My Letter from Francis Crick

Francis Crick's drawing of the double helix, from his letter to his son. Christie's. Earlier this year, the 23-karat gold medal awarded to Francis Crick was auctioned off for £1.3 million, or more than $2 million. When I heard the news, I thought it seemed a little tacky. Then I went on to read that Crick’s family will donate 20 percent of the money to the establishment of the Francis Crick Institute in London. That took out some of the sting. Not long afterward another bit of Crick memorabilia went on the auction block at Christie’s: a letter, dated March 19, 1953 from Crick to his 12-year-old son, Michael, who was away at boarding school. It went for £3.45 million or about $5.3 million. Half will go to the Salk Institute in La Jolla, where Crick worked for many years. It is easy to see why the letter was worth so much more than the piece of gold. In just a few hundred words, Crick provides as crisp a description of DNA as you will every see, complete with his hand-drawn sketch of the double helix and other rough diagrams. It was a discovery clear enough for a 12-year-old to understand, and one that completely transformed the life sciences. I have my own letter from Crick, long buried in a file drawer in my office, though I doubt it would fetch much on the market. In the year 2000 after my biography of Murray Gell-Mann was published, I heard from a reader in Pasadena. He knew Crick, and he was urging me to write his biography. He offered to ease the way by approaching the great man himself. I wasn’t certain that I was ready to take on another huge project but I followed up with a letter, sounding Crick out about the idea. I was spared the postcard Crick was famous for using to fend off any and all requests. Here is a copy from the Francis Crick Archive at the Wellcome Library: