The desk where Charles Dickens wrote Great Expectations and the final correspondence he produced hours before his death fetched £433,250 ($894,000) at a Christies auction on Wednesday, 4th June 2008.

The lot which went for about seven times its pre-sale estimate was bought by an Irish busnessman and the sale proceeds went to Great Ormond Street childrens hospital in London.

The Irish buyer thought the desk was a bargain and had expected to pay up to £5,000,000 for it.

The writing desk and chair from the study of Charles Dickens Gads Hill residence near Rochester in Kent, was inherited by Christopher Charles Dickens and his wife Jeanne-Marie Dickens. Who then donated them to Great Ormond Street hospital. An organisation that enjoyed a close association with Charles Dickens.

According to Christies, Dickens wrote Great Expectations and a number of other novels and short stories at the mahogany writing desk and the auctioneer quotes the memoirs of Dickens's eldest daughter Mamie Dickens saying that, 'on the evening of June 8, 1870, Dickens wrote letters and arranged some trifling business matters in the library where the desk stood.'

He then went for dinner and collapsed, suffering a stroke and dying the following day, aged just 58.

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