Catalogue Entry: THEM00070

Seven drafts of Newton's defence of the Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms

Author: Isaac Newton

Metadata: after 11 November 1725, in English with some French , c. 15,126 words, 23 pp., with related notes, 7 pp. (20 ff. in all)

Source: Yahuda Ms. 27, National Library of Israel, Jerusalem, Israel

[Normalized Text] [Diplomatic Text]

Custodial History

Bought at the Sotheby sale by Gabriel Wells for £32; Keynes asked to see it on 3 September 1936 but Wells replied the following day that it had already been sold.

Sotheby Lot

SL223

Contents

f. 15r is a French note in another hand reading 'Cronologie de Monsieur le Chevallier Newton qui a este traduit en francois par un scavant de ce Pays avec des Remarques je vous doit [faire?] scavoir si Monsieur le Chevallier Newton na Rien a y [illeg.] ayant envie de l'imprimer.'

ff. 16-17 is a list, headed 'Chronologie abridged', of (English) amendments to be made to the French text: eg. 'for plus long write not much above'.

Related Material

The finished work was printed as 'Remarks on the Observations made on a Chronological Index of Sir Isaac Newton, translated into French by the Observer, and published at Paris' in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, 33 (1725), p. 315). Cf. Keynes Ms. 138.