Alan Turing's Lost Notebook (& Other Million Dollar Notebooks)

Alan Turing, the mathematician that founded computer science and broke Germany’s “Enigma” code to help win WWII, was recently immortalized by the Oscar-winning film The Imitation Game. His story, once unheard-of outside of the world of mathematicians, has since become a near-household name.

While The Imitation Game focuses on Turing’s work towards cracking Hitler’s encryption code, Turing’s other major accomplishment was to lay down the foundations for computer science. Turing’s complex mathematical work is the basis of the information age, profoundly affecting our lives over half a century later.

A Million-Dollar Notebook

It’s easy to understand, then, why when an anonymous seller announced they would put Turing’s lost notebook up for sale this coming April, the press struck fervor. British professor S Barry Cooper has enacted a UK petition asking his government to buy the notebook and preserve it.

Multiple sources predict the notebook will fetch a cool million at auction. There’s a lot of value in Turing’s notebook, which dates from 1942 to his suicide in 1954.

The notebook has historical significance: Turing wrote much of these foundational notes on computer science while he was studying to crack the “Enigma” code during wartime. His status as a belated gay icon, one whose life was ruined once the British government forced him into chemical therapy to “correct” his homosexuality, makes his story all the more compelling and tragic.

It also has potentiality as a fantastic source of research and scholarship for mathematicians worldwide. His notes detail his process towards developing a universal language for computers, with derivations galore. It’s the sort of material that the right mathematician could devote their life towards studying.

Other Million-Dollar Notebooks

Turing’s notes mean a significant lot to many people, putting reason behind the six- to seven- figure price tag the notebook’s predicted to fetch. Here are some more notebooks worth pretty pennies in their day:

Walt Whitman’s Stolen Notes

In 1995, an anonymous person returned several of Walt Whitman’s stolen notebooks to Sotheby’s in New York. The notebooks included notes preceding Whitman’s Leaves of Grass along with notes Whitman took during his services as a nurse during the Civil War. If they weren’t stolen goods, the notebooks were estimated to have fetched between $400,00 and $500,000 – in 1995.

Leonardo DaVinci’s $30.8m Notebook

DaVinci’s notebooks might be the most notorious lost notes in history. His recovered notes have shown writings and sketches of groundbreaking architecture, design, science and artistry. Bill Gates bought this particular manuscript for $30.8 million with the purpose of shipping it to museums worldwide. What a guy, huh?

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Manuscripts

Sir Aurthur Conan Doyle, the author of the series of stories centered on fictional detective Sherlock Holmes, had a wealth of personal manuscripts and notebooks. When Doyle’s personal affects were auctioned off in 2004, a total of 104 notebooks, correspondences, and business records were auctioned off for a net of around $1.7 million dollars.

Take a look at our notebooks – just don’t get yours stolen.