Newton, Isaac

4to (234 x 178mm.), title printed in red and black, 19 engraved plates, modern smooth calf, plates slightly shaved

[with, loosely inserted:] Autograph manuscript fragment, containing notes on the position of stars and constellations on the recto ("..And by the sac [sic?] [Aries] 19.26.8. And that of Aldeboran And that of Spica [Virgo] [space] & that of Aecturus [space] And so of the rest of the fixt stars. counting these not from the middes of the signes but from the Vernal Equinox. [calculation]..."), with mathematical calculations on the verso, 2 pages, 40 x 185mm., small tear at corner

Babson 132; PMM 172; Wallis 174

Condition is described in the main body of the cataloguing, where appropriate
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FIRST EDITION of Newton's Opticks, his seminal text describing various experiments to show the refraction and diffusion of light through lenses and prisms.

Newton began to compose this text in 1672 and originally planned to publish in 1676; the substantial delay before the eventual publication in 1704 cannot be fully explained, though it is surmised that as there was no editor for this book, unlike (for example) the Principia whose publication Halley arranged, Newton had to supervise the printing process himself; it is also thought that Hooke's death in 1703 (and Newton's subsequent appointment as President of the Royal Society) may have led to the decision to publish.

Like Galileo, Newton decided to publish this text in his native vernacular rather than Latin, the language of scholarship; the Principia of 1687 was, however, first published in Latin, and the two tracts at the end, on the enumeration of lines of the third order and on the quadrature of curves, both appear in Latin, and indeed the latter formed part of of his quarrel with Leibniz over the calculus. A Latin edition of Opticks appeared shortly after, in 1706, translated by Samuel Clarke.

The autograph fragment found with this book was evidently once part of a more substantial manuscript. These notes may possibly relate to Newton's experiments on the refraction of light or his work on the distance between planets in the solar universe.