Lately, it is literature that has fetched the big moolah for auction houses like Christie’s. After the buzz created by Charles Darwin’s first edition of ‘Origin of the Species’, it is Edgar Allen Poe who has caught the attention of serious buyers and collectors. We are told that as a teenager in 1872 when Poe took up writing, he wrote ‘Tamerlane and Other Poems’. However, he was never given much credit for this 40 page book which translated into only 40-50 prints of this work of his.
And it is 12 of these that Christie’s has got its hands on. The prints will go under the hammer on Friday. Two decades ago, when the auction house first procured the books, each of them was priced at $250,000. And now post the economic downturn, Christie’s is hoping to make anything between $500,000 and $700,000 per copy.
‘Tamerlane and Other Poems’ is being sold along with 300 other books which include famous works by Mark Twain, Jane Austen and Charles Dickens, to name a few. That said, it is Edgar Allen Poe’s work that is stealing all the limelight.
Via msnbc
