An auction house has said it was “shocked” after three books carrying J.R.R. Tolkien’s signature failed to attract even one bid, despite expectations that they would sell for thousands of pounds.
The copies of ‘The Two Towers’, ‘The Return of the King’ and ‘The Hobbit’ each included a Tolkien signature that had been cut out and pasted into the book. They came from the estate of the late Brenda Jocelyn Walden, whose family was said to have holidayed with the author.
The books were described as a rare chance for collectors, but none sold at Quire Auctions in Stonehouse, Gloucestershire, on Wednesday night.
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Together, the three volumes had been expected to raise between £17,000 and £23,000.
Caitlin Riley, director at Quire Auctions, said the result was disappointing. “It’s a real shame, particularly when we know that the market and demand for Tolkien is on the up,” she said.
The books belonged to the late Brenda Jocelyn Walden. Her parents, Kathleen and Henry George Walden, were friends with J.R.R. Tolkien and his wife, Edith, and the two families spent holidays together in Bournemouth.
The signature in The Two Towers, which had been expected to fetch up to £8,000, is thought to have been cut from a longer letter Tolkien sent to Kathleen, who knew him simply as JRR.
Another signature, carrying the same estimate, appeared in ‘The Return of the King’. It was written on the back of a postcard from the Hotel Miramar in Bournemouth.
The hotel was Edith Tolkien’s favourite, and it was also where the Tolkien and Walden families stayed together during their holidays.
A third signature was found pasted inside ‘The Hobbit’. This one had a slightly lower estimate of up to £7,000 and had been coloured in by Kathleen and Henry’s daughter.
Before the auction, Mark Skipper, another director at Quire Auctions, described the chance to offer three Tolkien works with his signature as “quite remarkable”.
Riley said the books would not be discarded from future sale plans. “We’ll hold onto them and they’ll be in a future auction,” she said.
“We’ll see what happens next time.”