Rare Book Monthly

Articles - March - 2021 Issue

Census of First Edition of Newton's Principia Yields More Copies than Anyone Knew Existed

The Huntington Library's Principia, with notes in Newton's handwriting (from Caltech website).

The Huntington Library's Principia, with notes in Newton's handwriting (from Caltech website).

If you are wondering where you can find a first edition of Isaac Newton's Principia, in fact, where you can locate every known copy still in existence, a preliminary report issued last fall will give you an answer. The full title of Newton's masterpiece is Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, the authors of this census Mordechai Feingold of Caltech and his former student, Andrej Svorencík, now of the University of Mannheim. They have been at this project for ten years, and the number of copies they already have located is astonishing. It is more than the prior general consensus was for the total number of copies printed.

 

The last prior census was conducted by Henry Macomber in 1953. He located 189 copies and concluded there were probably around 250 printed. Feingold and Svorencík have already found 387 copies, laying Macomber's estimate to waste. Current estimates of the print run have been revised to 600-750 though the authors put it at 600-650. These figures are determined by comparing the number of known copies of other similarly old books to their known print runs to calculate those runs for books where the number is unknown.

 

Dr. Feingold was quoted on the Caltech website as saying, “We felt like Sherlock Holmes.” Indeed they must have, except that these investigators had to search the whole world, not just London. One of the surprises was the location of 35 copies behind the old “Iron Curtain” of central Europe. Svorencík is a native of the Czech Republic, and his suggestion to search this area led to the unexpected result. Macomber had not been able to search these countries when they were Soviet satellites behind the curtain in 1953. Macomber's census located 189 copies in 16 countries while Feingold-Svorencík located 387 copies in 27 countries. However, they were unable to determine the current location of 13 copies contained in Macomber's census.

 

Feingold and Svorencík discovered something else through their census. It had long been believed that only the elitist of minds ever read Newton's Principia, supported by the small number of copies believed to have been printed. They no longer believe that to be true, based on both the quantity of books printed and notes they found in many of the copies they examined. It turns out that more people were sufficiently educated in that time to understand what Newton was saying. Clearly, some struggled with understanding the text, but they apparently persevered until gathering a reasonable understanding. In their report, A preliminary census of copies of the first edition of Newton’s Principia (1687), the authors state, “...it is already possible to conclude: the first edition of the Principia reached a far broader readership than traditionally assumed – both in England and abroad; hence the need to revise received scholarly understanding, which underplay the influence of Newtonian ideas on continental science before the 1730s.”

 

Newton's Principia is noted for laying out the laws of motion and establishing the universality of gravity, it being the same throughout the universe. To many, he is noted for establishing the scientific method, learning though observation, as opposed to pure rationalism, logical thought trumping observation, and through religion, belief founded in faith and the bible more than observation. This was not his intention. Newton was a deeply religious man and believed that showing the self-functioning orderliness of the universe proved the existence of God, rather than the opposite. Who else could have done this? He even left room for his laws occasionally not working so well, so as to require there be an involved God to intervene once in a while to keep the machine on track. Otherwise, God would not be necessary, other than for Creation, and then be on His way. This side of Newton is little known by many, mainly because he didn't publish it, though he kept voluminous writings on religious subjects that were not revealed until much later, after his death. While being very religious, some of his opinions were unorthodox and could have caused him much trouble (he did not believe in the Trinity), so he kept his mouth shut.

 

Places where the authors located books were Europe (including the central “Iron Curtain” countries), England (UK) and Ireland, the United States and Canada, Australia, Japan, Russia, Ukraine, South Africa, and the Vatican. Their preliminary report, including the locations and descriptions of all copies they located, can be found by clicking here.

