A REMARKABLE souvenir from the days when British publishers refused to distribute Lady Chatterley’s Lover is to go on sale next week.
A cheque for three clandestine copies of the book, signed on the back by the author D H Lawrence, and valued at around £1200, will be offered for sale by Edinburgh auctioneers Lyon and Turnbull on October 11.
It was written on August 10, 1928, by an eager reader named H K Beazley and was made out to the author himself, for a total of five pounds and two shillings.
At the time to get a copy a reader would send an order to its publisher, Pino Orioli in Florence, who would forward the cheque to Lawrence in Switzerland, who would then direct one of two booksellers to actually dispatch the order. The cheque went into Lawrence’s account on August 21, 1928.
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