Charles Dickens’s Travel Writing Desk and Cutlery to Auction
RR Auction
Charles Dickens's travel writing desk
Leading RR Auction's Fine Autographs and Artifacts sale in May is Charles Dickens’s ornate travel writing desk, a beautifully preserved fruitwood case adorned with carved mother-of-pearl inlay marked with his CD monogram and silver banding.
Measuring 13.75 x 9.5 x 3.5 closed, the two top flaps open to reveal an angle leather-covered writing slop with wood-lined compartment underneath with fitted mahogany tray. The interior is fitted with two original glass inkwells, a letter opener, and a silver porte-crayon still equipped with a quill nib. It has an estimate of $20,000+.
The piece is accompanied by an autograph slip on Gad's Hill Place stationery signed by Dickens and dated Mach 1870 referencing the desk’s nickname, 'Venerables'. A silver plaque inside reads: "Venerables Writing Box and Pen Holder, Presented to Evelyn by Your Mama, on the occasion of being appointed Schoolmistress." 'Venerables' was the family's pet-name for the novelist, as is recalled in the Strand Magazine article A Child's Memories of Gad's Hill by his granddaughter, Mary Angela Dickens, a copy of which is included.
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The writing desk closed
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Items inside the writing desk
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Slip of Gad's Hill Place stationery included in the lot within the desk
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Dickens's own spoons and forks
Also on offer is a 32-piece set of silverplated spoons and forks from Dickens’s home Gad’s Hill Place, each piece engraved with his 'CD' monogram (estimate: $20,000). Personally owned and used by Dickens, the set includes ten dessert spoons, ten forks, ten tea spoons, and two tiny salt spoons, all of a matching fiddle leaf thread pattern, with manufacturer's stamps of Martin, Hall & Co. of Sheffield, circa 1860. In overall very good to fine condition, with light wear from use.
Other highlights of the sale include:
a Walt Disney Signed 'Welcome to Disneyland' brochure (stimate: $8,000)
Mary Blair concept painting of the North Pole exhibit from It's a Small World ride (stimate: $8,000+)
baseball signed by Pope Francis (estimate: $15,000)
typed letters by President John F. Kennedy on a fundraising campaign for the United Negro College Fund, citing the 1963 Emancipation Centennial and Martin Luther King’s Birmingham campaign (stimate: $10,000)
