Books

London: Printed for Sam. Smith and Benj. Walford, Printers to the Royal Society, at the Prince's Arms in St. Paul's Church-Yard, 1704. First edition. THE EARLIEST OF THE SIX KNOWN AUTHOR'S PRESENTATION COPIES. First edition, first issue, and a superlative copy, presented by Newton to his close friend and collaborator Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, with an inscription recording the gift in Fatio's hand and with his ink and pencil annotations in the text. This is the earliest of the six known presentation copies of the Opticks, none of which is inscribed in Newton's hand - the presentation inscription in this copy is dated five days earlier than that in the copy Newton presented to the Royal Society, of which he was then President. Only one other author's presentation copy of Opticks has sold at auction, that copy presented to Edmond Halley (lot 918, Robert S. Pirie sale, Sotheby's New York, December 4, 2015, $1,330,000). Of Newton's three greatest contributions to science - his theory of…

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.