“All records of the auction seem to have disappeared from the archives of the British Red Cross Society, and indeed the lecture itself might also have been lost had a dated typescript copy not been preserved by Miss Patricia Rawlings, who kindly made it available for the present edition, published with the generous permission of Bruce’s widow, Elizabeth. The text shows every sign of having been worked upon with great care. It well displays the author’s magpie-like habit of gathering together curious facts, ideas and people, a habit that was to characterize all his later work, and which perhaps took its lead from his previous persona as a magpie gatherer of art objects. And of course, the lecture is dramatic; In his life as well as in his art, Bruce always wished to surprise and disturb his listeners as much as he wished to inform and entertain them. Four years after his sad and early death, we, who will long remain his listeners, are still being enriched by Bruce Chatwin.” From the Foreword by John Wyse Jackson. 
 
Book Type: Rare, only 175 copies produced.  
Genre:  Art and Lifestyle 
Edition: First Printing 1993  
Published by Typographeum, Francestown, New Hampshire USA. 
Printed by R. T. Risk in an edition of one hundred seventy-five copies Francestown January 1993. 
Copyright Elizabeth Chatwin 1993.
Size: 25cm x 16cm
26 Pages
Printed in the USA
Foreword by John Wyse Jackson
Frontispiece by Jocelynn Hallen
A very good copy.
 
Back Story 
“On the twelfth of June 1973, there was held in London a Charity art Auction to raise money for the British Red Cross Society. Presumably to attract and enthuse potential buyers a talk was delivered before the auction proper. Bruce Chatwin was a natural choice for the task.  It was not only his old connections with Sotheby’s and his rising journalistic profile that led Bruce to speak on ‘The Morality of Things.’  In a later interview, he was to announce: “There was a time when I collected antiquities. I raced like mad through the bazaars of Cairo, Baghdad and Teheran till I found what I wanted. Now I own almost nothing.
 
Although he claimed that at school he was seen as a ‘dimwit and a dreamer,’ and while his adult career had begun with the lowly job of porter at the London auctioneers, Sotherby’s, he had quickly risen through the firm, soon becoming art auctioneer and consultant in the impressionist department. When he left the firm in 1966, aged scarcely twenty-six, he had already reached directorship level.  He then went on to study archaeology and anthropology, with a particular interest in what he saw as the nomadic roots of civilization. By the time of this lecture, he was himself a nomad, working as a journalist-at-large for the Sunday Times Magazine, travelling, interviewing, and following his nose.”
 
CONDITION:
Covers: Good.  Fairly clean. Boards: Age related wear, with a small marks on front covers as per photograph. Marks on the back cover board as per photograph 
Binding: Tight  
Spine: Bright clean title on spine. Some bumping and wear on board cover ends. 
Pages.  All pages complete. In very good condition bright and clean. 
Postage
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