But collectors of stage and film memorabilia were excited enough by the script for a film that was never made to bid more than 20 times its estimated value went it came up for auction at the salesrooms of Moore Allen and Innocent in Cirencester on Friday, October 28.

 

Pinter's stab at a screenplay for Lolita was never commissioned. Rejected by the film's producers – who also turned down scripts by Fatal Attraction writer James Dearden and David Mamet, who wrote the screenplays for Glengarry Glen Ross and The Untouchables among others – the writing credit eventually went to first-timer Stephen Schiff. 

 

The 1997 film - based on the 1955 novel by Vladimir Nabokov and first brought to the big screen in 1962 by Stanley Kubrick - centres around university professor Humbert Humbert who marries a woman because he falls in love with her daughter – Lolita.

 

The bound and typewritten screenplay, dated September 26th 1994, was inscribed on the title page 'To Georgina, with love and thanks, Harold, Humbert & Lolita!'. 

 

It was sold with another screenplay, for Pinter's 1993 Moonlight, which was inscribed 'To Georgina, with love and thanks, Harold' and Pinter's 1997 screenplay The Dreaming Child, which has not to date been made into a film, inscribed 'To Georgina, with love and thanks, Harold'.

 

Given a conservative estimate of £30 to £50 there was surprise all round when determined bidders – ignoring the words of Pinter himself who once wrote 'if you have only one of something you can't say it's the best of anything' – propelled the hammer price to £650. 

 

However, the sale  price achieved was nothing like enough to get it onto the scoreboard of top prices at the sale of selected pictures and antique books. 

 

That accolade went to a painted action scene, which might itself have come from a Hollywood blockbuster.

' Escaped' or 'The Lost Scent' by Sir William Quiller Orchardson RA is a study of bloodhounds by the water's edge. 

 

A feathered cap floats on the water and three soldiers in helmets can be seen in the background. Signed and dated 1874, the oil on canvas - measuring one metre across - sold for £4,000.

 

The second highest price was a study of Alfriston in Snow, measuring 56cm across and signed by the artist, Frank Wootton (1914-1998), which made £2,900. 

 

HMS Hood in the Atlantic - 1928, a study of the ship at sea by Alma Claude Burlton Cull, took the number three slot at £1,500.

 

Like the Lolita script, the sale recorded a number of estimate-busters. 

 

A frozen river landscape with skaters, a man and woman conversing in foreground, attributed to a follower of Aelbert Cuyp (1620-1691) sold for thirteen times its estimate, making £1,300 against a £100 to £150 estimate. 

 

Mother and child in a landscape, a cherub presenting garland of flowers, seraphim looking on, a man with donkey in background, after Carlo Cavaliers Maratti (1625-1713) sold for double its £500 to £800 estimate at £1,000.

 

And a set of 20 figural studies, depicting street vendors, musicians, farriers, woodmen, draughtsmen, cobblers, and fruit sellers in the early 20th Century Chinese manner sold for £900 against a £200 to £250 estimate. 

 

From China to the Stroud Valleys, and attracting local interest was a first edition of Cider with Rosie by Laurie Lee, inscribed 'Muriel Finer with best wishes Laurie Lee 26th June 1960'. The Cotswolds classic achieved £200.