Any manuscript by any "collected literary figure" has a financial value
established by precedent. I've been in & around the rare book business for
forty years, and although manuscripts aren't my specialty, I could (with a
certain amount of research) place a value on any "item" put in front of my
eyes. In Canada, Linda Davey (wife of the poet/critic Frank Davey)
inventoried, appraised, and sold the archives of quite a number of Canadian
writers to Canadian rare book libraries back in the heyday of acquisitions.
Barry
PS Here's a facetious but real email I wrote to my friend Mike Wong, a
performance artist/writer who was born in Hong Kong, immediately after
reading and forwarding Andrew's original post:
Mike,
When can we collaborate on texts? I want to benefit from the frenzy. Am
presently trying to concoct a Chinese persona for myself.
Barry
On Tue, 27 Nov 2007 07:07:56 +0800, andrew burke <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:
>In Australia, if you offer a University or a library your cardboard boxes
>and files of correspondence and drafts, they assess its value and - even if
>they don't buy it - there is some tax dodge you can then do with the value
>that is applied. (You can also claim parking fees with receipts if you're
a published author away from home. I always give mine to visiting authors.)
>
>Any other Oz poets better informed than I? My mate Dennis Haskell was an
>accountant before being an academic, so he knows the game well. & Tom
>Sahpcott is another who is very cluey in this area.
>
>
>Andrew
On Tue, 27 Nov 2007 00:07:41 +0100, Anny Ballardini wrote:
Pour Douglas! You could win the hardest heart.
>
>
>On 27/11/2007, Douglas Barbour <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>
>> I think someone once offered me a nickel for one of my drafts!
>>
>> Or am I perhaps just thinking that if I had a nickel for every one of
>> my early drafts that never got published I'd be a millionaire?
>>
>> Doug
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