Anning 'sick of fossils' letter sells for £15,000

A fragment of a letter written by palaeontologist Mary Anning in which she says she is "sick" of fossils has sold for more than £15,000 at auction.

Anning's discoveries in the early 19th Century helped shape scientific understanding of prehistoric life but she was never fully credited due to the fact she was woman and because of her social status.

Lyme Regis Museum, which launched a fundraising campaign to buy the handwritten note, won the six-day online auction by Bonhams that concluded on Thursday.

Museum director Bridgette Housego said she was delighted the letter was "coming home" to Anning's home town and plans were under way to put it on display in the summer.

The letter was originally estimated to fetch £4,000-£6,000 but the museum said its successful bid was £12,000.

Bonhams said the final price, including buyer's premium, totalled £15,360.

Housego said: "It's been an amazing 24 hours.

"It's very nerve wracking because you just don't know until the last seconds whether it's going to be successful. I fully expected it to go to a different bidder.

"I was not that optimistic when we started the crowdfunding campaign. The interest in Mary Anning has grown and prices of things have gone up.

"And it's incredibly rare - it's one of only 48 pieces of letters and autographed pieces of manuscript that we know of in her hand."

Housego had feared the crowdfunding campaign could work against the museum by increasing publicity and competition from other bidders.

"You do think 'could we be inflating the price?' but that was the gamble we had to take," she said.

"We are just delighted it's going to come home to Lyme Regis."

Anning, who was played by Kate Winslet in a 2020 film, lived in Lyme Regis, part of what is now called the Jurassic Coast, and began searching the coastline as a child.

She was the first person to discover a complete plesiosaurus, in 1823.

The letter fragment, signed "Gratefully yours Mary Anning", consists of the last six lines of a letter.

She writes that she is "worn out after you saw me that I almost wish'd that I might never see a Lady again and the name of fossils makes me sick with its concominants [sic]".

A note beneath - in another 19th-Century hand - attributes the letter to the "celebrated Lyme Regis geologist" and on the reverse it says: "Miss Anning of Lyme Regis/The Celebrated Geologist".

The recipient of the letter and the mysterious "Lady" that she seems frustrated with are not known.

The letter is expected to be on display in time for the Lyme Regis Fossil Festival in June.