MANTEL (HILARY)
A twentieth century pine desk belonging to Hilary Mantel, the rectangular top above a kneehole enclosed by nine drawers, on a plinth base, INSCRIBED BY MANTEL inside the central drawer 'Hilary Mantel / her desk till 2022', 137cm wide x 65cm deep x 79cm high, together with various contents such as a wax seal, several Hilary Mantel bookmarks, a box of 'Mirror and the Light' pencils, a small mounted promotional print of the 'Wolf Hall' and 'Bringing up the Bodies' dramatisations at RSC, programmes for the same, and 5 signed paperbacks of Mantel titles (small group)
Footnotes:
THE DESK AT WHICH WOLF HALL WAS WRITTEN. In an accompanying autograph letter letter addressed to the buyer of the present lot ('Dear owner'), Dame Hilary Mantel writes, 'This desk was made for me in Holt, in Norfolk,' before she moved to Woking. 'Soon after, its real work began - 15 years on the Wolf Hall trilogy, beginning in Surrey, continued in Devon, & concluded here, in the room from which I write to you.'

Mantel wrote all her novels since the 1994 A Change of Climate on this desk, including Wolf Hall, Bring Up the Bodies and The Mirror and the Light. Elsewhere, she has remarked that the desk 'has served me well and has a great record of turning out prize winners' - Wolf Hall won both the Man Booker Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award. In the present letter, she concludes that she is relocating to Ireland, so 'It's time for the desk to move on - battered tho' it is, it still has life in it... The proceeds of the sale will buy books for children who need them.'

The desk is being sold to support the work of the prestigious Budleigh Salterton Literary Festival in local schools. The Festival takes authors free of charge into schools to engage children in reading for pleasure, and this year is also providing as many children as it can in the region with a free book.

Provenance: Hilary Mantel.