Yesterday's Top Lots: Autographs

John Milton, Endorsement Signed, on the verso of a vellum document, Reigate, 23 January 1657. Sold for $45,600.

An endorsement signed by a blind John Milton as witness to the signing of a land deed, 1657, was the top lot in Swann's Autographs auction yesterday. The vellum document signed by the author of Paradise Lost brought $45,600, a record price for Milton's autograph.

A handwritten letter from Charles Darwin to an unnamed recipient (possibly botanist Hewett Cottrell Watson) in 1856, asking if he believes a plant with adjacent male and female reproductive organs can be fertilized by another, and stating interest in Thomas Andrew Knight's view that all plants occasionally cross-fertilize, sold for $26,400.
Charles Darwin, Autograph Letter Signed, to an unnamed recipient, about evidence for theory of plant cross-fertilization, Down Bromley Kent, 24 December 1856. Sold for $26,400.

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