The double bed from the Sargeson Centre flat, a furnished residence for New Zealand writers in central Auckland, is to be auctioned at the annual general meeting of the Auckland Branch of the New Zealand Society of Authors. The bed, which has been replaced by a new model, was in continuous use in the Sargeson Centre flat from 1987 until 2006.

The retired Sargeson Centre bed is an artefact of unique distinction. No other bed in New Zealand has been slept in by so many distinguished writers. Among its authorised occupants since 1987 have been: Diane Brown, Ken Catran, Geoff Chapple, Catherine Chidgey, Marilyn Duckworth, Alan Duff, Riemke Ensing, Karyn Hay, Kevin Ireland, Janet Frame, Toa Fraser, Charlotte Grimshaw, Kapka Kassabova, Michael King, Shonagh Koea, Jack Lasenby, Vincent O’Sullivan, Emily Perkins, Sarah Quigley, Stephen Stratford, Chad Taylor and Judith White. The retired Sargeson Centre bed thus contains traces of all these, and other writers’ DNA, making it a literary incubator of enormous significance.

The auction will be held on 7 December, at 6pm, in the Common Room of the English Department of the University of Auckland. Associate Professor Bernard Brown, poet, treasurer of the Auckland Branch of the New Zealand Society of Authors and auctioneer, expects bidding for the Sargeson Centre bed to be brisk. “Any aspiring writer who sleeps in the bed could not help but absorb some of its extraordinary properties,” Associate Professor Brown says. “Its provenance is unique. Poems, plays, short stories and entire novels have been devised between its sheets. So even a quick nap in the bed could prove inspirational.”

Graeme Lay, secretary of the Frank Sargeson Trust, reports that the Sargeson Centre bed was earlier offered to New Zealand art authorities as the nation’s representative installation for the 2007 Venice Biennale, but this offer was ignored. “Venice’s loss,” Lay adds, “can be some blessed bidder’s gain, at the NZSA auction on 7 December.”