Click to play videoNew Delhi: Rare works by Charles Dickens are about to go up for sale at Christie's New York auction house.
The collection, which includes first edition signed copies, is expected to fetch as much as $2 million in total sales.
The auction will be held on Wednesday, April 2, 2008.
Highlighting the auction is an association copy of Oliver Twist which is inscribed by Dickens to a fellow author. It is estimated to sell between $200,000 - $300,000.
Christie's head of books and manuscripts, Thomas Lecky said that there are several factors contributing to the book's high price tag.
"It's not only a first edition of Oliver Twist, one of the great novels of English literature, but it's inscribed by Dickens to William Harrison Ainsworth, a fellow novelist, who not only introduced him to his first publisher, but also is credited with giving him some of the seeds for the idea of the novel itself, which is the first novel to have a child as the protagonist," said Lecky.
Another highly anticipated lot is an inscribed presentation copy of
The Uncommercial Traveller, given to author George Eliot and valued between $100,000 - $150,000.
A first edition copy of Great Expectations has a pre-sale value between $90,000 - $120,000, while a complete first edition set of all of Dickens's Christmas tales, including The Christmas Carol, is set to sell for as much as $30,000.
The collection of lots, 208 in total, hail from "The William Self
Library Part I: The Kenyan Starling Library of Charles Dickens."
Lecky said that the collection holds such value partly because of Dickens's ability to crate works that would stand the test of time.
"Dickens just captures peoples' imaginations. He was a very prolific writer, he was a very emotional writer, and in his own day, he gave dramatic readings of his works which were absolutely incredible in terms of the emotion that he was able to transmit, so that has carried through to today,” said Lecky.
Also included in the sale will be various original illustrations made for Dickens novels, including a George Cruikshank sketch for Oliver
Twist valued between $12,000 - $18,000.
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