An original typescript of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’ “No thieves in this town” failed to sell at auction in London Wednesday.
The auction went underway at Christie’s in London with with a starting price of between $79,450 and $127,120, however it failed to sell and will remain with the current owner.
Although the text is typed, Christie’s official website states includes “substantial cancellations, emendations and additions in pen, pencil and blue crayon to every page”, noting it also shows “significant variations from the published version”.
The lot description complemented the piece saying the “heavily-worked typescript provides a rich insight into the author’s working methods”.
The typescript was one of 163 lots, including an early edition of The Hobbit by English author J.R.R. Tolkein and a letter from Simon Bolivar to the Prussian explorer Alexander von Humboldt, which sold for $14,897.
“No thieves in this town” was part of a collection of short stories. It is set, like many other Marquez stories, in a small Colombian town. It was published in 1962, five years before the Colombian literary giant’s magnum opus, “100 Years of Solitude”.
