Sarah Dry, The Newton Papers: The Strange and True Odyssey of Isaac Newton’s Manuscripts. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014, xi + 238 pages. $29.95

Abstract

The Newton Papers is an important, exceptionally well-written book, serving the needs of a scholarly community that is increasingly concerned to know more about the provenance of manuscripts to be found in the greater and lesser collections around the globe. Sarah Dry illuminates the motivations of collectors such as Keynes and Yahuda, shows the impact of socioeconomic developments on the custodianship of manuscript collections, takes us into the world of the early twentieth-century book and manuscript traders, and above all tells us not a little about the ways in which the reception of Newton’s manuscripts challenged the orthodoxy of existing conceptions of the great man’s scientific legacy. What emerges is that the current predilection for a Newton of many parts to a large extent reflects the various and often complex paths taken by his letters and papers following his demise.