Rolling Stones’s late Charlie Watts’ book collection to be auctioned

Charlie Watts, the Rolling Stones’s drummer’s collection of modern literature and jazz memorabilia, will be going into a live sale auction in London on September 28, and online from September 15 to 19, by Christie’s.

The collection contained rare first editions, including signed first editions of F Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Hound of the Baskervilles, Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited, Agatha Christie, PG Wodehouse, and James Joyce.

The Great Gatsby copy, signed by Fitzgerald as a dedication to MGM screenwriter, Harold Goldman, whom he worked with on A Yank in Oxford, is expected to lead the auction with a price between $256,800 and $385,200.

The inscription reads: “For Harold Goldman, the original Gatsby of this story, with thanks for letting me reveal these secrets of his past”.

The Brideshead Revisited copy was sent to friends by Waugh for their comments in 1944, Waugh made changes to the novel later “by rewriting the ending and changing some names.

“He took great pleasure in owning these things, He valued his time at home and he would read on the road, so literature was a very important part of his make-up,” said Paul Sexton, the writer of Watt’s biography, Charlie’s Good Tonight.

Watt did not acquire the books knowing they would later become valuable, he loved owning such great works, and tracking them down with the help of experts, Sexton added.

First-edition books were not Watt’s only passion, he also loved collecting memorabilia from the American Civil War, antique silverware, vintage cars, drum kits, and Edward VIII’s Savile Row suits.

Watt was also obsessed with jazz; he used to buy 78-rpm records. His favourite was Walkin’ Shoes by the Gerry Mulligan Quartet, which featured drumming by Chico Hamilton that Watts tried to emulate by taking off the neck of a banjo and playing the body with wire brushes.

Highlighted items from the collection will be put on display in Los Angeles from July 25 to 29, New York from September 5 to 8, and London from September 20 to 27.