Newton | Philosophiae naturalis principia mathematica, London, 1726, later half calf

Isaac Newton

Philosophiae naturalis principia mathematica... Editio tertia aucta & emendata. London: William and John Innys, printers to the Royal Society, 1726

4to (285 x 225mm.), printed on General Royal paper, half-title, engraved frontispiece portrait by George Vertue after Vanderbank, privilege leaf (with woodcut arms of George III) bound before Halley's preface, woodcut diagrams, engraved diagram on p.506, twentieth-century half calf over marbled boards, lacking final advertisement leaf, marginal paper repair to B1, a few leaves very slightly soiled, spine slightly rubbed

A CLEAN CRISP COPY of the third and most influential edition, edited by Henry Pemberton, and with a new preface by Newton himself (and omitting the name of the now-deceased Leibniz from the section on the calculus).

This edition had a print run of 1,000 ordinary copies, 200 larger copies and 50 large paper presentation copies, according to the Bowyer Ledgers. This is one of the 200 larger copies, printed on General Royal paper with the CC watermark (see Henry P. Macomber and Gerald G. Grubb, "A census of the owners of copies of the 1687 first edition of Newton's Principia", PBSA 47 (1953), 269-304, p.293).

LITERATURE

ESTC T98376 (large paper copy; ESTC does not include an entry for the General Royal paper copy); Wallis 9

PROVENANCE

Alfred Lotze (1882-1964, German mathematician), signature on flyleaf dated 1910; by family descent