De magnete, magneticisque corporibus, et de magno magnete tellure; Physiologia nova, plurimis & argumentis, & experimentis demonstrata by GILBERT, William - 1600

London: Peter Short, 1600. 1st Edition. Soft cover. Very Good. 1st Edition. Soft cover. Folio (278 x 190 mm). [16], 240 pp. Signatures: *8, A-V6. Woodcut title device and large woodcut arms on verso, one folding plate facing p. 200, 87 woodcuts in text of which 4 full-page, decorative woodcut initials, head- and tailpieces. In its original contemporary limp vellum binding, leather ties mostly preserved, original endpapers, sprinkled edges (vellum repaired including torn vellum over spine and added endbands, vellum dust soiled and spotted). Housed in custom-made half morocco over cloth cassette. Little even browning throughout, occasional minor mostly marginal brown spotting, faint dampstaining to upper outer corner in places, final two gatherings with pale dampstain to blank fore-margin, minor dust soiling to outer margins. Provenance: Gilbournd (early ownership signature on title); 18th century manuscript notes in English about this work to final free endpaper; Christie's sale 6950, London, 5 July 1995, lot no. 75*. A very good+, crisp, clean and well-margined copy in typical contemporary (most likely English) binding. ----

FIRST EDITION of the first great scientific book printed in England. "Gilbert coined the terms 'electricity', 'electric force' and 'electric attraction' and may rightly be considered the founder of electrical science" (PMM); further, he "provided the only fully developed theory dealing with all five of the then known magnetic movements and the first comprehensive discussion of magnetism since the thirteenth-century Letter on the Magnet of Peter Peregrinus" (DSB).
De magnete exemplifies pre-Baconian experimental philosophy by supporting new theories with empirically-derived experimental evidence, and these experiments were described in sufficient detail for the reader to recreate them. Gilbert also described his scientific instruments in great detail, including new ones such as the 'versorium': the first instrument to be used for the study of electric phenomena. Gilbert observed that the earth was a gigantic magnet and provided a physical basis for the Copernican theory. His work was cited by Digby, Boyle, Kepler and Huygens, and Galileo drew on Gilbertian magnetism to support his belief in a Copernican heliocentric cosmology in his Dialogo.
*Christie's incorrectly states in their catalogue entry for this lot that the binding is a "reimboitage". However, this is highly unlikely unless the earlier book was also a De magnete copy. The rear free endpaper with the 17th or 18th-c manuscript note by the former owner is certainly integral part of the limp vellum binding and this note refers to two works in which Gilbert's De magnete is discussed (Digby's Nature of bodies and Leigh's Treatise of Learned Men).
Bibliography: PMM 107; Dibner 54; Horblit 41; Norman 905; Sparrow 85; Evans 26; Wellcome 2830.