Sotheby’s and PEN Team Up to Present Innovative Literary Auction

Auction house Sotheby’s and the English branch of PEN, the international writer’s organization, have teamed up to produce an innovative fundraiser for the organization. Fifty member authors have contributed first-edition copies of one of their books, annotated, commented on or illustrated in a creative way.

Some of the authors whose work is included are Margaret Atwood, Julian Barnes, Margaret Drabble, Helen Fielding, Nadine Gordimer, Seamus Heaney, Kazuo Ishiguro, Ian McEwan, J.K. Rowling, Lionel Shriver and many others. The included works provide a fascinating insight into the creative process of each author.


The auction, to be held at Sotheby’s London on May 21st, will benefit English PEN to defend the freedom to write and the freedom to read in the UK and across the world.

According to Sotheby’s, the results of asking 50 authors to contribute in this way “are astonishing and highly individual. Some writers made copious amendments, others chose to jot comments on endpapers and blanks; some excised or corrected text and several illustrated their works.”

The works being auctioned on May 21st include Metroland (Julian Barnes), The Conservationist (Nadine Gordimer); Death of a Naturalist (Seamus Heaney), Life of Pi (Yann Martel) War Horse (Michael Morpurgo), Northern Lights (Philip Pullman), Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas (Ralph Steadman), Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead (Tom Stoppard), Knots and Crosses (Ian Rankin) and many others.

You can see the various annotations and learn how to bid here and here.