A treatise on electricity and magnetism

Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1873. FIRST EDITION. Complete with both half-titles and all blanks. With 20 plates and 15 pages publisher’s advertisements (unopened). Rebound in modern cloth, author and title in gilt on spine; interior excellent. From the library of W[illiam[ H[enry] Dines (1855-1927), British meteorologist who was the leading inventor of meteorological instruments to measure atmospheric properties, with his small bookplate on both paste-downs. First edition, first issue of this classic work on the electromagnetic theory of light by Maxwell (1831-79), probably the greatest theoretical physicist of the nineteenth century. Here he demonstrates that electromagnetism travels through space in transverse waves similar to those of light and having the same velocity, advancing the hypothesis that light and electricity are the same in their ultimate source. “A generation later Einstein’s work on relativity was founded directly upon Maxwell’s celebrated contribution to electro-magnetic theory; it was this that led him to equate Faraday with Galileo and Maxwell with Newton” (PMM).

Norman characterizes this copy as the first issue of the first edition in that it does not contain the errata.

Dibner, Ten Founding Fathers of the Electrical Sciences, pp. 45-46; Horblit, 72; Norman, II, 1466; Printing & the Mind of Man, 355.