Beschreibung:

NEWTON, Sir Isaac (1642-1727, knighted 1705). Philosophiae naturalis principia mathematica . [Edited by Edmond Halley (1656-1743).] London: Joseph Streater for the Royal Society [at the expense of Edmond Halley], to be sold by various booksellers, 1687. Median 4 o (241 x 183 mm). 257 leaves (quire Eee in duplicate) and folding plate. Title in first state, uncancelled; P4 cancel correcting orientation of the diagram on verso, errata inserted between the preliminaries and the text (A4+1), final leaf blank (Ooo4); engraving of cometary orbit inserted before Nnn1. Numerous woodcut diagrams. (Light marginal dampstain at the beginning.) Contemporary English mottled calf, blind roll and fillets on covers, gilt spine, red morocco lettering-piece, red-sprinkled edges, original endpapers (headcap chipped, joints cracking at head and tail); quarter-morocco box. Provenance : John Parker 1st Earl of Morley (early-19th-century engraved armorial bookplate), 1772-1840, elected Fellow of the Royal Society 1795 -- purchased from Maggs Bros., London, 7 October 1980. FIRST EDITION OF THE MOST IMPORTANT WORK IN THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE, "perhaps the greatest intellectual stride that it has ever been granted to any man to make" (Einstein). The Morley copy belongs to the issue for distribution in Britain (two-line imprint), traditionally designated the first; Halley and Newton sold it through a number of unnamed booksellers. The other, smaller, issue was largely turned over to Samuel Smith for distribution on the continent (H. Zeitlinger first noticed the frequent occurrence of foreign bindings, see for example the Norman copy: Christie's 16th June 1998, lot 692) and required a cancel-title (three-line imprint). The edition was divided between two compositors working concurrently, one setting the first two books, the other setting the third. W. Todd has identified a number of stop-press corrections, but they cannot be related to either issue. "Following the pioneer researches of Galileo in the study of motion and its mathematical analysis and the important contributions of Descartes and Huygens, the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century culminated in the massive achievements of Newton in dynamics and gravitational astronomy. Kepler's law of planetary motion came to be gradually accepted in the latter half of the century and unsuccessful attempts were made to account for them in terms of a central force emanating from the sun" (PMM). Halley put the problem to Newton, who showed that his LAW OF GRAVITY would cause a planet to move in an ellipse about the sun as focus. Halley then saw Newton's mathematical analysis of motion through the press, and also bore the cost of printing, the Royal Society's funds having been depleted. Newton's work provides a great synthesis of the cosmos and proves its physical unity. His scientific views were not seriously challenged until Planck's quantum theory and Einstein's theories of relativity, but his principles and methods remain essential for the solution of many scientific problems. The Morley-Berland copy is in VERY FINE CONDITION, the paper fresh and the binding unrestored. Babson 10; Dibner 11; Horblit 78; PMM 161; Norman 1586; A.N.L. Munby, "The two title-pages of Newton's Principia" in Notes and Records of the Royal Society 10 (1952); W. Todd's bibliography in Koyré & Cohen's ed. of Newton's Principia II, 851-3; Wing N-1048.