Books

London: Smith & Walford, 1704. First. hardcover. very good(+). 4 parts in 1 volume. Title page printed in red & black within a double-ruled border. Illustrated with 19 folding copperplate engravings.[4], 144, 211, [1] pages. (In the second sequence, p. 120 is marked 112, and there are blank pages between 137-8 and 138-9). Thick 4to, contemporary blind-tooled paneled calf, well-worn and now expertly re-backed in sympathetic leather (contemporary signatures on title dated 1704, and rear endpaper; last several pages have marginal dampstains, otherwise a remarkably clean crisp copy). London: Smith & Walford, Printers to the Royal Society, 1704. First edition, first issue - with the author not named on title page. "Newton's Opticks expounds his corpuscular theory of light and summarizes his experiments concerning light and colour. It also prints two important mathematical treatises (omitted in later editions) describing his invention of the fluxional calculus, the grounds for his…

Isaac Newton's 'Opticks: Or, A Treatise of the Reflexions, Refractions, Inflexions and Colours of Light' was originally published in Latin as 'Optice: sive, De Reflexionibus, Refractionibus, Inflexionibus et Coloribus Lucis, Libri Tres'. This work is Newton's study of the behavior of light and color, detailing his experiments with prisms and the color spectrum.

First editions are identified by their printing date before or during 1704 and published by Smith and Walford.