Christina Rossetti, ‘Remember me when I am gone’, Estimate £4,000-6,000 Sold for £33,650. Highest price ever paid for a Rossetti manuscript.
If we need any further proof that the art of writing is endangered have a look at the astounding results of the recent auction of poetry manuscripts held at Bonham’s.
The collection, amassed over 40 years, belonged to poet and scholar Roy Davids who admits “it would now be impossible for the present collection to be even approximately replicated.”
The auction was the third and final part of Davids collection and brought in a staggering £750,000.
Here are some prime examples with prices realized. Wow!
Oscar Wilde. ‘Heart’s Yearnings’ written when he was an undergraduate at Magdalen College Oxford in 1874. Estimate £12-15,000 Sold for £67,250. Most ever for a Wilde manuscript.
Sylvia Plath working papers for ‘Sheep in Fog’ Sold for £37,250
Philip Larkin “Love” Sold for £7500
Hand drawn endpaper from a 1920’s notebook containing nearly 50 unpublished poems by Siegfried Sassoon. Sold for £37,250