Valuable Books and Manuscripts

Over the past decade there has been a serious growth in the market for collecting ‘hard’ science, especially of quantum physics and relativity theory. This market continues to strengthen, and the Book and Manuscripts department is proud to present an exceptionally important selection of material relating to Einstein.

The top lot of the sale is a collection of love letters between Albert Einstein and his first wife, and comprises one-half of all the extant primary source material relating to Einstein’s early life (estimate £700,000–1,000,000).

Alongside this is a wonderful collection of offprints by Einstein. These papers include three out of the four works published by Einstein in 1905, his annus mirabilis, complete with his Nobel Prize-winning work. The provenance of these papers is extraordinary, for they were formerly in the collection of Arnold Sommerfeld, the German theoretical physicist who made significant contributions to atomic and quantum physics. Sommerfeld was an exceptional educator, mentoring seven Nobel Prize winners and numerous other prominent physicists.

The sale also contains a very important collection of music manuscripts, the most notable being Ludwig van Beethoven’s autograph sketch leaf for the string quartet in C, op. 59 no. 3. This is densely written, with many cancellations and emendations, for one of Beethoven’s celebrated ‘middle period’ quartets (estimate £100,000–150,000).

The auction will also include lots ranging from medieval and Renaissance illuminated manuscripts through to Peggy Fortnum’s original drawings of Paddington Bear, as well as another tranche of books that were with Matthew Flinders on board HMS Investigator during the first circumnavigation of Australia.

Explore the Classic Week auction series in London.