The Newton Papers: The Strange and True Odyssey of Isaac Newton's Manuscripts

by Sarah Dry

Overview

The untold story of Newton's private papers, hidden for centuries, sold for a pittance and then painstakingly reconstructed to reveal a man altogether stranger and more complicated than the genius of legend.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780199951048
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	05/09/2014
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	6.40(w) x 9.30(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Sarah Dry is the author of Curie: A Life and has also written on epidemics, global health, and the history of meteorology. She is a former research fellow at the London School of Economics and the Institute for Development Studies at the University of Sussex.

Table of Contents

Prologue: Keynes at the sale
1. The Death of Newton
2. The Inheritors
3. Petrifying Newton
4. The Madness of Newton
5. The Meanness of Newton
6. Getting to Know the Knowers
7. Wrangling with Newton
8. Newton Divided
9. English Books, American Buyers
10. The Dealers
11. The Sotheby Sale
12. The Revealed Newton
13. The Newton Industry
14. The Search for Unity
Epilogue: The Ultimate Value

Editorial Reviews

"This fascinating book traces thehistory of Newton's papers...The author gives some fascinating background...It is a captivating story." — David Lorimer, Programme DirectorScientific and Medical NetworkEditor, , Paradigm Explorer

"[W]e find in Sarah Dry's fascinating book not only a life and times of Newton's papers personified, but also several smaller biographies of the flesh-and-blood characters involved in the story of these papers, who prove to be every bit as interesting and colorful as the manuscripts they sought, preserved, and studied."—Renaissance Quarterly

"In this brilliantly crafted and absorbing book, Sarah Dry traces the fate of Newton's manuscripts, through the hands of disciples and enemies, collectors and businessmen, scholars and eccentrics, from familiar heroes of the sciences, including David Brewster, George Stokes, John Maynard Keynes and Albert Einstein, to the lesser-known figures who played such decisive roles in the life of these invaluable documents. The Newton Papers works its appeal both as an indispensable guide to the making of a towering reputation and to the fascinating energies of cunning detective work through the centuries."—Simon Schaffer, University of Cambridge

"A delightful exploration of Newton's wandering manuscripts' legacy, with an unexpected bonus: a fascinating and insightful account of Sir Isaac's evolving reputation."—Owen Gingerich, Professor Emeritus, Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, and author of The Book Nobody Read

"Research into Newton's papers has not only transformed our sense of him, but did much to boost the field of history of science. Sarah Dry's book makes us appreciate the twists and turns by which the papers came down to us, and in the process offers a fascinating account of how attitudes about what can be learned from such collections of private, unpublished material have evolved over the centuries."—George E. Smith, Tufts University

"The fascinating saga of Newton's Papers illuminates a battle waged across several centuries over the legacy and image of England's greatest man of science. At stake was evidence, truth, rationality, religious belief, national pride, but also the physical ownership of Newton's material and intellectual remnants. Sarah Dry has crafted a wonderful canvas, stretching across several continents and peopled by myriad scientists and popularizers, collectors and politicians, aristocratic families and impoverished relatives. This is a beautifully written book, sure to please and captivate the connoisseur and novice alike."—Diana Kormos-Buchwald, The Einstein Papers Project, California Institute of Technology

"An engaging narrative of the fortunes of the towering mathematician's Nachlass—his private papers... Dry is to be congratulated for furnishing us with a fresh and readable chronicle of the tortuous route that Newton's manuscript took to being made public—ostensibly in accordance with the wishes of the great man."—Mordechai Feingold, Nature

From the Publisher