KEY POINTS:
An insight into a unique partnership in New Zealand literary history goes under the hammer in Auckland next week.
A first edition of Michael King's biography of Janet Frame, Wrestling With the Angel, published in 2000, is among a selection of 10 books from Frame's personal library being auctioned by Bethunes rare book department of Webb's auction house on Friday. Estimated at $1000, what makes Lot 498 so rare is the inscription on the title page: "For Janet: Compact fulfilled; deadline met. Will this do? Affectionately, & gratefully. Michael July 2000."
King presented Frame with his book The Penguin History of New Zealand in October 2003 at a lunch in Dunedin which would be the last time the two close friends met, says Miriam Shaw, head of department at Bethunes@Webb's.
Frame died in January 2004, and King was killed in March the same year in a car crash.
Two more books by King - Being Pakeha Now and Frank Sargeson: A Life - have also been put up for auction by the Frame estate, both inscribed by the author to Frame. Geographies, a 1982 first edition by Auckland writer C.K. Stead, features an inscription from Stead to Frame which reads, "To Cecilia Skyways from Curl Skidmore xx."
The Bethunes catalogue notes, "These are the names of the characters believed to be fictionalised versions of Frame and Stead in one of Stead's earlier novels All Visitors Ashore." Included in Lots 490-499 is a 1964 Caxton Press first edition also with the title Wrestling With the Angel, written by Frame's friend Frank Sargeson, inscribed on the front endpaper, "Janet: with love. F.S. March '65."
The Frame estate sale also includes first editions of The Right Thing, by C.K. Stead, signed by him; Ambulando, by Charles Brasch, signed by Frame; Enter Without Knocking, by Denis Glover, signed "J Clutha Dunedin 1965" - Clutha being a name Frame used while living in London in the 1950s.
The sale of 600 items also features rare books from the collection of the late bibliophile Dr Corrie McLachlan.
Large format illustrated folios including A Series of Lithographic Drawings From Sketches in New Zealand by R.A. Oliver (1852) and Illustrations to Adventures in New Zealand, by Edward J. Wakefield (1845), which rarely come on the market, are each tipped to fetch at least $20,000.
