Diary Discovery | Francis Crick (1916-2004)

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We are delighted to present for sale the diaries of Francis Crick (1916–2004), the pioneering molecular biologist who helped unravel the double-helix structure of DNA. Written between 1938 and 1939, these three volumes form part of an extraordinary cache of manuscripts that also includes letters from twelve Nobel Prize-winning scientists. The collection will be offered in our upcoming Timed Online Sale of Books, Manuscripts and Maps.

^{Crick, Francis Harry Compton: Manuscript Three volumes of his daily diaries, 1938-39 (£800-1,200)}

This remarkable collection of autograph letters, pamphlets and manuscripts were given to the vendor’s father Leonard Walden (1899-1988) by his friend and colleague Edward Neville da Costa Andrade (1887-1971), after meeting during the First World War and working together for nearly 40 years.

Leonard Walden, a platoon sergeant at Passchendaele in 1917, and the recipient of a George Medal and Bar for his work on mines and the detection of booby traps in 1941, worked as a laboratory technician in London for several important 20th century scientists. His comrade Edward Andrade was an English physicist, writer, and poet. Edward became Professor of Physics at the Ordnance College in Woolwich in 1920 and was Quain Professor of Physics at University College, London from 1928 to 1950 - notably, at the same time as Francis Crick was studying for his PhD.

^{Crick, Francis Harry Compton: Manuscript Three volumes of his daily diaries, 1938-39 (£800-1,200)} 

Crick’s doctorate concerned “measuring the viscosity of water at high temperature” with these three neatly written volumes recording his daily routine at the laboratory. He frequently refers to his lab technician Leonard Walden throughout the text. Two of the volumes have the inscription FH Compton Crick, U.C. London, Physics Research Lab.

The war interfered with Crick’s research, and he left UCL to work as a scientist for the Admiralty Research Lab instead. While working at the Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge he met Frank Watson. Crick and Watson's 1953 paper, published in Nature magazine, laid the groundwork for understanding DNA. Together with Maurice Wilkins, they were jointly awarded the 1962 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

^{Crick, Francis Harry Compton: Manuscript Three volumes of his daily diaries, 1938-39 (£800-1,200)}

Crick’s 1938-39 diaries are offered together with a 26-page typed report to the Department of Science & Industrial Research on the viscosity of water - complete with Crick’s handwritten corrections and a full-page sketch. This lot carries an estimate of £800–1,200.

Also offered is a signed copy of Crick’s 1962 Nobel Lecture “On the genetic code”, inscribed to Leonard Walden: “who knew me first before it all happened.” The book is included with four autograph letters and estimated at £500–800.

Walden’s family recall he seldom spoke of his wartime work, much of it classified. His papers passed quietly through the family until they were finally brought to Sworders for valuation. Our rare books consultant Michael Kousah has called the collection “a very important find.”

The archive further includes correspondence from a remarkable list of Nobel laureates, among them Niels Bohr, William Lawrence Bragg, Edward Appleton, Charles Sherrington, John William Strutt (Lord Rayleigh), Ernest Rutherford, Max von Laue, Dorothy Hodgkin, and others.

The world record for the most expensive letter ever sold at auction belongs to Francis Crick’s legendary 'Secret of Life' letter. Written in 1953 to his son, the seven-page letter outlines his groundbreaking discovery of the DNA double helix structure and even includes a sketch of the helix. It achieved an extraordinary $6,098,500 at Christie’s in 2013.

Friday 24 October - Sunday 2 November

Timed Online Auction

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