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NEWTON, ISAAC (b. Woolsthorpe, England,
25 December 1642; d. London, England, 20 March
1727), mathematics, dynamics, celestial mechanics,
astronomy, optics, natural philosophy.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Four vols. of the Royal Society's ed. of Newton's
Correspondence (Cambridge, 1959- ) have (as of 1974)
been published, vols. I-III edited by H. W. Turnbull,
vol. IV by J. F. Scott; A. R. Hall has been appointed
editor of the succeeding volumes. The Correspondence is
not limited to letters but contains scientific documents of
primary importance. A recent major collection is A. R.
and M. B. Hall, eds., Unpublished Scientific Papers of
Isaac Newton, a Selection From the Portsmouth Collection
in the University Library, Cambridge (Cambridge, 1964).
Other presentations of MSS are given in the ed. of the
Principia with variant readings (1972, cited above),
Herivel's Background (5), and in D. T. Whiteside's ed. of
Newton's Mathematical Papers (3).
III. BIBLIOGRAPHIES. There are three bibliographies of
Newton's writings, none complete or free of major error.
One is George J. Gray, A Bibliography of the Works of
Sir Isaac Newton, Together With a List of Books Illustrating
His Works, 2nd ed., rev. and enl. (Cambridge, 1907; repr.
London, 1966); H. Zeitlinger, “A Newton Bibliography,”
pp. 148-170 of the volume ed. by W. J. Greenstreet (VI);
and A Descriptive Catalogue of the Grace K. Babson
Collection of the Works of Sir Isaac Newton . . . (New
York, 1950), plus A Supplement . . . compiled by Henry P.
Macomber (Babson Park, Mass., 1955), which lists some
secondary materials from journals as well as books.
IV. MANUSCRIPT COLLECTIONS AND CATALOGUES. The
Portsmouth Collection (University Library, Cambridge)
was roughly catalogued by a syndicate consisting of
H. R. Luard, G. G. Stokes, J. C. Adams, and G. D. Liveing,
who produced A Catalogue of the Portsmouth Collection of
Books and Papers Written by or Belonging to Sir Isaac
Newton . . . (Cambridge, 1888); the bare descriptions do
not always identify the major MSS or give the catalogue
numbers (e.g., the Waste Book, U.L.C. MS Add. 4004, the
major repository of Newton's early work in dynamics and
in mathematics, appears as “A common-place book,
written originally by B. Smith, D.D., with calculations by
Newton written in the blank spaces. This contains Newton's
first idea of Fluxions”). There is no adequate catalogue or
printed guide to the Newton MSS in the libraries of
Trinity College (Cambridge), the Royal Society of London,
or the British Museum. The Keynes Collection (in the
library of King's College, Cambridge) is almost entirely
based on the Sotheby sale and is inventoried in the form of
a marked copy of the sale catalogue, available in the
library; see A. N. L. Munby, “The Keynes Collection of
the Works of Sir Isaac Newton at King's College, Cambridge,”
in Notes and Records. Royal Society of London,
10 (1952), 40-50. The “scientific portion” of the
Portsmouth
Collection was given to Cambridge University in
the 1870's; the remainder was dispersed at public auction
in 1936. See Sotheby's Catalogue of the Newton Papers,
Sold by Order of the Viscount Lymington, to Whom They
Have Descended From Catherine Conduitt, Viscountess
Lymington, Great-niece of Sir Isaac Newton (London,
1936). No catalogue has ever been made available of the
Macclesfield Collection (rich in Newton MSS), based
originally on the papers of John Collins and William Jones,
for which see S. P. Rigaud's 2-vol. Correspondence . . . (I).
Further information concerning MS sources is given in
Whiteside, Mathematical Papers, I, xxiv-xxxiii (3).
Many books from Newton's library are in the Trinity
College Library (Cambridge); others are in public and
private collections all over the world. R. de Villamil,
Newton: The Man (London, 1931[?]; repr., with intro. by
I. B. Cohen, New York, 1972), contains a catalogue
(imperfect and incomplete) of books in Newton's library
at the time of his death; an inventory with present locations
of Newton's books is greatly to be desired. See P. E.
Spargo, “Newton's Library,” in Endeavour, 31
(1972),
29-33, with short but valuable list of references. See also
Library of Sir Isaac Newton. Presentation by the Pilgrim
Trust to Trinity College Cambridge 30 October 1943
(Cambridge, 1944), described on pp. 5-7 of Thirteenth
Annual Report of the Pilgrim Trust (Harlech, 1943).
SECONDARY LITERATURE
V. GUIDES TO THE SECONDARY LITERATURE. For guides
to the literature concerning Newton, see . . . Catalogue . . .
Babson Collection . . . (III); and scholarly eds., such as
Mathematical Papers (3), Principia (I), and
Correspondence
(II). A most valuable year-by-year list of articles and books
has been prepared and published by Clelia Pighetti:
“Cinquant'anni di studi newtoniani (1908-1959),” in
Rivista critica di storia della filosofia, 20 (1960), 181-203,
295-318. See also Magda Whitrow, ed., ISIS Cumulative
Bibliography . . . 1913-65, II (London, 1971), 221-232.
Two fairly recent surveys of the literature are I. B. Cohen,
“Newton in the Light of Recent Scholarship,” in Isis,
51
(1960), 489-514; and D. T. Whiteside, “The Expanding
World of Newtonian Research,” in History of Science, 1
(1962), 16-29.
VI. GENERAL WORKS. Biographies (e.g., by Stukeley,
Brewster, More, Manuel) are listed below (1). Some major
interpretative works and collections of studies on Newton
are Ferd. Rosenberger, Isaac Newton und seine physikalischen
Principien (Leipzig, 1895); Léon Bloch, La
philosophie de Newton (Paris, 1908); S. I. Vavilov, Isaak
Nyuton; nauchnaya biografia i stati, 3rd ed. (Moscow,
1961), German trans. by Josef Grün as Isaac Newton
(Vienna, 1948), 2nd ed., rev., German trans. by Franz
Boncourt (Berlin, 1951); Alexandre Koyré, Newtonian
Studies (London-Cambridge, Mass., 1965) which, posthumously
published, contains a number of errors—a more
correct version is the French trans., Études newtoniennes
(Paris, 1968), with an avertissement by Yvon Belaval; and
Alberto Pala, Isaac Newton, scienza e filosofia (Turin,
1969).
Major collections of Newtonian studies include W. J.
Greenstreet, ed., Isaac Newton 1642-1727 (London, 1927);
F. E. Brasch, ed., Sir Isaac Newton 1727-1927 (Baltimore,
1928); S. I. Vavilov, ed., Isaak Nyuton 1643[n.s.]-1727,
a symposium in Russian (Moscow-Leningrad, 1943);
Royal Society, Newton Tercentenary Celebrations, 15-19
July 1946 (Cambridge, 1947); and Robert Palter, ed.,
The Annus Mirabilis of Sir Isaac Newton 1666-1966
(Cambridge, Mass., 1970), based on an earlier version in
The Texas Quarterly, 10, no. 3 (autumn 1967).