Overview

• A cache of Alan Turing’s academic papers, nearly shredded after being stored in a loft for decades, has been authenticated and prepared for auction.
• The collection includes Turing’s signed 1938 PhD dissertation, 'Systems of Logic Based on Ordinals,' and his 1936 paper 'On Computable Numbers,' which introduced the concept of a universal computing machine.
• Rare Book Auctions of Lichfield will offer the archive in 13 separate lots on June 17, with a combined guide price of £150,000.
• The archive also features Turing’s lesser-known 1952 paper 'The Chemical Basis of Morphogenesis' and letters from novelist E.M. Forster to Turing’s friend Norman Routledge, who originally safeguarded the papers.
• Auctioneer Jim Spencer described the documents as scarce and foundational to modern digital computing, with potential interest from collectors and institutions globally.