Very few ";first quality" manuscripts-meaning seminal works on a subject familiar to the public, such as Newton's Principia-ever appear on the market, said Dillon, a specialist in historic scientific and medical books. They tend instead to be housed in institutions, as Principia has been for the last 250 years at a Cambridge University library. But the record price does focus interest on scientific manuscripts, Dillon said, and plenty of Einstein manuscripts of moderate importance are in private hands.
"I would think it will draw upwards the price of Einstein manuscripts, and I'm not excluding others as well," he predicted. "I would expect an Isaac Newton manuscript to do somewhat better after the Einstein sale than before."
The manuscript was considered to be the most complete account of Einstein's special theory of relativity. Although this was not the first manuscript Einstein wrote on relativity-that one was written between 1905 and 1906-it ...
