ON THE BLOCK

Auction notes: The original “War of the Worlds” radio script, written and sold by Howard Koch, fetched $143,000 at auction at Sotheby’s auction house in New York on Wednesday. The 46-page script had sat in writer Howard Koch’s file cabinet for years after the 1938 Orson Welles production panicked listeners who believed the Earth was being invaded by Martians. “I had a private offer of $60,000 (but) I was advised to take the gamble. I guess it was the right gamble,” Koch said. . . . And from London, a play written by young George Orwell while he was a teacher at an English boys school was auctioned for $8,000 on Thursday. The play, “King Charles II,” was written in 1932 when Orwell (a.k.a. Eric Blair) was 29, just after he wrote “Down and Out in Paris and London.” A spokeswoman for Sotheby’s London said manuscripts by Orwell--most famous for “1984,” “Animal Farm” and his biting essays--were rare as the author made no attempt to preserve them.