Catalogue Entry: ALCH00007

'Clavis': detailed directions for a lengthy alchemical operation beginning with the digestion of antimony, iron and sulphur.

Author: Isaac Newton

Metadata: Not yet dated, in Latin , c. 1,200 words, 3 pp.

Source: Keynes Ms. 18, King's College, Cambridge, UK

[Normalized Text (at Chymistry of Isaac Newton)]

Custodial History

Bought at the Sotheby sale by Heffers for £6 and sold to Keynes on 5 September 1936 for £8.5s.

Sotheby Lot

SL11

Related Material

Printed with an English translation in Dobbs, Foundations, 251-5. This was long regarded by Dobbs and many others as probably Newton's own work, but was in fact copied from an unpublished manuscript of George Starkey: see Newman, 'Newton's "Clavis"' (and Dobbs's acknowledgment of the reattribution, Janus Faces, 15).