-in market that can't open its wallet fast enough. In many cases, all it takes are a few flourishes and a digital signature to sell the life stories of sports stars and mildly famous architects for more than you would pay for five Apple(AAPL) iPhones.

"There are a lot of people who truly love him and would spend that kind of money on a limited edition," says Carole Horne, general manager of the Harvard Book Store in Cambridge, Mass. "I would guess that lots of them are in Washington or Massachusetts, but I don't know around the country if there are other places it would sell that well."

Judging by his neighbors in the bookstore biography section, Teddy's letting his fans off light with his limited edition.

Art- and coffee table-book publisher Taschen, known for cheeky titles like The Big Book of Breasts and The Big Penis Book, seems like the obvious choice to produce Hugh Hefner's six-volume illustrated autobiography Hugh Hefner's Playboy 1926-1979.