--- title: John Lennon's Doodles Up for Auction | TIME description: Sotheby's is auctioning the famous bespectacled Beatle's scribblings, poems, and stories June 4th in New York City. canonical: https://time.com/video/Z4ZXEKxo/ og:title: John Lennon's Doodles Up for Auction og:description: Sotheby's is auctioning the famous bespectacled Beatle's scribblings, poems, and stories June 4th in New York City. og:url: https://time.com/video/Z4ZXEKxo/ og:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/Z4ZXEKxo/poster.jpg?width=720 og:type: video.other twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: John Lennon's Doodles Up for Auction twitter:description: Sotheby's is auctioning the famous bespectacled Beatle's scribblings, poems, and stories June 4th in New York City. twitter:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/Z4ZXEKxo/poster.jpg?width=720 --- # John Lennon's Doodles Up for Auction > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ## Video: John Lennon's Doodles Up for Auction [Watch (HLS stream): John Lennon's Doodles Up for Auction](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/Z4ZXEKxo.m3u8) (2:58)  _Published 2014-04-21. Sotheby's is auctioning the famous bespectacled Beatle's scribblings, poems, and stories June 4th in New York City._ --- Jul 27, 2023 4:24 PM UTC --- ## More From This Series [All Videos](https://time.com/video/) [John Lennon's Killer Denied Parole for 10th Time](/video/vRHpyoZV/) ### John Lennon's Killer Denied Parole for 10th Time [Truman Capote's Ashes Are Up For Auction](/video/DCkGHUFj/) ### Truman Capote's Ashes Are Up For Auction [John Lennon's Last Interview](/video/QJ6fHhgg/) ### John Lennon's Last Interview --- ## Transcript Inside the head of the young John Lennon. His drawings. His extraordinary creatures. His handwriting. His school. All part of the surreal comic wonderland of his own invention. This is the largest surviving collection of his original artwork and jottings. And at Sotheby's, we get to see it all, in the flesh, for the first time. This stuff was just pouring from him. That time it was really just for the entertainment of the others, so they were cramped in the, in their van. Going from gig to gig, and he would be scribbling this stuff and then reading aloud, and the, the others were cracking up. They loved John's sense of humor. Here's a verse from John Lennon, the poet. I sat belonely down a tree, humbled fat and small. A little lady sing to me, I can see it all. Lennon was 23 when in his own right, was published a little book of his prose poetry and drawings. It sold 600, 000 copies. Paul McCartney was asked to write the introduction, andthis is how he describes his friend. At Woolton Village fete, I met him, I was a fat schoolboy, and as he leaned on my shoulder, I realized he was drunk. We were 12 then, and in spite of his sideboards, we went on to become teenage pals. People who were around the Beatles in the, in the 1960's would tell you that they had a way of speaking among themselves that was kind of alien to outsiders like a foreign language. Lennon loved word play. Liverpool was Liddypool. Princess Margaret, Priceless Margarine and holding the apple, Snow White and some several dwarfs. He drew his very own Sherlock Holmes. Sherm Lock Wormbes no less in a Deer Stocker, casting a pair of BDIs over the tiniest of suspects. Lennon's parody of a home story was entitled The Singularge Experience of Miss Anne Duffield, an epic nine pages long. Elementary, my dear Watson has changed into what. Ellifitzgerrald my dear Whopper. Ele- elementary becomes Ellifitzgerrald. I mean, you know it means elementary, but it's Ellifitzgerrald and, and why not? You know, it's just, I, I love that kind of word play. Lennon's people are pot- bellied, multi- eyed, wearing John Lennon's spectacles. Very few of them bother with clothes. This sketch features two bald guys having a chat, each with his own little shackled man on a lead like a dog. George Harrison liked it so much he had it copied for a nice little mosaic in his swimming pool. 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