Isaac Newton | Philosophiae naturalis principia mathematica… editia tertia, London, 1726

Isaac Newton

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

4to (242 x 187 mm), half-title, engraved frontispiece portrait by George Vertue after Vanderbank, title-page printed in red and black, Royal Privilege leaf bound after title, woodcut text diagrams, engraved text diagram on p.506, neat marginal annotations in Latin in an early modern hand on pages 388, 414, 416, and 465, 2 page bookseller catalogue bound at end, contemporary calf, board edges with double gilt fillet, spine with raised bands in six compartments, modern red morocco lettering piece to second compartment, red sprinkled edges, neatly rebacked and recornered retaining some of original spine

The third and final edition of Newton's Principia published in his lifetime, and THE DEFINITIVE TEXT AS REVISED BY THE AUTHOR. Edited by Henry Pemberton, who would become Gresham Professor of Physic in 1728, this edition incorporates Newton's last refinements and corrections, responding to criticism and clarifying key points of theory developed since the first edition of 1687. It remains the basis for all later editions.

First published in 1687, Principia is among the most consequential works in the history of science, setting forth the laws of motion and universal gravitation in a unified mathematical framework that transformed the understanding of both terrestrial and celestial mechanics. It provided not only a foundation for classical mechanics but a model for scientific reasoning that influenced philosophy, physics, and engineering for centuries.

PROVENANCE:

Herbert Brittain, ownership inscription to front free endpaper, dated December 1922

LITERATURE:

ESTC T98375; Babson 13; Gray 9; Wallis 9; PMM 61 (first edition)