Newton, Isaac, Sir | Opticks …, London, 1704, first edition, first issue of Newton's fundamental experiments on the color spectrum

Newton, Isaac, Sir

Opticks; or a Treatise of the Reflexions, Refractions, Inflexions and Colours of Light. London: for Samuel Smith and Benjamin Walford, printers to the Royal Society, 1704

First edition, first issue of Newton's fundamental experiments on the color spectrum, containing his first mathematical papers in print.

Newton began the present study of light and optics while a Cambridge undergraduate, continuing his research during the plague years of 1665–1666 at his Lincolnshire home. He opens his study with the claim, "My Design in this Book is not to explain the Properties of Light by Hypotheses, but to propose and prove them by Reason and Experiments." Because of Newton’s reliance on scientific method, Opticks remained for over a century “a work of great authority; 'supreme' in Andrade’s words 'as a record of experiment and scientific deduction from experiment'" (Printing and the Mind of Man).

Opticks was expanded from Newton's first publication (which was also the first major scientific discovery to be published in a scientific journal): "New Theory about Light and Colours," a paper that appeared in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society in 1672. Opticks was by far the most popular of Newton's works during his lifetime; he supervised five editions himself (three in English and two in Latin), and two French editions were published before his death in 1727. The two "Treatises of the Species and Magnitude of Curvilinear Figures" included at the end of the text are Newton’s first published mathematical papers and were intended to assert his priority over Leibniz in the discovery of the calculus.

4to (241 x 192 mm). With all issue points for first issue present (namely: title-page printed in red and black within a border and with the imprint, but without the author's name; page 120 in the second part misnumbered 112; and with the two treatises on calculus at the end of the work), 19 folding engraved plates; title-page lightly browned and foxed, a few insignificant paper flaws including unobtrusive closed tear to 2I4. Modern calf by Stikeman; small scuff to upper cover, spine slightly sunned

REFERENCES

Buffalo/Sparrow 150; Babson/Macomber 132; Dibner, Heralds 148; Gray 174; Grolier/Horblit 79b; Honeyman sale 6:2324; Wallis 174; Printing and the Mind of Man 172

PROVENANCE

S. S. Dunham (acquired from Davis & Orioli) — Robert S. Dunham (bequest of his father; Sotheby's New York, December 11, 1993, lot 732)