The home-electronics installer who stole more than $1 million in priceless books from the widow of a Vanderbilt heir was carted off to prison yesterday like a craven common crook — insisting despite a mountain of evidence and his own guilty plea that he was not really a thief.

Timothy Smith, 41, will spend just 1 to 3 years in prison, a sweetheart deal he earned by returning the precious tomes, which included a $500,000 first-edition F. Scott Fitzgerald signed by the author.

Many of the books had been stolen right off the extensive bookshelves of the Fifth Avenue mansion of Susan Burden, 62, widow of the late Carter Burden, a collector of 20th century American literature.

Still, Smith continued to claim yesterday, as he did when he was arrested almost two years ago, that he had the permission of “Alba the maid” to take them.