What do you think?
Rate this book
The Newton Papers: The Strange and True Odyssey of Isaac Newton's Manuscripts
When Isaac Newton died in 1727 without a will, he left behind a wealth of papers that, when examined, gave his followers and his family a deep sense of unease. Some of what they contained was wildly heretical and alchemically obsessed, hinting at a Newton altogether stranger and less palatable than the one enshrined in Westminster Abbey as the paragon of English rationality. These manuscripts had the potential to undermine not merely Newton's reputation, but that of the scientific method he embodied. They were immediately suppressed as "unfit to be printed," and, aside from brief, troubling glimpses spread across centuries, the papers would remain hidden from sight for more than seven generations.
In The Newton Papers , Sarah Dry illuminates the tangled history of these private writings over the course of nearly three hundred years, from the long span of Newton's own life into the present day. The writings, on subjects ranging from secret alchemical formulas to impassioned rejections of the Holy Trinity, would eventually come to light as they moved through the hands of relatives, collectors, and scholars. The story of their disappearance, dispersal, and rediscovery is populated by a diverse cast of characters who pursued and possessed the papers, from economist John Maynard Keynes to controversial Jewish Biblical scholar Abraham Yahuda. Dry's captivating narrative moves between these varied personalities, depicting how, as they chased the image of Newton through the thickets of his various obsessions, these men became obsessed themselves with the allure of defining the "true" Newton.
Dry skillfully accounts for the ways with which Newton's pursuers have approached his papers over centuries. Ultimately, The Newton Papers shows how Newton has been made and re-made throughout history by those seeking to reconcile the cosmic contradictions of an extraordinarily complex man.
In The Newton Papers , Sarah Dry illuminates the tangled history of these private writings over the course of nearly three hundred years, from the long span of Newton's own life into the present day. The writings, on subjects ranging from secret alchemical formulas to impassioned rejections of the Holy Trinity, would eventually come to light as they moved through the hands of relatives, collectors, and scholars. The story of their disappearance, dispersal, and rediscovery is populated by a diverse cast of characters who pursued and possessed the papers, from economist John Maynard Keynes to controversial Jewish Biblical scholar Abraham Yahuda. Dry's captivating narrative moves between these varied personalities, depicting how, as they chased the image of Newton through the thickets of his various obsessions, these men became obsessed themselves with the allure of defining the "true" Newton.
Dry skillfully accounts for the ways with which Newton's pursuers have approached his papers over centuries. Ultimately, The Newton Papers shows how Newton has been made and re-made throughout history by those seeking to reconcile the cosmic contradictions of an extraordinarily complex man.
256 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2014
12 people are currently reading
305 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
April 2, 2014
Everybody knows who Isaac Newton was and what he discovered. Whilst I have never given the matter any thought, if asked I would have said that his life and thoughts were well known and documented; how wrong I was. When Newton died in 1727, aged 85 and intestate, he left behind a vast mess of published and unpublished writings over 8 million words in all.
The papers ended up in the ownership of Earls of Portsmouth, who were related to Newton, they guarded the papers well and let few people see them. It would seem that
Newton; scientific genius held some deeply unorthodox religious views and also endured a period of madness. This did not fit with the image of rational scientist that it suited his family and the Scientific establishment wished to project. When access to the papers was granted the sheer volume of them seemed to defeat researchers who produced portraits of the great man that looked remarkably like themselves.
In 1936 the Earl of Portsmouth needed to raise cash and so sold the papers. They ended up scattered across the globe in The UK, USA and Israel. John Maynard Keynes purchased a large tranche of the papers and donated them Cambridge Uninversity. At the end the author concludes that Newton thought in a wide ranging and ever evolving way, he disliked publishing his thoughts as that seemed to set them in stone.
What is really interesting about this book is the way that the keepers of Newtons flame have sought to keep it burning in the way that they deem fit rather than might have been true. Also the development of interest in the history of science over the intervening four hundred years. If you like science, history and a bit of a whodunit then this book is for you.
The papers ended up in the ownership of Earls of Portsmouth, who were related to Newton, they guarded the papers well and let few people see them. It would seem that
Newton; scientific genius held some deeply unorthodox religious views and also endured a period of madness. This did not fit with the image of rational scientist that it suited his family and the Scientific establishment wished to project. When access to the papers was granted the sheer volume of them seemed to defeat researchers who produced portraits of the great man that looked remarkably like themselves.
