William Whiston (1667-1752) Sir Isaac Newton's Mathematick Philosophy. With Early Harvard Bookplate
William Whiston (1667-1752)
Sir Isaac Newton's Mathematick Philosophy. With Early Harvard Bookplate and Provenance.
London: Printed for J. Senex & W. Taylor, 1716.
First edition in English, octavo, preliminary half-title/advertisement leaf bound before title page; illustrated with 9 folding plates; with engraved Harvard College bookplate by Nathaniel Hurd (1729-1777) pasted inside front board; bound in full contemporary speckled calf and housed in a custom folding box; ex libris Harvard alum and Revolutionary War veteran Major Abner Morgan (1746-1837), with his signature on front flyleaf and note on bookplate dated 1773, "For Ab[ner]. Morgan by S. Locke, i.e., Harvard graduate and onetime Harvard President Samuel Locke (1732-1778); also signed by American legislator and father of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Daniel Cady (1773-1859) with the note, "Lent by Daniel Cady to the Johnstown Academy 14th March 1853"; signature of Richard Slater to title page; 7 3/4 x 4 1/2 in.
Nathaniel Hurd was an acclaimed colonial and Revolutionary War-era Massachusetts silversmith. This particular bookplate was commissioned by Harvard President Edward Holyoke (1689-1769) to be applied to books in the voluminous and important bequest of Thomas Hollis, likely in the summer of 1766. He wrote to Hollis on July 9 of that year, "there is pasted inside of the cover of each of your books the inclosed [i.e., the Hurd bookplate], cut in black as to those of them we suffer to be lent out, and in red as to those we think too precious for loan, which those gentlemen who want to consult in the library, we having all conveniences for that purpose, and the Librarian always ready to attend them." (Quoted from the Colonial Society of Massachusetts, "Boston Prints and Printmakers 1670-1775," as published in Volume 46 of their journal.)
From here, we see the book pass through the hands of Harvard President Samuel Locke, a graduate of the college himself in 1755. He served as college president from 1770 through 1773, and in that period, on June 5, 1773, presented this volume to Abner Morgan, perhaps upon his graduation. Morgan's bold ownership inscription faces Hurd's bookplate inscribed by Locke: "Abner Morgan['s] Book."
Morgan, who was born in Brimfield, Massachusetts, went on to join the Continental Army in January of 1776, and served as a Major in the Continental Army in Elisha Porter's militia out of Hadley. He re-enlisted when his term ended and was honorably discharged in 1781. Morgan built the largest house in Brimfield after the war. In 1831, at the age of 81, Morgan was awarded a government pension and a bounty of 20,000 acres in western New York. At that ripe age, he moved to Livingston County, evidently bringing this book along, and lived out his final years in Avon Springs. Morgan is buried in Lima, New York.
Hitchhiking along to its next adventure, the little Whiston volume found its way into the hands of Daniel Cady, who lent it to the Johnstown Academy in western New York in the 1850s. Cady's daughter, Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815-1902), wildly influential standard-bearer of the woman's suffrage movement, attended the school. Seldom do we encounter such a delightfully traceable line of interesting provenance. Our Whiston has been touched in different ways by generations of British and American thinkers and doers, men and women alike, from Whiston's pen in service to Newton, through Thomas Hollis with help from Holyoke and Hurd. It spent some years in the library in service to an unknown number of unnamed Harvard undergraduates, and then to Samuel Locke, Abner Morgan, Daniel Cady, and the students at the Johnstown Academy, perhaps including Elizabeth Cady Stanton herself.
The work itself is an English translation of excerpts from Newton's Principia, prepared by Whiston for his students at the college in Cambridge on the other side of the Atlantic.
ESTC T145870.
Condition
Condition: [A]2, B-Ee8, Ff4, A8 (printer's ads).Please contact the Specialist for the auction to request a condition report.Condition reports and additional images are provided as a courtesy and should be used by you to aid in the formation of your own opinion regarding condition. All material is sold subject to Swann's standard Terms and Conditions of Sale as published in our catalogues and posted on our website, and include the following terms: (1) all property is sold "as-is"; and (2) works cannot be returned on the basis of condition.
