Tesla's Oscillator and Other Inventions; in The Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine, Vol. XLIX, No. 6, pp. 916-933
- New York: The Century Co, 1895
New York: The Century Co, 1895. First Edition. April 1895. 8vo (250 x 175mm), pp. viii, 803-960, complete with 84 pages of front and rear ads. Original publisher's printed wrappers, spine with some chips, rubbing to the extremities, light toning, else very good, solid, and about as nice as these ever-scarce issues get. The first appearance of the most important popular account of Tesla's electrical discoveries, lavishly illustrated with fifteen photographs taken in Tesla's laboratory, several of them now iconic. Written by Thomas Commerford Martin, Tesla's friend and earliest biographer, the article surveys the oscillator, Tesla's revolutionary methods of light production, wireless energy transmission, and the disturbance of the earth's electrical charge, all explained with a clarity that made the piece a sensation in 1895 and a touchstone of Tesla scholarship ever since.
The photographs alone would secure the article's fame. Fig. 3 is the first photograph ever taken by phosphorescent light, a self-portrait of Tesla illuminated by one of his own bulbs, with an exposure of eight minutes. Mark Twain appears twice: in Fig. 4, a "phosphograph" taken by the light of a Tesla phosphorescent bulb in January 1894, with an exposure of ten minutes, and again in Fig. 13, the famous image of Twain holding a wire loop over Tesla's resonating coil while high-tension current passes through his body and lights incandescent lamps in his hands. These are among the most reproduced photographs in the history of American science and technology, and Twain's presence in them is a measure of both men; America's most acclaimed writer standing calmly in the electrical unknown at the invitation of the century's most daring inventor. The actor Joseph Jefferson appears in Fig. 12, the novelist F. Marion Crawford in Fig. 11, and the article concludes with a poem by Robert Underwood Johnson, the Century's editor and one of Tesla's closest friends, confirming that Tesla's laboratory was as much a gathering place for the leading figures of American culture as it was a workshop for the future.
The photographs alone would secure the article's fame. Fig. 3 is the first photograph ever taken by phosphorescent light, a self-portrait of Tesla illuminated by one of his own bulbs, with an exposure of eight minutes. Mark Twain appears twice: in Fig. 4, a "phosphograph" taken by the light of a Tesla phosphorescent bulb in January 1894, with an exposure of ten minutes, and again in Fig. 13, the famous image of Twain holding a wire loop over Tesla's resonating coil while high-tension current passes through his body and lights incandescent lamps in his hands. These are among the most reproduced photographs in the history of American science and technology, and Twain's presence in them is a measure of both men; America's most acclaimed writer standing calmly in the electrical unknown at the invitation of the century's most daring inventor. The actor Joseph Jefferson appears in Fig. 12, the novelist F. Marion Crawford in Fig. 11, and the article concludes with a poem by Robert Underwood Johnson, the Century's editor and one of Tesla's closest friends, confirming that Tesla's laboratory was as much a gathering place for the leading figures of American culture as it was a workshop for the future.
Details
Title
Tesla's Oscillator and Other Inventions; in The Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine, Vol. XLIX, No. 6, pp. 916-933
Author
Martin, Thomas Commerford [Nikola Tesla]
Condition
Unknown
Publisher
The Century Co: New York
Date
1895
Edition
First Edition