Subjects
The Works of Robert Boyle
Editors: Michael Hunter and Edward B Davis
The Pickering Masters
978 1 85196 522 9: 234x156mm: £595.00/$1050.00
978 1 85196 523 6: 234x156mm: £595.00/$1050.00
I
978 1 85196 109 2: 234x156mm: £1190.00/$2100.00
This title is available as a full-text database through Intelex
This is the first new scholarly edition of Boyle's work to be published since 1772. It definitively supersedes all its predecessors. The edition draws on the results of an intensive scrutiny of Boyle’s vast archive at the Royal Society in London over the past fifteen years. Comprising over 70 volumes of crucial but ill-sorted material, the Boyle Papers have long tantalised scholars: the new edition, however, represents a crucial step towards the exploitation and full understanding of them. Works originally in Latin are presented in contemporary English translations. It includes a record of variant readings both in manuscript versions of Boyle’s works and in authorised Latin editions published during his lifetime. It also has full annotations; translations into English of all passages quoted in other languages; an exhaustive index; and authoritative introductory material.
Contents
Volume 1
General Introduction, Textual Note, Invitation to Free Communication, 1655; Perreaud’s Devil of Mascon, 1658; de Bils’s Large Act of Anatomy, 1659; Seraphic Love, 1659, 1663; Spring of the Air, 1660
Volume 2
Certain Physiological Essays, 2nd ed., 1669; Sceptical Chymist, 1661; Style of the Scriptures, 1661
Volume 3
Defence and Examen, 1662; Usefulness of Natural Philosophy, I and II sect 1, 1663
Volume 4
Experiments touching Colours, 1664; New Experiments touching Cold, 1665
Volume 5
Occasional Reflections, 1665; Hydrostatical Paradoxes, 1666; Origin of Forms and Qualities, 1666, 1667; Phil. Trans. papers. 1665-7
Volume 6
‘New Experiments’, Phil. Trans., 1668,1670; Spring of the Air, 1st Continuation, 1669; Absolute Rest in Bodies, 1669; Rarefaction of the Air, 1670; Cosmical Qualities, 1670; Usefulness of Natural Philosophy, II sect 2, 1671
Volume 7
Origin and Virtues of Gems, 1672; Relations betwixt Flame and Air, 1672; Essays of Effluviums, 1673; Saltness of the Sea, 1673; Phil. Trans. items, 1671-3
Volume 8
Excellency of Theology, 1674; Hidden Qualities of the Air, 1674; Reason and Religion, 1675; Mechanical Origin of Qualities, 1675; Phil. Trans. items, 1674-6
Volume 9
Degradation of Gold, 1678; Producibleness of Chymical Principles, 1680; Spring of the Air, 2nd Continuation Eng. trans., 1682; Aerial Noctiluca, 1680; Icy Noctiluca, 1682; Things above Reason, 1681; Salt-water Sweetened, 1683; Items contributed to Hooke’s Philosophical Collections and various Phil. Trans. articles
Volume 10
Natural History of Human Blood, 1684; Experiments about Porosity, 1684; High Veneration to God, 1684-5; Experimental History of Mineral Waters, 1685; Languid and Unheeded Motion, 1685; Specific Medicines, 1685; Vulgarly Receiv’d Notion of Nature, 1686
Volume 11
Martyrdom of Theodora, 1687; Final Causes, 1688; Advertisement, 1688; Some Receipts of Medicines, 1688; Catalogue of Writings, 1688; Medicina Hydrostatica, 1690; Christian Virtuoso, 1690-1; Experimenta et Observationes Physicae, 1691
Volume 12
Posthumous Phil. Trans. papers; General History of the Air, 1692; Medicinal Experiments, 1692-4; Discourse against Customary Swearing, 1695, Christian Virtuoso I, Appendix, and II, 1744; Papers in Birch’s Life of Boyle, 1744
Volumes 13-14
Hitherto unpublished writings by Boyle, representing the most substantial publication of new material by him since his lifetime. These include such early writings as the original version of Boyle’s Martyrdom of Theodora; writings from Boyle’s early scientific phase in the early1650s; discarded sections of published works, including Usefulness of Natural Philosophy and Vulgarly Receiv’d Notion of Nature; and fragments of works never published.Also included is a complete text of Boyle’s inventories of his unpublished writings, a key source for his intellectual evolution, and an index to the edition as a whole.
Reviews
‘ All serious students of Boyle and all scholarly libraries have no option but invest in these essential resource-pair [The Correspondence of Robert Boyle, 1636–1691 and The Works of Robert Boyle]. The editors and the publishers are to be congratulated on exemplary editorial and production standards.’
– D Thorburn Burns, Ambix
‘The publication by Pickering & Chatto of The Works of Robert Boyle is welcome. It meets the exemplary editorial and production standards scholars have come to expect from that enlightened publishing house.’
– Roy Porter, History of Science