Fifty Love Letters Sent From Leonard Cohen To Marianne Sell For £700K
Love letters from Leonard Cohen to the woman who inspired his song So Long, Marianne have sold for £700,000 - five times their estimate.
The archive of 50 letters from the singer-songwriter to Marianne Ihlen chronicles their 1960s love affair and the blossoming of Cohen's career from struggling poet to famous musician.
The collection were sold by Miss Ihlen's family in an online auction by Christie's.
Miss Ihlen died of leukaemia in Oslo in July 2016, aged 81.
Cohen, (pictured) who was also suffering from leukaemia, hydraclubbioknikokex7njhwuahc2l67lfiz7z36md2jvopda7nchid.onion died in Los Angeles after a fall that November, aged 82
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One letter from 1960, in which Cohen wrote about being ‘alone with the vast dictionaries of language', was bought for £45,000 having been predicted to fetch just £8,000. Another, from 1964, in which Cohen states ‘I am famous and empty', went for just under £30,000.
Cohen, pictured, and Norwegian-born Miss Ihlen met on the Greek island of Hydra in 1960 and she became his muse, inspiring songs, such as Bird on a Wire, Hey That's No Way to Say Goodbye, and 1967's So Long, Marianne.
The pair split in the late 1960s but remained friends.
Miss Ihlen died of leukaemia in Oslo in July 2016, aged 81. Cohen, who was also suffering from leukaemia, died in Los Angeles after a fall that November, aged 82.