The handwritten manuscript for John Lennon's surreal and unsettling The Singularge Experience of Miss Anne Duffield made $209,000 at Sotheby's New York on June 4.
The lot headlined a sale of writing and illustration by the former Beatle, achieving an increase of 198% on its $70,000 high estimate.
 Lennon wrote the Singularge Experience of Miss Anne Duffield in 1964, while holidaying in Tahiti |
It was published in Lennon's second collection of poetry and short stories, A Spaniard in the Works, and is essentially a Sherlock Holmes parody in which a character called Shamrock Womlbs investigates the murder of a prostitute.
He told the BBC in a 1968 interview: "I never got past a story longer than a page, so I read a whole stack, sort of 'The Madman's Sherlock Holmes' where you get all the stories in one and I realised that every story was the same story, so I just wrote one Shamrock Womlbs after three weeks of Sherlock Holmes in Tahiti. And that was the end of it."
The manuscript copy of The Fat Budgie, one of his best-known poems, also sold well - realising $143,000 against a $35,000 estimate, an increase of 308.5%.
Papers relating to Lennon often sell well at auction due to the heightened place he occupies in pop culture. In March this year a letter written to Phil Spector sold for £42,000 ($69,234) - a 600% increase on a £6,000 ($9,890) estimate.
Material pertaining to Lennon offers strong investment potential. We have this incredible signature on a customs declaration available.
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