Lady Chatterley
This afternoon Sothebys in London had an interesting sale entitled ‘A Private Sale: Property from the Country Home of Christopher Cone and Stanley J Seeger’. An eclectic group of 230 lots included a rather battered copy of ‘Lady Chatterley's Lover’ together with some pages of notes and a pretty silk bag.
The auction catalogue tells us: "Before the trial Lady Dorothy Byrne, wife of the presiding judge, the Hon Sir Laurence Byrne, read through the novel for her husband and marked up the sexually explicit passsages. She is also understood to have stitched the damask bag which provides the racy book's demure covering."
Unsurprisingly, the lot had caused quite a stir and there were telephone, internet and floor bids. The bidding started at £15,000 and went up and up to the suitably amazing figure of £45,000 (with commission it rises to £56,250). This sounds like a record to me (the second time for this particular book) but I am, as yet, unable to confirm that fact.
