Turning the page on the secret life of Barry Humphries

Independent

07-02-2025

I will be just a minute,' Barry Humphries, aka Dame Edna Everage, would tell his wife as he snuck downstairs to one of his many book-lined rooms – where he would remain for hours, poring over and purring with delight at his extraordinary collection of rare finds. In his north London home, he lived the life of a bibliomaniac, obsessively collecting books and manuscripts, particularly literary treasures from the 1890s. As many as 7,000 tomes crowded groaning shelves, spilled over and under tables, tumbled out of boxes, and towered in precarious piles.
His home, which he shared with writer Lizzie Spender, daughter of poet Sir Stephen Spender, was a treasure trove of books and art. This was his private stage, shaped by his forensic and unstoppable addiction to books, which competed for space with his Dame Edna frocks and signature spectacles.
Humphries was also an insatiable art collector. Next week (13 February), nearly two years after he died at the age of 89, the first of several sales of his astonishing book and art collection will take place.
This will be a rare insight into the mind and mania of Barry the collector; a chance to access the hidden private man who was as secretive about his hunger for rare books as he was flamboyant and fabulous at conquering TV and stage as the world's most formidable showman.
His books were his inner life. Parcel after parcel would arrive at his home, containing anything from an inscribed copy by a minor poet to extraordinary works by literary giants.
He had a masterful eye, and his best acquisitions were sensational – such as Oscar Wilde's personal copy of The Importance of Being Earnest, one of only 12 first editions. It is inscribed to his publisher: 'To Leonard Smithers from the Author. In sincere friendship and astonishment. Feb 1899.' The estimated price is between £100,000 and £150,000.
Among this collection of haute works, you will also find the iconic, gleefully colourful spectacles he wore as Dame Edna Everage – ranging from lacquered pink and red to simulated tortoiseshell. They could be yours for an estimated £1,000-£1,500.
Barry was both a magpie and a peacock. He hoarded and he paraded. He spouted great knowledge and eagerly absorbed new facts, fads, and fables whenever they came his way. I often saw this side of Barry the bibliophile up close during bookish dinners at his home. A thoroughly entertaining and generous host, he would reach up to his shelves, pulling down treasures to share and explain to his guests – his knowledge vast, yet always worn lightly.
He was also a member of The Roxburghe Club, an exclusive group of 40 bibliophiles with distinguished libraries or collections, dating back to 1812. A standout memory is Barry arriving at Chatsworth to see the ducal library – stepping into the Duke of Devonshire's extraordinary home wearing a velvet jacket and a monkey-face mask, a quirky remnant of post-Covid times.
The mask was soon discarded to allow his intense but wry perusal of selected treasures from the 34,000 books housed in the extensive library.
He was both a scholar and a chameleon. Wilde, Yeats, and Norman Douglas were among the better-known authors in his collection, but he also obsessively pursued more obscure paths, forever adding to his library. They say book collectors are usually male, their habit is rarely hereditary, and they are always secretive. Could he explain why he owned at least nine copies of his favourite book, South Wind by Norman Douglas? He might have pointed to George Bernard Shaw's wisdom: that we need three copies of everything – one to keep, one to read, and one to lend. Barry, as always, took things further than anyone else.
So where did it all begin? His mother disapproved early on of his habit of buying second-hand books, scolding him: 'Do you have to buy these bits and pieces? You never know where they've been!' One day, he came home from school to find that she had given all his books to the Salvation Army. When he asked why, she retorted, 'Because you've already read them.' His son, Oscar – a writer and aesthete in the same tradition – is convinced that this moment was the catalyst for his lifelong collecting: an attempt to replace his lost childhood library. If that is true, he succeeded magnificently.
He was also a conservator, encasing his own anthologies of poems in couture leather bindings of papal purple, fiery reds, and rich turquoises. He had a well-trained eye, and dozens of paintings from his art collection will also be on show in this first Christie's sale. The range is spectacular, featuring works from British greats like Edward Burne-Jones and Augustus John to his favourite Australian painter, Charles Conder, alongside pieces by Duncan Grant, David Bomberg, and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec.
He had a particular fondness for nudes, and row upon row of naked women from the 1870s through the 1930s adorned many rooms of his house. Among the magical caricatures on sale is also one by Max Beerbohm, depicting a plump Oscar Wilde in a top hat with a cigarette in hand (estimated at £8,000).
But it was in the corners of his wardrobes that the Dame Edna gowns and dresses bulged, alongside flamboyant trophy hats and Raymond Chandler-style greatcoats. The inner man was always at large inside his house. In many ways, this sale will be his final show – a last opportunity to see Barry Humphries in his full glory: the collector, the performer, the scholar, the chameleon.