Catalogue Entry: ALCH00041

Transcript of 'Sr George Ripley His Epistle to K Edward unfolded'

Author: Isaac Newton

Source: Keynes Ms. 52, King's College, Cambridge, UK

[Normalized Text (at Chymistry of Isaac Newton)]

Custodial History

Bought at the Sotheby sale by Maggs Brothers for £11.10s. and sold to Keynes on 13 August 1936 for the sale price plus 20%: see Spargo, '1936 sale', 127.

Sotheby Lot

SL92

Contents

A complete transcript of this important alchemical tract [by 'Eirenæus Philalethes', i.e. George Starkey], plus excerpts from a variant version, beginning on f. 7v under the heading 'Ex chartis Mr Sloane'.

This does not correspond to any of the three published versions of the work in question and predates two of them (it appeared in Chymical, Medicinal, and Chirurgical Addresses made to Mr Samuel Hartlib Esq. (1655: H378), on its own in 1677 and in Ripley Reviv'd (1678: H1407)). It can be collated with BL Sloane 633, while the variant excerpts correspond to BL Sloane 3633. See Dobbs, Foundations, 113 and Wilkinson, 'Bibliographical puzzles', 235-44. See also Keynes Mss. 17, 51, 53, 54.

© 2024 The Newton Project

Professor Rob Iliffe
Director, AHRC Newton Papers Project

Scott Mandelbrote,
Fellow & Perne librarian, Peterhouse, Cambridge

Faculty of History, George Street, Oxford, OX1 2RL - newtonproject@history.ox.ac.uk

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