On Wednesday, January 6, University Archives holds a 440-lot sale of Rare Manuscripts, Autographs and Books at University Archives on 6 January. Expected to lead the sale is a four-page Isaac Newton theological manuscript, containing some 2,260 words in Newton's hand (estimated at $130,000–160,000). A long John Adams letter written in January 1809 to the Speaker of the House, Joseph Bradley Varnum, could sell for $70,000–80,000.
An April 14, 1944 letter from Albert Einstein to David Rothman could sell for $75,000–80,000: Einstein discusses the fate of his original manuscript on the theory of relativity, writing "I myself threw it into the waste-basket after it was printed judging it was good for nothing. At that time I knew nothing of the snobbery of this human world." He also speaks favorably of Allied advances against the Nazis. An Adam Smith letter to the Earl of Shelburne about the latter's son Thomas Petty-Fitzmaurice, who boarded with Smith, is estimated at $60,000–70,000.
Forum Auctions sells Books and Works on Paper on Thursday, January 7. The 268 lots include a large (~100-volume) shelf lot of regimental histories (£600–800); Charles Babbage's The Economy of Machinery (1832) with the added separate edition of On Currency (1833), estimated at £500–600); and a set of seven maps of Epping Forest, made around 1880 as part of the process by which the City of London took over management of the area (£500–600).
Also on Thursday, Fine Literature – Science Fiction & Mystery at PBA Galleries, in 455 lots. A numbered copy of Charles Bukowski's Hot Water Music (Black Sparrow Press, 1983), with a tipped-in original painting by Bukowski, is expected to lead the sale at $5,000–8,000. A first edition of Beckett's En Attendant Godot (1952) could sell for $4,000–6,000. A 24-volume set of the Crowburgh Edition of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's works, signed by the author, is estimated at $3,000–5,000. A first-state copy of the first book edition of Dickens' Oliver Twist rates the same estimate.
