CHARLES DICKENS - DICKENS ARTIFACTS TO BE AUCTIONED

DICKENS ARTIFACTS TO BE AUCTIONED

A writing desk and chair once owned by legendary author CHARLES DICKENS are to be sold at a charity auction in London. DICkens is believed to have written some of his later works - including Great Expectations - while sitting at the desk at his Gad's Hill Place home in Kent, England. The furniture will go under the hammer at Christie's auction house in June (08), and is expected to fetch up to $160,000 (GBP80,000) for Great Ormond Street children's hospital. In another separate auction, several works by DICkens will be put up for sale in New York on Wednesday (9Apr08). The Kenyon Sterling Library is auctioning items including a special edition inscribed to novelist George Eliot and an original manuscript of the Pickwick Papers. The auction is expected to raise around $2 million (GBP1 million). Many of DICkens' novels have been adapted for the big-screen - including the forthcoming animated film version of A Christmas Carol, which is to be voiced by Jim Carrey.