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After being lost for nearly a century, a recovered copy of Isaac Newton’s Opticks is up for auction for $460,000. Photo/Live Science/Rare Books
The book is the original of the two copies originally kept in Newton’s library. This is Newton’s illuminating treatise on the nature of light. The long-lost copy was found by book collector David DiLaura while sorting through his collection during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Quoted from the Live Science page, Wednesday (18/1/2023), while organizing his book collection, DiLaura, a professor emeritus at the University of Colorado, came across a copy of Newton’s Opticks book that he had purchased 20 years earlier. The plate shows that the book is the second edition printed in 1717 and previously owned by a man named James Musgrave.
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Closer inspection, however, reveals that the second bookplate was hidden by the first, revealing the previous owner was Charles Huggins. By researching the two names, DiLaura learned that after Newton died without a will in 1727.
Later, his books and belongings were purchased by a man named John Huggins, who gave them as a gift to his son Charles, rector of Oxfordshire. These items were passed on to Charles’ successor as chancellor, James Musgrave.
Subsequently, the book was passed down from generation to generation, before large quantities of it were sold in 1920. The book was then considered lost until DiLaura’s discovery. The book will go on sale at the Rare Books San Francisco Fair from February 3 to 5, 2023 and is expected to fetch a price of USD 460,000 or IDR 6.98 billion.
Newton’s book Opticks was first published in 1704 and was the culmination of decades of physicist investigations into the nature of light. Newton wrote the Opticks in popular, vernacular English, making it accessible to a wider audience.
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Newton’s Opticks differs from the more famous “Principia Mathematica” which contains a description of the three laws of motion and was written in Latin. Of the many discoveries detailed in his pages, Newton explained how a glass prism could split it into white light and rearrange it with the colors that make up the optical spectrum.
The copy of the Opticks found by DiLaura is believed to be one of two private editions originally owned by Newton and kept in the collection of the Huntington Library. Private copies of the first editions of Newton’s books were extremely rare and were expected to fetch high prices.
In 2016, the first Latin edition of Newton’s “Principia Mathematica” was sold at Christie’s in New York for $3.7 million ($3.7 million) to an undisclosed buyer. This sales record makes it the most expensive scientific book ever sold by auction.
(wib)
