Auctions | May 30, 2023

Washington, Beethoven, and Houdini Material to Auction

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Washington's October 21, 1799 letter addressed to a Revolutionary War veteran

University Archives' May 31 Rare Manuscripts, Books & Sports Memorabilia auction features autographed material from Ludwig van Beethoven, George Washington, and Houdini's widow.

Beethoven autographed material is extremely scarce, and an undated autograph letter in German signed by him as “Beethoven” also features excellent musical content relating to his only opera, Fidelio. Beethoven’s letter was addressed to Friedrich Sebastian Mayer, the baritone singer who played Don Pizarro the prison governor in the first two productions of Fidelio.

Three interesting lots related to Albert Einstein include a remarkable script from the mid-1940s NBC television series Your World Tomorrow signed by him as “A. Einstein” on the front cover. In the pilot episode The Atom, Einstein’s discovery of his equation E=MC2 is dramatized through dialogue between “Einstein” and two fictional characters. The series was slated to air in May 1946, less than one year after U.S. forces dropped atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. There are very few examples of Einstein’s inscribing his famous formula in something other than a book and or in something likewise manufactured.

Also going under the hammer is a letter George Washington boldly signed an October 21, 1799, addressed to a Revolutionary War veteran named Captain Abraham Shepherd in the former’s capacity as Commander-in-Chief of Federal Armies under the Adams administration. Washington assumed command of the military after his second presidential term ended, and he would serve until his death two months after this letter was written, in December 1799.

Martin Luther King, Jr. headlines the Civil Rights category. His signed a typed letter on Southern Christian Leadership Conference stationery on January 18, 1966 concerns the use of the 'N' word. King wrote: “The word ‘n--r’ carries with it a meaning deeply rooted in the debilitating racist caste ordering of our society’s slavery epoch and segregation era.” King explained that he favored the term “dark skinned American” to approach the question of nomenclature as objectively as possible, while emphasizing the shared values of American citizens regardless of race.

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Undated autograph letter in German signed by Beethoven relating to his only opera, Fidelio

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Beatrice Houdini's moving account of her husband’s death

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Martin Luther King, Jr.'s typed letter concerns the use of the 'N' word

A three page autograph letter signed by Beatrice Houdini on mourning stationery dated November 9, 1926 provides a moving account of her husband’s death less than two weeks earlier, on October 31. The letter was uncovered in Germany and it is believed has never been published. Houdini’s widow describes the exact circumstances of Houdini’s unexpected death from a ruptured appendix, lamenting, “The world has lost a Genius, but I have lost my Man.”

Literature forms a major subcategory of the May sale, with over 40 lots dedicated to authors including James Joyce, Bram Stoker, George Bernard Shaw, Graham Greene, Henry Miller, and Stephen Crane. Of these, a great percentage includes a single-owner collection of autographed material from Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and Neal Cassady. Allen Ginsberg signed a June 8, 1960 typescript draft of annotated notes that would later become part of Magic Psalm, a poem featured in Kaddish and Other Poems published by City Lights Bookstore in February 1961. The manuscript was inspired by Ginsberg’s experimentation with hallucinogenic ayahuasca during recent travels in Peru.