JOHN MANUSCRIPTS HEADING TO AUCTION

One of the Lennon drawings to be auctioned. (Sotheby’s)

Sotheby’s in Manhattan is holding an auction on June 4 where over 100 items produced by John Lennon will be up for sale, ranging in expected prices from $500 to $70,000.

The most desirable item in the bunch is Lennon’s handwritten manuscript of “The Singularge Experience of Miss Anne Duffield,” a Sherlock Holmes parody that Lennon wrote in 1964 while on vacation in Tahiti, during which he read several Holmes stories. The manuscript is nine pages, in blue and black ink, and includes corrections.

John had quite a passion for literature, especially early on with The Beatles. During his elementary school years he made a handmade magazine, “The Daily Howl,” and when his band started to gain traction and fame in Liverpool he wrote several articles for a local music magazine called the “Mersey Beat.”

The pieces in the auction belong to the collection of Tom Maschler. Maschler, who served as the literary director for Lennon’s British publisher Jonathan Cape, met with Lennon in 1963 and convinced him to compile his works into a book, which he did, and his work in “The Daily Howl” and “Mersey Beat” became the published “In His Own Write.”

The result was a success, and Lennon gifted Maschler with the rough drafts.

“My relationship with John Lennon was different to those I had with all the other authors I worked with over my years as a publisher,” Mr. Maschler said in a statement. “Having seen a superb sketch of his that a mutual acquaintance showed me, I met with John to suggest that he should produce John Lennon ‘In His Own Write.’ I then had to inspire in him the confidence to write and produce the drawings.”

The collection will be on display at the South by Southwest festival in Austin on March 13 and 14, at Sotheby’s in London on March 21 to 25, and at Sotheby’s in New York starting on May 28.