COSTLY LETTER

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 79, Issue 11, 14 January 1936, Page 9

COSTLY LETTER

TEN POUNDS A LINE Dees the literary market for autograph letteic. unconsciously award an order of merit? The safest answer is that sometimes the auction verdicts are surprising, says the Daily Telegraph. In the Daily Telegraph on December 9, an interesting letter by Mr. Bernard Shaw on film production was given, in which, it was said that some producers were “encouraged to spend £lO.OOO on two penn’orth of effect.’’ Yet the last bid for the letter was £l. As 1 the lines which Garrick wrote to Lady Glyn, playfully reprobing her for having laughed at him as King

Lear, the last bid was £6, although in ! t-hat manuscript “boom” year, 1925, . .1 n iched £7B. On the other I hand a rare letter which Warwick, i rhe’KUg-.naker,” addressed to Loins I All. early" in 1471, denounced the acI eurs'Cd Burgundian, Charles the Bold, i realised £9O (Exton). i Any letter by Wellington on Wateri 100 is*in much demand. Not long ago* one written at 3 a.m. on the day of the battle fetched £260 at Sotheby’s. One of five lines, dated June 2, ISla, bri-eily thanking Robert McKerrel for sending him a “book of maps and plans through the Secretary of State’s office,’’ was sold for £54 over £lO a line. ' It is believed that the maps were used by 'Wellington at Wateiloo. McKerrell, a business man in Frankfurt, was often consulted by the English Government on Continental affairS’ o •. p A volume of 60 prints of portraits of famous Dutch admirals and navigators realised £295. Tn a sale at Christie’s, totalling £3442 a William and Mary bracket clock by Tom Tompion brought 260