"VICE VERSA" MS.

Evening Post, Volume CXVIII, Issue 24, 28 July 1934, Page 18

"VICE VERSA" MS.

It has not taken long for the author of that Victorian masterpiece, "Vice Versa," to meet with posthumous fame at an auction. Recently at Sotheby's P. Anstey's original manuscript of the story of the Garuda Stone was offered for public competition, and Mr. Ben Maggs, after an opening bid of £20, had finally to pay as much as £520 (against Messrs. Quaritch) for this literary treasure. The most sanguine Anstey admirer ' anticipated no more than £.200, but, as Mr. Maggs remarked after hjis victory, "When these good things come along we must be prepared to upset our own calculations."

Apparently the precious manuscript, on- 230 quarto pages, belonged once to the humorist, James Payn, as it bears an inscription of presentation to Horace Pym, "Xmas, 1882," supplemented by another, signed "F. Anstey Guthrie, 1884." It was recently sold as the property of the late Mrs. Roe. This Anstey manuscript was considered even more valuable than a very rare letter by Keats, to his "right good comrade and capital listener," Thomas Richards, employed in the Tower Ordnance Department, which realised £300.