Molecular Structure of Nucleic Acids. Reprinted from Nature, Vol. 171, p. 737, April 25, 1953.

First edition, the three-paper offprint issue, of the primary record of the co-discovery of the molecular structure of DNA. This copy is from the library of Professor Hans Gustav Boman (1924-2008), the leading molecular biologist in Sweden; his signature is in ink on the first page. Three research groups independently investigated the structure of DNA in England in the early 1950s: Francis Crick and James Watson at the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge and two teams at King's College, London comprising Maurice Wilkins, Rosalind Franklin, Raymond Gosling, Alec Stokes, and Herbert Wilson. To acknowledge the simultaneity of the discovery, the directors of the respective institutions agreed that the three resulting papers would be published under the general title Molecular Structure of Nucleic Acids in the British scientific weekly Nature. Crick and Watson's paper, "A Structure for Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid", is illustrated with a schematic drawing by Odile Crick of the twisted-ladder structure of DNA, now famously known as the double helix. Wilkins, Stokes, and Wilson co-wrote "Molecular Structure of Deoxypentose Nucleic Acids", the second paper. Franklin and her research student Gosling submitted "Molecular Configuration in Sodium Thymonucleate", which features a halftone illustration of Gosling's iconic X-ray "Photograph 51" of crystallized DNA. Franklin died four years before the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to Crick, Watson, and Wilkins in 1962 for their work on DNA, but without question her "contributions, and indeed her actual X-ray data, were crucial to the total achievement" (ODNB). "Two offprints exist of Watson and Crick's paper: a single sheet containing the Watson and Crick article only, and a fourteen-page pamphlet containing the papers of all three research groups. The pamphlet pages are smaller in size than the single leaf, which has the same dimensions as the leaves of the journal, and the layout is different, the single-leaf offprint being printed in two columns like the journal, the pamphlet in single-column pages. The page breaks are different in each of the two offprints and the journal, as is the placement of the illustrations relative to the text. Despite these differences, all three versions appear to have been printed from the same setting of type, except that in the two offprints one paragraph of text has been reset to accommodate the placement of the diagram of the DNA molecule" (Grolier, p. 363). Haskell F. Norman discusses the difficulty in establishing priority between the two formats in his introduction to One Hundred Books Famous in Medicine and closes by stating that "it is now our tentative conclusion that the three-paper offprint is the first issue" (p. xxi). Boman "was one of the pioneers in the field of molecular biology in Sweden" (Norrby, p. 11). After teaching at Uppsala University he transferred to Umeå University to establish their microbiology department; under his leadership it became an international hub of research excellence. "Halfway through his career Boman moved on to Stockholm University and initiated a completely new line of research. It pioneered the development of insights into the emerging field of natural immunity. He developed this work in collaboration with Swedish colleagues and coined the term cecropines for this new kind of peptide antibiotics. This was a Nobel-class discovery" but - like Franklin - Boman died before he could see his research recognized as such (Norrby, p. 11). In 2011, his work formed the basis of a discovery by Jules Hoffman and Bruce Beutler, for which they received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Garrison-Morton 256.3 (Crick and Watson's paper); Grolier, One Hundred Books Famous in Medicine, 99; Heirs of Hippocrates 2342. Erling Norrby, Nobel Prizes: Cancer, Vision and the Genetic Code, 2019. Octavo, pp. 14. With 4 illustrations. Printed pamphlet, wire-stitched as issued. A few neat red pencil marks to first three page.…