Rare Book Monthly

  • Bonhams, Apr. 8: First report outside of the colonies of the American Revolution, from American accounts. Printed broadsheet, The London Evening-Post, May 30, 1775. $20,000 - $30,000
    Bonhams, Apr. 8: Joyce, James. The earliest typescript pages from Finnegans Wake ever to appear at auction, annotated by Joyce, 1923. $30,000 - $50,000
    Bonhams, Apr. 8: Joyce's Ulysses, 1923, one of only seven copies known, printed to replace copies destroyed in customs. $10,000 - $15,000
    Bonhams, Apr. 8: ATHANASIUS KIRCHER'S COPY, INSCRIBED. Saggi di naturali esperienze fatte nell' Accademia del Cimento, 1667. $2,000 - $3,000
    Bonhams, Apr. 8: Bernoulli's Ars conjectandi, 1713. "... first significant book on probability theory." $15,000 - $25,000
    Bonhams, Apr. 8: Aristotle's Politica. Oeconomica. 1469. The first printed work on political economy. $80,000 - $120,000
    Bonhams, Apr. 8: John Graunt's Natural and political observations...., 1662. The first printed work of epidemiology and demographics. $20,000 - $30,000
    Bonhams, Apr. 8: William Playfair's Commercial and Political Atlas, 1786. The first work to pictorially represent information in graphics. $15,000 - $25,000
    Bonhams, Apr. 8: Anson's A Voyage Round the World, 1748. THE J.R. ABBEY-LORD WARDINGTON COPY, BOUND BY JOHN BRINDLEY. $8,000 - $12,000
    Bonhams, Apr. 8: La Perouse's Voyage de La Perouse autour du monde..., 1797. LARGE FINE COPY IN ORIGINAL BOARDS. $8,000 - $12,000
    Bonhams, Apr. 8: Francesca Woodman's Some Disordered Interior Geometries, 1981. Untrimmed publisher's proof sheets. $4,000 - $6,000
    Bonhams, Apr. 8: Charles Schulz original 8-panel Peanuts Sunday comic strip, 1992, pen and ink over pencil, featuring Charlie Brown, Snoopy and Lucy as a psychiatrist. $20,000 - $30,000
  • Dominic Winter Auctioneers

    April 9
    Printed Books, English Bibles, Maps & Decorative Prints
    Dominic Winter, Apr. 9: Johnson (C.). A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the most Notorious Pyrates, 1724. £3,000-4,000
    Dominic Winter, Apr. 9: Ordonez de Cevallos (Pedro). Viage del Mundo, 1st edition, Madrid: Luis Sanchez, 1614. £1,000-1,500
    Dominic Winter, Apr. 9: North America. Merian (Matthaus), Virginia..., 1627 or later. £1,500-2,500
    Dominic Winter Auctioneers

    April 9
    Printed Books, English Bibles, Maps & Decorative Prints
    Dominic Winter, Apr. 9: World. Waldseemuller (Martin), Tabula Nova Totius Orbis, Vienne: 1541. £2,000-3,000
    Dominic Winter, Apr. 9: Erasmus (Desiderius). The ... paraphrase of Erasmus... 2 volumes, 1st edition, 1549. £3,000-5,000
    Dominic Winter, Apr. 9: Bible [English]. [The Bible and Holy Scriptures conteyned in the Olde and Newe Testament, 1562]. £3,000-5,000
    Dominic Winter Auctioneers

    April 9
    Printed Books, English Bibles, Maps & Decorative Prints
    Dominic Winter, Apr. 9: Smith (Lucy). Biographical Sketches of Joseph Smith the Prophet, 1st edition, 1853. £1,000-1,500
    Dominic Winter, Apr. 9: Derain (Andre). Pantagruel, signed limited edition, Albert Skira, 1943. £2,000-3,000
    Dominic Winter, Apr. 9: Austen (Jane). Pride and Prejudice, illustrated by Hugh Thomson, Large Paper edition, 1894. £1,500-2,000
    Dominic Winter Auctioneers

    April 9
    Printed Books, English Bibles, Maps & Decorative Prints
    Dominic Winter, Apr. 9: Ellison (Ralph). Invisible Man, 1st edition, New York: Random House, 1952. £200-300
    Dominic Winter, Apr. 9: Taschen Collector's Edition. Annie Leibovitz, limited edition, 2014. £1,000-1,500
  • Sotheby's
    Sell Your Fine Books & Manuscripts
    Sotheby’s: The Shem Tov Bible, 1312 | A Masterpiece from the Golden Age of Spain. Sold: 6,960,000 USD
    Sotheby’s: Ten Commandments Tablet, 300-800 CE | One of humanity's earliest and most enduring moral codes. Sold: 5,040,000 USD
    Sotheby’s: William Blake | Songs of Innocence and of Experience. Sold: 4,320,000 USD
    Sotheby’s: The Declaration of Independence | The Holt printing, the only copy in private hands. Sold: 3,360,000 USD
    Sotheby's
    Sell Your Fine Books & Manuscripts
    Sotheby’s: Thomas Taylor | The original cover art for Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. Sold: 1,920,000 USD
    Sotheby’s: Machiavelli | Il Principe, a previously unrecorded copy of the book where modern political thought began. Sold: 576,000 GBP
    Sotheby’s: Leonardo da Vinci | Trattato della pittura, ca. 1639, a very fine pre-publication manuscript. Sold: 381,000 GBP
    Sotheby’s: Henri Matisse | Jazz, Paris 1947, the complete portfolio. Sold: 312,000 EUR

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