In 1936 the Earl of Portsmouth needed to raise cash and so sold the papers. They ended up scattered across the globe in The UK, USA and Israel. John Maynard Keynes purchased a large tranche of the papers and donated them Cambridge Uninversity. At the end the author concludes that Newton thought in a wide ranging and ever evolving way, he disliked publishing his thoughts as that seemed to set them in stone.
What is really interesting about this book is the way that the keepers of Newtons flame have sought to keep it burning in the way that they deem fit rather than might have been true. Also the development of interest in the history of science over the intervening four hundred years. If you like science, history and a bit of a whodunit then this book is for you.
June 26, 2019
At one point I went through a phase of reading some of Pevsner's Buildings of England books from end to end. It was a bit of a slog, but I felt it was worth it for the insights I gained. This feeling came back a little with Sarah Dry's study of the 'strange and true odyssey of Isaac Newton's manuscripts.' I could not, in all honesty, give it more than three stars for readability, but I felt I got a lot out of it.
Newton left millions of words in piles of unstructured documents, covering science, maths, alchemy, theology and the business of the Royal Mint. Now we would expect such documents to end up in some sort of archive, but in Newton's day there was far less regard for such rough and 'foul' documents. To make matters worse, Newton was destined for scientific sainthood, and the amount of effort he put into the more dubious aspects of alchemy and virtually heretical theology was of distinct concern to those who wanted to preserve this illusion.
What Dry portrays very well is the gradual shift from sanitising Newton through accepting his flaws to various attempts to provide an integrated picture of Newton the man, trying to understand what made him such a great scientist. Getting a good overview wasn't helped in that many of the papers were kept hidden in the family library until sold in the 1930s - and then they were fragmented, rather than sold as a whole.
Equal stars with the documents themselves are the individuals who sought to collect them, understand them, or use them to get a better understanding of Newton and his method. Some of these characters come through particularly strongly, others are bit part players, but all feature in what is a relatively compact but in-depth study.
What I hadn't realised was how relatively recent the move into serious study, even in terms of a modern edited version of the Principia was - it wasn't until the late 1970s that much progress seems to have been made, and even now not everything has been fully dealt with. One oddity, incidentally - in a book published by Oxford University Press on a key figure in British science, the spellings in the book were American, which grated rather.
As a science writer with an interest in the history of science, I did find it well worth the effort of reading the book. There were times, either in veering off in the biography of a researcher, or in rather waffly assessments of Newton as a person, where I felt the urge to skip a bit, but there are rich pickings here, just as there were in Newton's own papers. An interesting contribution to this tiny, but important, corner of the history of science.
Newton left millions of words in piles of unstructured documents, covering science, maths, alchemy, theology and the business of the Royal Mint. Now we would expect such documents to end up in some sort of archive, but in Newton's day there was far less regard for such rough and 'foul' documents. To make matters worse, Newton was destined for scientific sainthood, and the amount of effort he put into the more dubious aspects of alchemy and virtually heretical theology was of distinct concern to those who wanted to preserve this illusion.
What Dry portrays very well is the gradual shift from sanitising Newton through accepting his flaws to various attempts to provide an integrated picture of Newton the man, trying to understand what made him such a great scientist. Getting a good overview wasn't helped in that many of the papers were kept hidden in the family library until sold in the 1930s - and then they were fragmented, rather than sold as a whole.
Equal stars with the documents themselves are the individuals who sought to collect them, understand them, or use them to get a better understanding of Newton and his method. Some of these characters come through particularly strongly, others are bit part players, but all feature in what is a relatively compact but in-depth study.
What I hadn't realised was how relatively recent the move into serious study, even in terms of a modern edited version of the Principia was - it wasn't until the late 1970s that much progress seems to have been made, and even now not everything has been fully dealt with. One oddity, incidentally - in a book published by Oxford University Press on a key figure in British science, the spellings in the book were American, which grated rather.
As a science writer with an interest in the history of science, I did find it well worth the effort of reading the book. There were times, either in veering off in the biography of a researcher, or in rather waffly assessments of Newton as a person, where I felt the urge to skip a bit, but there are rich pickings here, just as there were in Newton's own papers. An interesting contribution to this tiny, but important, corner of the history of science.
March 26, 2021
A fascinating addition to the small (but growing) literature on Newton’s historical personage, including, and in addition to, his well-known role as icon/luminary in physics. Though, from a biographical standpoint, Newton occupies about a 1/5th of the text, which is a definite deficiency, the other 4/5ths of the content will likely still be interesting as adjacent material for those interested in Newton, and delves more into the history of the papers as well as Newton’s ideas on certain Christian dogma as well as his ideas on the alchemical arts. I found this book to closely pair with the PBS Nova documentary “Dark Genius” from 2006.
