NEW YORK, NY.- Lion Heart Autographs, Inc., for more than forty years, one of the world’s premier dealers in rare autographs and manuscripts, has announced its Lion Heart Autographs Auction No. 13, which will take place on Wednesday, April 28, 2021 at 1:00 p.m. EST. The online auction, currently accepting bids, will feature two extraordinary consignments: private collections that offer an unprecedented opportunity for the public to acquire items in art, history, literature, music and science, many of which have been unavailable for more than half a century.

Among the rarest and most intriguing lots is a unique 1790 Alexander Hamilton handwritten letter to James Madison mentioning Thomas Jefferson: the only letter between the two ever to appear at auction and likely the last one still in private hands. The hit song “The Room Where It Happens,” from the musical “Hamilton,” chronicles the event documented in this remarkable, historic letter. The letter connecting three founding fathers was written when Hamilton, the nation’s first Secretary of Treasury, and Secretary of State Jefferson were at odds, until, with Madison’s assistance, they resolved their differences and agreed to the Compromise of 1790, which provided for the nation’s capitol to be moved to a location on the Potomac River and the passage of Hamilton’s resolution that the federal government assume the debts incurred by the states that had fought in the Revolutionary War.




Lion Heart Autographs Auction No. 13 also features examples by some of the world’s most prominent historical figures whose lives impact our culture and society to this day. In its first auction of 2021, Lion Heart Autographs offers examples including Mahatma Gandhi’s oft-quoted view on faith: “Faith is not a thing to grasp; it is a state to grow to. And growth comes from within;” Vice-President John Adams presaging Washington’s advice that the country avoid “foreign entanglements:” “What shall I say of the affairs of the World? Silence I believe is wisdom. For heaven’s sake let us Americans be neutral. We can do nothing but mischief by intermeddling with any side;” a lengthy letter from America’s first female war photojournalist, Margaret Bourke White, referring to her photo essay assignments in LIFE Magazine; an invoice for items to be traded with Indians, including scalping knives, signed by William Clark of Lewis & Clark Expedition fame; a military discharge signed by George A. Custer and his brother, two years before their deaths at the Battle of Little Bighorn; an unpublished letter by Charles Darwin on bee specimens from Africa; an extremely early letter (1922) from “Great Gatsby” author F. Scott Fitzgerald mentioning his first novel, “This Side of Paradise;” an early Golda Meir letter confirming her trip to America (1931); Pope Paul VI’s Christmas greeting to the president of El Salvador; and a 1774 document signed by George Washington confirming the sale of a parcel of land from the Shenandoah Tract in Virginia. Already reaching a pre-sale bid of over $8,000 is a handwritten copy of “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening,” arguably one of America’s most beloved poems, entirely in the hand of its author, Robert Frost. These highlights represent only a fraction of the more than 170 fine examples offered in the auction.

Other examples of autographs by famous women include a limited edition copy of “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,” signed by the original Alice, Alice Liddell Hargreaves; a letter by cancer researcher and Nobel Prize winner, Gertrude Elion; a handwritten poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay to her lover; Eleanor Roosevelt about the famine in Greece during WWII; and a fine autograph letter signed by Harriet Beecher Stowe, the author of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.”

“So much of what comes up for auction nowadays has been churned and re-churned through competing auctions and dealers. It is most unusual to find not one but two collections that are filled with wonderful, exciting material that hasn’t seen the light of day in decades. This sale represents a very special opportunity for both collectors and the general public to obtain material that is, truly, ‘fresh to the market!’ And how exciting to discover a single letter that links three of our country’s founding fathers to the amazing cultural phenomenon celebrated around the world, Lin-Manuel Miranda’s, ‘Hamilton!’”- David Lowenherz, owner, Lion Heart Autographs