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NEWTON, ISAAC. The Method of Fluxions and Infinite Series; with its Application to the Geometry of Curve-Lines... Translated from the Author's Latin Original and not yet made publick... by John Colson. London: printed by Henry Woodfall and sold by John Nourse 1736. 4to, 238 x 190 mm. (9 3/8 x 7½ in.), modern speckled calf, blind-panelled in eighteenth-century style, smooth spine gilt, edges red-sprinkled, title torn and repaired, with loss to lower corner affecting last word of imprint, two small neatly repaired tears to frontispiece, repaired tear to P1 catching headline, very faint dampstaining to first 50 leaves, washed. FIRST EDITION, ordinary-paper issue, engraved frontispiece, numerous diagrams in text, with inserted leaf [T] (Contents leaf for Colson's commentary) and errata/advertisement leaf at end. Babson 171 (calling for but not identifying a blank leaf, not present in this copy); Gray 232; Honeyman sale VI:1307; Wallis 232.
In Newton's treatise of fluxions, completed in 1671, he contributed to the development of differential calculus by formulating a method of determining the extension or magnitude of finite quantities through the velocities of their generating local motions. The Latin manuscript circulated among Newton's friends but he ignored their entreaties to publish it; nor did Dr. Henry Pemberton, to whom Newton entrusted the manuscript before his death. The present English translation by John Colson was thus the work's first appearance in print; the original Latin text was not published until 1779, in the Opera omnia.
In Newton's treatise of fluxions, completed in 1671, he contributed to the development of differential calculus by formulating a method of determining the extension or magnitude of finite quantities through the velocities of their generating local motions. The Latin manuscript circulated among Newton's friends but he ignored their entreaties to publish it; nor did Dr. Henry Pemberton, to whom Newton entrusted the manuscript before his death. The present English translation by John Colson was thus the work's first appearance in print; the original Latin text was not published until 1779, in the Opera omnia.