Christie's Sells Autographed Novels
Filed at 7:20 p.m. ET
NEW YORK (AP) -- More than 350 signed first-edition classic novels -- including one with an inscription from Ian Fleming to Sir Winston Churchill -- brought in nearly $7 million at Christie's auction house Friday.
Literary classics like L. Frank Baum's ``The Wonderful Wizard of Oz'' was auctioned for $152,500, while a copy of James Joyce's ``Ulysses,'' with a note to one of Joyce's publishers, sold for a record $460,500.
The auction exceeded its presale estimate of $4 million to $5 million.
A copy of Fleming's second James Bond novel, ``Live and Let Die,'' sold for $71,700, against a pre-auction estimate of $60,000 to $80,000.
``To Sir Winston Churchill: From whom I stole some words,'' read an inscription scrawled by Fleming to the former British prime minister on the inner dust jacket of the 1954 edition.
Literary experts say the works are one of the most significant collections of signed books ever sold at auction.
``It's certainly the talk of the book world right now,'' said Ken Lopez, president of the Antiquarian Booksellers Association of America, a New York-based trade organization.
The books are part of the personal collection of Roger Rechler, a Long Island real estate developer.
One of two inscribed copies of ``Ulysses'' -- published in a limited 1922 edition of 100 copies on handmade paper -- reads, ``To Henry Kaeser, James Joyce, Dijon, 12 October 1922.'' Kaeser was one of Joyce's publishers.
The book, with a pre-auction estimate of $200,000 to $300,000, sold to Glenn Horowitz, an American book dealer -- a world auction record for any book by Joyce, said Christie's spokeswoman Bendetta Roux.
William Faulkner's first novel, ``The Marble Faun,'' is dedicated to his parents with a simple inscription: ``To Dad and Mother, Xmas 1924.'' It sold for $95,600, against a presale estimate of $80,000 to $120,000,
Jack Kerouac's classic ``On the Road,'' is inscribed to his girlfriend, Joyce Johnson, with a lighthearted greeting: ``To Joyce, With Love, From Amigo Beholden Jack.''
The Kerouac, estimated at $60,000 to $80,000, sold for $185,500.
Vladimir Nabokov's 1958 first American edition of ``Lolita'' is dedicated to his wife with one word -- her name, Vera, in Russian. Estimated at $80,000 to $120,000, it sold for $273,500.
Hemingway's ``For Whom the Bell Tolls'' sold for $17,925, against an estimate of $15,000 to $20,000.
All gavel prices include a buyer's premium of 19.5 percent for prices up to $100,000, and 10 percent more for prices above that.
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