Home / Browse / Sciences / Micrographia: or some Physiological Descriptions of Minute Bodies made by Magnifying Glasses.
HOOKE, Robert.
Micrographia: or some Physiological Descriptions of Minute Bodies made by Magnifying Glasses.
Publisher: John Martyn and James Allestry for the Royal Society, 1665
Stock code: 59789
Price: £45,000 Currency Conversion
First edition, first issue. This "early landmark in microscopy, containing the first illustration of cells [plate xi]" (Horblit) was published under the aegis of the Royal Society, and Hooke's observations were the first to be carried out with an improved compound microscope, and the first to describe the microscopic structure of tissue with the term "cell". The book reproduces the almost frantic series of observations made by Hooke in 1663 and 1664 as the young scientist (he was still in his twenties) peered through the lenses of his new microscope at anything he could find. His text ranges widely, finding space for discussion of microscopic fungi, the life cycle of the mosquito, the origin of lunar craters, as well as the origin of fossils (Hooke's proposal is the first sensible one in print). There is also the discussion of light and colour which led to his bitter dispute with Newton. The extent of Hooke's investigation and the precision of his account entirely devoted to microscopical examination made Hooke's work "probably the most influential book in the entire history of microscopy" (Norman). But it is the justly famous series of plates, engraved mostly from Hooke's drawings with some probably by Sir Christopher Wren, which ultimately distinguishes the book, made it a contemporary bestseller, and kept Pepys up all night staring at it in amazement. Here are the tiny, unregarded components of everyday life – a stinging nettle, for example, a louse, or the famous flea – blown up with a startling degree of detail and exactness not to be equalled until the age of the electron microscope. This discovery of a new world-within-a-world had a profound influence on contemporary perceptions of the everyday world. The disorientating effect of the new perspective is memorably captured in Swift's descriptions of Lilliput and Brobdingnag in Gulliver's Travels.
Folio (299 x 194 mm). Contemporary calf, skilfully rebacked and relined. Title-page printed in red and black with engraved arms of the Royal Society, 38 engraved plates of which 37 are folding by and after the author and possibly Christopher Wren, woodcut head-pieces and five-line initials. Contemporary inscription on license leaf blank recto recording the gift of the book by Sir James Cuffe to Trinity Hall, Cambridge: "Liber Aula Trinitatis e Dono Jacobi Cuffe eq[uita]tis. Aurati. A[nn]o 1665". License leaf reattached in gutter, lower margin of title and A1 repaired without affecting text, some minor paper repairs to plates and text leaf corners, a good copy.
