Micrographia: or some Physiological Descriptions of Minute Bodies made by Magnifying Glasses. With Observations and Inquiries thereupon.
First edition, first issue, of this “early landmark in microscopy, containing the first illustration of cells ” (Horblit).
The Micrographia, published under the aegis of the Royal Society, 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.
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.
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.
Hooke’s work “probably the most influential book in the entire history of microscopy”
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