The book starts off with the standard biographical sketch of Newton, briefly outlining his childhood (not a happy one), his move to Cambridge which was considered backwater at the time (think University of Alabama and less Harvard for American readers), and how he came about developing more or less simultaneously the calculus, as an extension of Descartes analytic geometry, with generous references to more ancient works/text like Euclid and Appollonius, as well as extend the mechanics/kinematics of his day into a formalized system of thought that would eventually become the classical physics. Again, this portion of Newton’s life is not much discussed in this text.
However, we also get a glimpse at Newton’s other life, which he viewed ironically (to modern history), as his main one, which was his quest to understand the “hidden” alchemical principles of nature, and his deep studies into Christian dogma and text. The most sensational of the latter is Newton’s discovery of the inconsistency of the Trinity dogma vis-a-vis the original Jewish teachings on the nature of God. During Newton’s lifetime such ideas may have caused severe persecution (though the author believes probably not death), at the very least an almost total expungement from ‘polite’ society, which would have meant his expulsion from the Royal Society, and so being aware of these possibilities, Newton chose to keep these ideas private.
The rest of the text follows what happened to Newton’s writings after his death, which includes several attempts at select posthumous publications by his friends/colleagues, the purchase of these into private collections of aristocrats (which was a sort of hobby of the rich at the time), and the eventual rediscovery of these texts in the late 1800s/early 1900s when enterprising Jewish emigree book sellers & collectors in England began to make the market for rare historical books, which would eventually lead to the finding and preservation of many of these letters/papers. It is this later development which also factors into some of the more sensational elements of the story, which includes Newton’s calculation for the date of Armageddon which was only recently [re]discovered by researchers at Hebrew University, which is where much of the collection ended up via a donation from it’s previous owner.
The book was an easy ready, though it didn’t end up having as much as I wanted on the historica Isaac Newton, as a piece of general history, I think it has it’s charms, and although I didn’t learn anything practical from the text, given the subject matter, I was not unhappy with the time I spent reading it. Conditional recommend for people interested in everything Isaac Newton, and those interested in history of science.
The book starts off with the standard biographical sketch of Newton, briefly outlining his childhood (not a happy one), his move to Cambridge which was considered backwater at the time (think University of Alabama and less Harvard for American readers), and how he came about developing more or less simultaneously the calculus, as an extension of Descartes analytic geometry, with generous references to more ancient works/text like Euclid and Appollonius, as well as extend the mechanics/kinematics of his day into a formalized system of thought that would eventually become the classical physics. Again, this portion of Newton’s life is not much discussed in this text.
However, we also get a glimpse at Newton’s other life, which he viewed ironically (to modern history), as his main one, which was his quest to understand the “hidden” alchemical principles of nature, and his deep studies into Christian dogma and text. The most sensational of the latter is Newton’s discovery of the inconsistency of the Trinity dogma vis-a-vis the original Jewish teachings on the nature of God. During Newton’s lifetime such ideas may have caused severe persecution (though the author believes probably not death), at the very least an almost total expungement from ‘polite’ society, which would have meant his expulsion from the Royal Society, and so being aware of these possibilities, Newton chose to keep these ideas private.
The rest of the text follows what happened to Newton’s writings after his death, which includes several attempts at select posthumous publications by his friends/colleagues, the purchase of these into private collections of aristocrats (which was a sort of hobby of the rich at the time), and the eventual rediscovery of these texts in the late 1800s/early 1900s when enterprising Jewish emigree book sellers & collectors in England began to make the market for rare historical books, which would eventually lead to the finding and preservation of many of these letters/papers. It is this later development which also factors into some of the more sensational elements of the story, which includes Newton’s calculation for the date of Armageddon which was only recently [re]discovered by researchers at Hebrew University, which is where much of the collection ended up via a donation from it’s previous owner.
The book was an easy ready, though it didn’t end up having as much as I wanted on the historica Isaac Newton, as a piece of general history, I think it has it’s charms, and although I didn’t learn anything practical from the text, given the subject matter, I was not unhappy with the time I spent reading it. Conditional recommend for people interested in everything Isaac Newton, and those interested in history of science.
October 27, 2021
Sarah Dry's Newton Papers allow you to obtain an excellent understanding of the history and subsequent events surrounding the publication of Newton's works, and the craze that was ensued for these books in later centuries.
