?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,000 - $ 2,000
(SCIENTISTS.) CRICK, FRANCIS. Group of 5 Autograph Letters Signed, "Francis" or "F," to his personal assistant, Maria Lang ("Dear Maria" or "Dearest Maria"), recounting trip to strip club and discussing his erotic fantasies, inquiring about her work, arranging meetings, describing trip to the UK including time spent with his daughters, hoping to meet for lunch, reporting that he is undergoing treatment for cancer, and recommending a bookseller. 4to or 8vo, two on pale blue aerogrammes; folds, faint scattered soiling, short closed tear in 19 June 1990 letter repaired with cello tape. With two original envelopes. Vp, 1981-2003
[November, 1981]: "We've just been to see an (afternoon) night-club type review, with about a dozen gorgeous girls and a couple of men as contrast. The girls were almost naked. Most of the time they were topless . . . . Seeing so many breasts made me quite randy . . . . "One sketch had a really smashing girl striding about with a whip. This got me very excited. I've never actually whipped a girl on her naked bottom . . . . "If you have any fantasies, like these or others . . . write me a blow by blow account, with all the details and those lovely four-letter words. . . ." London, 13 June 1990: ". . . You were right to read both [psychologist Alan?] Braddeley's letter and his paper. . . . ". . . [A]fter a sunny May, June here has so far been cloudy. We saw both Gabrielle and Jacqueline on Sunday . . . . We've also seen several plays, movies and various friends. ". . . I hope to see [neuroscientist] Semir Zeki tomorrow, . . . and then the Royal Society Dining Club." Cambridge, 19 June 1990: ". . . After a dark start, today is sunny, but I am having to start reading all the various papers that have arrived. "The May Balls (the college dances, in June) are on, with the streets in the evening full of young things in country dress walking to the college. . . ." La Jolla, 16 August 2003: ". . . I am in very poor shape. I am having two sorts of chemotherapy for my cancer, and they produce all kinds of unpleasant side effects, so my libido is about zero . . . ." With--Odile Crick. Brief ALS, "Odile," to Maria Lang, asking that she pay for the dry cleaning that was not completed before their departure, written in 7 lines on verso of Crick's letter of June 13, 1990. Provenance: From the collection of Crick's personal assistant, Maria Lang, who was employed at the Salk Institute from 1977 to her retirement in 1994. Crick--an advocate of open marriage--enjoyed with Lang a sexual relationship between 1981 and 1992.