William Whiston (1667-1752)
Sir Isaac Newton's Mathematick Philosophy. With Early Harvard Bookplate and Provenance.
London: Printed for J. Senex & W. Taylor, 1716.
First edition in English, octavo, preliminary half-title/advertisement leaf bound before title page; illustrated with 9 folding plates; with engraved Harvard College bookplate by Nathaniel Hurd (1729-1777) pasted inside front board; bound in full contemporary speckled calf and housed in a custom folding box; ex libris Harvard alum and Revolutionary War veteran Major Abner Morgan (1746-1837), with his signature on front flyleaf and note on bookplate dated 1773, "For Ab[ner]. Morgan by S. Locke, i.e., Harvard graduate and onetime Harvard President Samuel Locke (1732-1778); also signed by American legislator and father of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Daniel Cady (1773-1859) with the note, "Lent by Daniel Cady to the Johnstown Academy 14th March 1853"; signature of Richard Slater to title page; 7 3/4 x 4 1/2 in.
Nathaniel Hurd was an acclaimed colonial and Revolutionary War-era Massachusetts silversmith. This particular bookplate was commissioned by Harvard President Edward Holyoke (1689-1769) to be applied to books in the voluminous and important bequest of Thomas Hollis, likely in the summer of 1766. He wrote to Hollis on July 9 of that year, "there is pasted inside of the cover of each of your books the inclosed [i.e., the Hurd bookplate], cut in black as to those of them we suffer to be lent out, and in red as to those we think too precious for loan, which those gentlemen who want to consult in the library, we having all conveniences for that purpose, and the Librarian always ready to attend them." (Quoted from the Colonial Society of Massachusetts, "Boston Prints and Printmakers 1670-1775," as published in Volume 46 of their journal.)
From here, we see the book pass through the hands of Harvard President Samuel Locke, a graduate of the college himself in 1755. He served as college president from 1770 through 1773, and in that period, on June 5, 1773, presented this volume to Abner Morgan, perhaps upon his graduation. Morgan's bold ownership inscription faces Hurd's bookplate inscribed by Locke: "Abner Morgan['s] Book."
Morgan, who was born in Brimfield, Massachusetts, went on to join the Continental Army in January of 1776, and served as a Major in the Continental Army in Elisha Porter's militia out of Hadley. He re-enlisted when his term ended and was honorably discharged in 1781. Morgan built the largest house in Brimfield after the war. In 1831, at the age of 81, Morgan was awarded a government pension and a bounty of 20,000 acres in western New York. At that ripe age, he moved to Livingston County, evidently bringing this book along, and lived out his final years in Avon Springs. Morgan is buried in Lima, New York.
Hitchhiking along to its next adventure, the little Whiston volume found its way into the hands of Daniel Cady, who lent it to the Johnstown Academy in western New York in the 1850s. Cady's daughter, Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815-1902), wildly influential standard-bearer of the woman's suffrage movement, attended the school. Seldom do we encounter such a delightfully traceable line of interesting provenance. Our Whiston has been touched in different ways by generations of British and American thinkers and doers, men and women alike, from Whiston's pen in service to Newton, through Thomas Hollis with help from Holyoke and Hurd. It spent some years in the library in service to an unknown number of unnamed Harvard undergraduates, and then to Samuel Locke, Abner Morgan, Daniel Cady, and the students at the Johnstown Academy, perhaps including Elizabeth Cady Stanton herself.
The work itself is an English translation of excerpts from Newton's Principia, prepared by Whiston for his students at the college in Cambridge on the other side of the Atlantic.
ESTC T145870.
Condition
Condition: [A]2, B-Ee8, Ff4, A8 (printer's ads).Please contact the Specialist for the auction to request a condition report.Condition reports and additional images are provided as a courtesy and should be used by you to aid in the formation of your own opinion regarding condition. All material is sold subject to Swann's standard Terms and Conditions of Sale as published in our catalogues and posted on our website, and include the following terms: (1) all property is sold "as-is"; and (2) works cannot be returned on the basis of condition.
