When Isaac Newton died at 85 without a will on March 20, 1727, he
left a mass of disorganized papers-upwards of 8 million words-that
presented an immediate challenge to his heirs. Most of these
writings, on subjects ranging from secret alchemical formulas to
impassioned rejections of the Holy Trinity to notes and
calculations on his core discoveries in calculus, universal
gravitation, and optics, were summarily dismissed by his heirs as
"not fit to be printed." Rabidly heretical, alchemically obsessed,
and possibly even mad, the Newton presented in these papers
threatened to undermine not just his personal reputation but the
status of science itself. As a result, the private papers of the
world's greatest scientist remained hidden to all but a select few
for over two hundred years. In The Newton Papers, Sarah Dry
divulges the story of how this secret archive finally came to
light-and the complex and contradictory man it revealed. Covering a
broad swath of history, Dry explores who controlled Newton's
legacy, who helped uncover him, and what, finally, we know about
him today, nearly three hundred years after his death. The Newton
Papers presents the eclectic group of collectors, scholars, and
scientists who were motivated to track down and collect Newton's
private thoughts and obsessions, many of whom led extraordinary
lives themselves-from economist John Maynard Keynes to Abraham
Yahuda, a friend of Albert Einstein and key figure in the founding
of Israel. The 300-year history of the disappearance, dispersal and
eventual rediscovery of Newton's papers exposes how Newton has been
made, and re-made, at the hands of unique and idiosyncratic
individuals, reflecting the changing status of science over the
centuries. A riveting and untold story, The Newton Papers reveals a
man altogether stranger and more complicated than the genius of
legend.
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