A signed Charles Darwin Manuscript Sells at Auction for Nearly $900K

• Sotheby’s reports that a signed Charles Darwin manuscript was sold at auction for $882,000
• BBC reports that the highest-priced Darwin documents sold for just $400,000 prior to the sale.
• The manuscript is Darwin’s defence of natural selection theory.

Friday’s Sotheby’s auction saw a one-page manuscript by Charles Darwin fetch a staggering $882,000 

This piece of paper, which was signed by Darwin at its bottom, set a new record for the most expensive Darwin item ever. the BBC reported. The document was expected to sell for between $600,000 and $800,000. Bidding exceeded expectations, closing at a close to $900,000.

According to Sotheby’sThe manuscript is Darwin’s “definitive statements on natural selection” and his legacy. It was written in October 1865 for The Autographic Mirror.

The English scientist was well-known because he believed that all living things were descended from a common ancestral and evolved through natural selection. Natural selection was accepted by scientists as an important part of evolution after his death in 1882.

Darwin defended his famous evolutionary theory against critics at that time. Sotheby’s described the manuscript as a summation.

The essay opens with this statement: “I have now recapped the principal facts and considerations that have thoroughly convinced us that species have changed, during a long chain of descent, through the preservation or natural selection of many subsequent slight favourable variations.” 

According to the BBC, the most valuable Darwin document was sold for more than $400,000 before the sale. The identity of the buyer for the latest sale is not yet known.