1770. 12mo in 6s, pp. [iv], 125, [15] publisher’s advertisements for Carnan and Newbery; with copper-engraved frontispiece and five full-page copper-engravings (with with slight stain at tail), and a number of charming woodcut figures within text; some occasional light soiling, with some minor edgewear to a few leaves due to rough opening, but otherwise good; an attractive copy in original Dutch floral boards, sometime expertly and sympathetically rebacked; recto of frontispiece inscribed ‘Constance R. E. Cooper, Nov 1st 1834’ and then ‘Charlotte Maria Janetta Cooper’; with Sydney Roscoe’s General catalogue plate tipped on to front endpaper with hand-written no ‘172’; housed within folding cloth box, spine lettered in gilt; a very good copy. An attractive and nice association copy in original Dutch floral boards, of the fourth edition (first 1761) of this famous children’s book, the first attempt to teach Newtonian science to a young readership. Authorship has most often been ascribed to John Newbery, the printer of the first edition, with Oliver Goldsmith as a more glamorous alternative (Welsh 314 and the Yale Goldsmith exhibition in 1928).
‘In 1761 the first of a series of books was published written by John Newbery (1713–1767) attributed to the pseudonymous Tom Telescope, the most famous being The Newtonian System of Philosophy Adapted to the Capacities of Young Gentlemen and Ladies. These books featured a young boy (Tom) lecturing his friends on the Newtonian System of Natural Philosophy. Tom Telescope books were so popular that they ran into many editions over the subsequent eighty years. All aspects of natural knowledge were incorporated under this 'Newtonian' designation because, in popular science, Newtonianism became synonymous with natural science, and the reputation of Newton sold books’ (Whipple Library). The work is well-illustrated with a number of simple woodcuts, whilst the plates show a domestic science lesson, an observatory, the moon and eclipses, an air-pump, a volcano, a ‘chariot fired by motion’. The work was to go through several revisions over the years, with the first three editions having a frontispiece and 8 plates.
Provenance: With the label of Newbery’s bibliographer, Sydney Roscoe.