It's particularly fascinating how Americans so highly sought after his papers, I didn't really expect that.
Contents:
1. The Death of Newton
2. The Inheritors
3. Petrifying Newton
4. The Madness of Newton
5. The Meanness of Newton
6. Getting to Know the Knowers
7. Wrangling with Newton
8. Newton Divided
9. English Books, American Buyers (my favourite chapter in the book)
10. The Dealers
11. The Sotheby Sale
12. The Revealed Newton
13. The Newton Industry
14. The Search for Unity
Highly recommend to any fellow mathmo.
It's particularly fascinating how Americans so highly sought after his papers, I didn't really expect that.
Contents:
1. The Death of Newton
2. The Inheritors
3. Petrifying Newton
4. The Madness of Newton
5. The Meanness of Newton
6. Getting to Know the Knowers
7. Wrangling with Newton
8. Newton Divided
9. English Books, American Buyers (my favourite chapter in the book)
10. The Dealers
11. The Sotheby Sale
12. The Revealed Newton
13. The Newton Industry
14. The Search for Unity
Highly recommend to any fellow mathmo.
January 13, 2018
This would make a good introductory textbook for a history of Newton. It is well documented and accessible to laymen.
August 18, 2018
A Pleasant Surprise
I expected this book to be more concerned with the contents of Newton’s papers than the lives affected by them. But it was a great story about those lives!
I expected this book to be more concerned with the contents of Newton’s papers than the lives affected by them. But it was a great story about those lives!
July 24, 2020
Full of amusing facts and tidbits. Not the most interesting of subjects but the author does an exceptional job of bringing the story to life.
November 8, 2024
An interesting read of Sir Isaac Newton how and his manuscripts were collated over the centuries. Would of liked to of seen more of them in the book
February 23, 2017
Nunca mejor dicho el apellido de la autora: seco.
Menudo truño de libro. Pese a la contraportada, yo pensaba que el libro iba a contener qué hay en los papeles de Newton, su supuesta disconformidad religiosa y sus experimentos alquímicos.
En lugar de eso se nos narra, a partir de la muerte de Newton, el destino de los papeles póstumos que dejó. Las ventas y los movimientos a través de sus poseedores, pero del contenido de los mismos, absolutamente nada.
De hecho libros como el de Boorstin (Los Descubridores), los Cosmos de Sagan, o la biografía de Westfall son mucho más instructivos sobre el contenido de los papeles que este libro.
En fin, menos mal que es corto.
Menudo truño de libro. Pese a la contraportada, yo pensaba que el libro iba a contener qué hay en los papeles de Newton, su supuesta disconformidad religiosa y sus experimentos alquímicos.
En lugar de eso se nos narra, a partir de la muerte de Newton, el destino de los papeles póstumos que dejó. Las ventas y los movimientos a través de sus poseedores, pero del contenido de los mismos, absolutamente nada.
De hecho libros como el de Boorstin (Los Descubridores), los Cosmos de Sagan, o la biografía de Westfall son mucho más instructivos sobre el contenido de los papeles que este libro.
En fin, menos mal que es corto.
February 13, 2015
An excellent book. Not only because it gives an insight in Newton and the massive amount of papers he published, but also (and maybe more importantly) it gives an insight in the people that were involved in finding, buying, organizing and reading his papers, like John Maynard Keynes and George Stokes for example. It is very interesting to read that some tried to unify Newton the religious and mystic scholar with the scientist and some try to separate these two aspects of the man.
A highly recommendable book!
A highly recommendable book!
October 16, 2014
thanks to goodreads for the preview copy
i was nervous this was going to be heavy going and very scientific, don't worry it's not it is an interesting look at who newton was and his life through masses of written papers he left
writing this book must have been a tall order with so much research to do and then trying to write a book that wasn't some dry academic study
the author succeeded and i recommend this
i was nervous this was going to be heavy going and very scientific, don't worry it's not it is an interesting look at who newton was and his life through masses of written papers he left
writing this book must have been a tall order with so much research to do and then trying to write a book that wasn't some dry academic study
the author succeeded and i recommend this
November 10, 2014
Perhaps someone who knows more Newton than book history would interested in this. I'm sure my reaction says more about me than the worth of the book.
April 20, 2017
The material was both interesting and dry. Worth reading if you're interested in either the history of science or Newton's reputation. Don't expect a whodunnit though.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews