Darwin’s autographed document could fetch record price

Science Desk

Published: November 25, 2022, 06:14 PM

Darwin’s autographed document could fetch record price

A piece of paper signed by Charles Darwin, defending his theory of evolution, goes on sale on Friday with Sotheby's in New York.

The item is likely to fetch more than £1m - a world-record price for a Darwin manuscript.

He'd produced the document so it could be copied in what, in 1865, was a celebrity magazine.

Darwin didn't make a habit of archiving his paperwork and so little original material survives.

If it does, and it's signed, it's almost always just with the abbreviated "C Darwin" or "Ch Darwin".

It's very rare to have his name, "Charles Darwin", written out in full and in his own hand.

But Prof John van Wyhe, who curates the scholarly collection known as Darwin Online, says it's extra special because of what the great man had chosen to put on the page along with his signature.

"He includes a passage that appears in the third edition of On the Origin of Species," the senior lecturer at the National University of Singapore explained.

"It's a really favourite passage, because he's trying to make the point that people might find his theory unbelievable and outlandish, but they said the same about Newton and gravity, and nobody doubted the existence of gravity anymore.

"The same, he says, would be true eventually with evolution and natural selection," the prof told BBC News.

The document was produced for The Autographic Mirror.

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