A torn page of lined paper bearing a draft of Bob Dylan's lyrics for the 1967 song 'I'm Not There' has been discovered tucked inside a first-edition paperback of Allen Ginsberg's 'Ankor Wat'. The page is set to go under the hammer in April, with an estimated price of between £20,000 and £40,000.
The book was once owned by Sally Grossman, the wife of Dylan's first manager Albert Grossman and a close friend of the singer. She appears with Dylan on the cover of his 1965 album 'Bringing It All Back Home'. The book was gifted to Grossman by Ginsberg himself in 1969 and was part of her estate sold to a book dealer after her death in 2021.
Omega Auctions, which is handling the sale, described the find as 'an extremely rare working lyric draft of what is regarded as one of Dylan's greatest pieces of songwriting'. The lyrics likely remained undetected for years, falling out while the seller was leafing through the book.
'I'm Not There' was written and recorded during the summer of 1967 near Woodstock, New York, with Dylan's backing group The Band. The song was finally released in 2007 as part of the soundtrack for Todd Haynes' film of the same name.
