Letter

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.

According to the memoir Le Mémorial de Sainte- Hélène by Count Emmanuel de Las Cases published in 1823, Napoleon first expressed an interest to learn the English language during the two-month voyage from Europe to the island in 1815 aboard the Northumberland.

Charles Carroll’s printed copy of the Declaration of Independence – discovered earlier this year in a Scottish family home – sold at auction in Philadelphia for $3.7m (£2.85m) plus premium.

Discovered lying unrecognised on a bookcase in a Sussex cottage, a unique edition of Thomas Gray’s Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard will be offered at Gorringe’s this month with a £100,000-150,000 estimate.

Sold for $42,500 (£30,795) was a very appealing Einstein lot that offered a short but amusing letter dating from November 1928 and a signed photo-portrait.

Albert Einstein letter on Communism is one of the stand-out performers in a Chicago auction

A couple of Winston Churchill letters were among the more successful lots in a second selection from a History in Manuscript collection* formed over the last 20 years and offered at Sotheby’s (26/20/13.9% buyer’s premium).