Letter

Thought by the auction house to be an early copy, a letter that details the horrors of the ‘Black Hole of Calcutta’ in 1756 was sold for £2900.

“We have been to the Pole and we shall die like gentlemen.”

Running to over 150pp in all, an archive of 42 love letters sent by Bob Dylan to a high school sweetheart, Barbara Ann Hewitt, featured in a November 17 Marvels of Modern Music sale held by RR Auctions of Amherst, New Hampshire.

“Yesterday put an end to the business of the Federal Convention. Enclosed is a copy of the Constitution it agreed to recommend.”

Calculations on planetary movements rise to the occasion in New York saleroom

Anglophile American lawyer’s excellent and extensive collection is sold in New York.

In 1902 the author Booker T Washington sent a typed and handwritten letter to the Scottish-American industrialist and philanthropist, Andrew Carnegie regarding his recently published work.

“Dear Tom, I should like to write a story called ‘Mrs Dalloway in Bond Street’ (the title, I suppose, could be changed if necessary). I should certainly expect to let you have it by Oct. 1st.”

The queen’s menacing message to Protestant courtiers makes an auction appearance

Treasures from the Melvin ‘Pete’ Mark Jnr Collection, a Heritage (25/20/12.5% buyer’s premium) auction in Dallas that ended on May 7, presented a remarkable range of material.

Letter to adviser in 1592 underlines her frustration at the French king’s policies

Polar material in a travel and exploration themed sale held on March 2 by Bonhams (27.5/25/20/14.5% buyer’s premium) produced a bid of £24,000 for a letter that Robert Falcon Scott wrote to a friend, Lady Goodrich, about his planned British Antarctic Expedition of 1910.

Sometimes it pays to look a little further afield.

Three letters in the hand of Sir Walter Scott emerged from an old suitcase full of documents found in the attic of an Edinburgh home.

A single-page letter sent on the day before Steve Jobs’ 19th birthday to a close school friend, Tim Brown, sold for $400,000 (£292,825) in New York.

Letter from cryptology expert describes his analysis of a Monte Carlo betting system

This handwritten page from the manuscript of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Hound of the Baskervilles will feature at Heritage Auctions.

On October 25 Philadelphia firm Freeman’s will offer the Alexander Hamilton collection of John E Herzog.