WILKINS, Maurice (1916-2004) - photo 1

WILKINS, Maurice (1916-2004)

Lot 62
13.12.2023 11:00UTC +00:00
Classic
Sold
£ 378
AuctioneerCHRISTIE'S
Event locationUnited Kingdom, London
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ID 1105696
Lot 62 | WILKINS, Maurice (1916-2004)
Estimate value
£ 3 000 – 5 000
WILKINS, Maurice (1916-2004)

Two important offprints, 1951-1953.

Comprising:



–‘I. Ultraviolet Dichroism and Molecular Structure in Living Cells. II. Electron Microscopy of Nuclear Membranes. Lecture given at the Symposium on Submicroscopical Structure of Protoplasm, May 22-25, 1951, at the Naples Zoological Station’. Offprint from: Pubblicazioni della Stazione Zoologica di Napoli, Vol. XXIII Supplemento (1951).



Extremely rare offprint of an historic lecture by Wilkins which ignited the search by Crick and Watson for the structure of DNA. No copies in auction records. ‘In 1951, Wilkins’s boss, Professor Randall, was invited to a conference on macromolecules in Naples. At short notice he asked Wilkins to take his place and, in doing so, precipitated a meeting of incalculable importance. Wilkins went to Naples armed with taut enthusiasm for the prospects of his new type of research and with the best X-ray picture of DNA that he had so far taken. Dr James Watson, at this time touring European laboratories to find the best place to settle to study the biology of genes, was at the meeting […] Watson was immediately and permanently fired by Wilkins’s talk on the investigation of DNA structure and by the beautiful X-ray diffraction patterns revealed by his single slide. Watson said later that this contribution ‘stood out from the rest like a beacon.’



Large octavo (244 x 170mm). Pp. [105]-115, two photographic plates (numbered IX & X) protected by tissue guards. Original printed wrappers.



[And:]



WILKINS, Maurice (1916-2004), W. E. SEEDS, A. R. STOKES, & H. R. WILSON. ‘Helical Structure of Crystalline Deoxypentose Nucleic Acid’. Offprint from: Nature, Vol. 172, October 24, 1953.



Extremely rare offprint in which Wilkins and his colleagues give the first analytical demonstration of the general correctness of the double-helix structure of DNA put forward by Crick and Watson six months earlier. One copy in auction records.



Octavo (210 x 140m). Pp. [1]-[8], with two figures in text. Original printed wrappers.

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