London: The handwritten drafts of a series of articles and autographed letters of the father of the nation – Mahatma Gandhi were auctioned by Sotheby’s on Thursday, 12 July 2007, as part of its English Literature and History sale.

Mahatma’s manuscripts included the letters written between the 1920s and the 1940s. The lot including 33 pages of handwritten drafts of a series of articles for Young India from 1921 and 11 autographed letters by Mahatma Gandhi, was sold for £45,600. The lot had been expected to sell for between £25,000 and £35,000.

The manuscripts of the Young India articles, written by Gandhiji in 1921, discussed a range of political and cultural subjects such as the caste system, the khadi campaign, the colonial education system, non-violent protests and a temperance campaign. The series of articles were written during the Satyagraha campaign of non-cooperation (1920-22) as Mahatma Gandhi visited Gujarat.

The papers were mounted in a 79-page album, which also included 12 autographed letters of Muhamad Iqbal, Sri Aurobindo and Sarojini Naidu.