Sotheby’s to auction books with original covers by 31 artists including Quentin Blake

Sotheby’s auction house, London, is to auction 33 first editions of classic books created and donated by a 31 artists in support of House of Illustration, a registered charity founded by Quentin Blake in 2014.

Artists including Quentin Blake, Maggi Hambling, Raymond Pettibon, Lauren Child, Peter Blake, Gerald Scarfe, Richard Wentworth, Axel Scheffler, Audrey Niffenegger, Neil Gaiman, George Shaw, Paula Rego and Shaun Tan were asked to choose a book they had a connection to and create an original dust cover for it. Among the books chosen were Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis, Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass, J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book, T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land, D.H. Lawrence’s Sons and Lovers and George Orwell’s Animal Farm.

For the auction, in partnership with Winsor & Newton, Quentin Blake has created a cover for Beatrice Potter’s The Tale of Kitty-in-Boots which will be the only piece of original artwork by Blake for the book which has ever been on sale to the public.

Prior to the auction, from 8 — 11 December, Sotheby’s will exhibit the work in London.