Rare Charles Darwin manuscript could fetch £100,000
A rare and precious manuscript leaf from Charles Darwin’s most famous book,On The Origin Of Species, is set to fetch up to £100,000 at an auction.
What makes the fragment in Darwin’s own hand so rare and valuable is that it is one of only 11 leaves of the working manuscript of On The Origin Of Species still in private hands.
The leaf contains only 56 words, which means that, if it does sell for £100,000 at the auction at Sotheby’s in London on Monday July 9, each word will be worth £1,785.71.
The manuscript leaf was once owned by Charles Darwin’s daughter, Henrietta “Etty” Litchfield, who died in 1927.
It was then acquired by her niece, Margaret Keynes, who died in 1974, and has now been put up for sale by a member of her family.
The £70,000 to £100,000 pre-sale estimates for the leaf may turn out to be cautious. When a similar manuscript leaf from On The Origin Of Species came up for sale at Sotheby’s in New York in April 2005 it was expected to fetch about £47,000 but eventually sold for £144,000. That leaf contained 159 words, which meant that each word was worth £905.
When Darwin’s On The Origin Of Species was first published on November 14,1859, the book cost 15 shillings.Only 1,250 first edition copies were printed and only 1,170 of these were available for sale.
First edition copies of the book, especially those in fine condition, are now much sought-after and highly prized. At Christie’s in November 2009, a first edition copy sold for £103,000.
Charles Darwin, naturalist,geologist and originator of the theory of natural selection,was born at The Mount,Shrewsbury on February 12,1809.
He was the fifth child and second son of Shrewsbury’s principal physician, Robert Waring Darwin.
Between 1818 and 1825,Charles Darwin was educated at Shrewsbury School.There is a statue of Charles Darwin in front the library at Castle Gates in Shrewsbury.
