Maxwell, James Clerk
A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism
£11,340
Rare Books, Manuscripts, Maps & Photographs
Auction: 19 June 2024 from 10:00 BST
Description
Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1873. First edition, first issue, 2 volumes, 8vo, xxix [3] 425, xxiii [1] 444 pp., original maroon cloth, spines lettered in gilt, publisher's device stamped to covers in blind, 21 lithographic plates (including one facing volume 1 p. 148; the rest at rear of volumes), volume 1 with errata slip tipped to p. 1, volume 2 with 15 pp. publisher's catalogue to rear (listing the present work on p. 10 as ‘Just Published’), diagrams throughout the text, spines sunned and with wear to head and foot, volume 2 with sections of wear along front joint affecting lettering, light rubbing to covers and extremities of both volumes, tips bumped and worn, variable spotting to endpapers, half-titles and plates, each volume housed in custom cloth slipcase [Horblit 72; Norman 1466; PMM 355 note] (2)
Footnote
One of the most important works of physics ever published, Maxwell's Treatise had only a limited impact during his own lifetime, but within a few years of his death his electromagnetic theory of light 'came to be accepted and regarded as one of the most fundamental of all physical theories. Maxwell's equations gained the status of Newton's laws of motion, and the theory was basic to the new technology of electric power, telephony, and radio. His reputation and the status of Maxwellian physics was enhanced by the advent of “modern” physics in the twentieth century, understood as resting on his conception of the physical field and appeal to statistical descriptions' (ODNB).