Satchmo and Einstein star in letters collection

A photographic print of Gypsy Rose Lee

As the handwritten letter slips into oblivion, a New York sale this week offers both style and substance. The neat-as-a-pin handwriting of Thomas Edison reveals the origin of ‘bug’ used to mean a technical hitch. He coined the term in an 1878 letter to Western Union president William Orton, explaining that there would be a delay in ...