Sotheby's will offer the largest private archive of Admiral Horatio Nelson's letters and papers as a single lot in a sealed-bid sale estimated at 4 million to 6 million pounds, with bidding running from October 21 to November 18. The 415 letters, documents and manuscripts were assembled over four decades by the late businessman and philanthropist Clive Richards, who died in 2021. The archive centres on 168 autograph letters in Nelson's own hand, tracing his rise through the Royal Navy during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. Highlights include his handwritten reports on the battles of the Nile and Copenhagen and his battle plans for Trafalgar, alongside 24 letters to his lover Emma Hamilton. Historian Dominic Sandbrook has described the papers as ranking alongside the most sacred texts of British national history. The material also records the physical cost of Nelson's career. Letters written after he lost the sight in one eye, and after the amputation of his right arm following the 1797 Battle of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, include his remark that he had 'not the hand of a ready writer.' Proceeds will benefit the Clive Richards Foundation, which supports education, healthcare, heritage and the arts. Sotheby's books and manuscripts specialist Gabriel Heaton said the decision to keep the archive together reflected growing demand for complete historical collections rather than dispersed single documents. The sale follows last summer's 8.7 million euro Paris auction of Napoleon memorabilia from Pierre-Jean Chalencon's collection, shifting the house's spotlight from the French emperor to his great adversary. Selected highlights will go on public display at Sotheby's New Bond Street for one week from the start of the sale.