Diaries Written by Francis Crick Sold For £13,200

The diaries of English molecular biologist Francis Crick who played a crucial role in deciphering the helical structure of the DNA molecule have sold at Sworders for £13,200. 

The three volumes, written between 1938 and 1939 offered as part of Sworders’ Books and Maps sale were part of a cache of manuscripts that included letters from 12 Nobel Prize winning scientists plus pamphlets and manuscripts including a 26-page report to the Department of Science & Industrial Research discussing his research on the viscosity of water. The typed document includes corrections by hand and a full-page sketch and had an estimate of £800-£1,200.
 
A copy of Francis Crick’s Nobel Lecture On the genetic code delivered December 11, 1962, published in Stockholm in 1963, was inscribed and signed "For Leonard Walden who knew me first before it all happened, Francis". It was part of a lot with four autographed letters with expectations of £500-800 that sold for £10,200.

Six letters addressed to English physicist, writer, and poet Edward Andrade and signed by Danish theoretical physicist Niels Bohr sold for £5,000. In the letters from the 1950s, Bohr expresses his fondness for ‘the father of nuclear physics’ Ernest Rutherford and writes about Andrade’s 'beautiful article: The birth of the Nuclear Atom.'

The most expensive letter ever sold at auction is the Francis Crick 'Secret of Life' letter which sold for $6,098,500 at Christie's in 2013. Written in 1953 to his son, this seven-page letter describes Crick's discovery of the DNA double helix structure and includes a sketch of the helix.