London: Printed for Benjamin Motte, 1729. First edition. First edition in English of Newton’s Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687). Two volumes, octavo (leaves 194 x 120 mm) collating: [38], 320; [2], 393, [13], viii, [71], [1] errata; complete. With the engraved allegorical frontispieces and engraved headpieces by the translator, forty-seven engraved folding plates, and two folding letterpress tables, plus woodcut initials and borders. A handsome, Near Fine copy. Bound in 18th-century mottled calf, rebacked to style. Gilt spine in compartments with raised bands. Small tear to plate eighteen professionally repaired, with no loss. Volume one with some toning to first few leaves and small marginal tear to leaf C2 (not touching text). A bit of dampstaining at lower corner in volume two, affecting the first few gatherings. Overall a very appealing copy, clean and fresh throughout.

"The Principia is generally described as the greatest work in the history of science. Copernicus, Galileo and Kepler had certainly shown the way; but where they described the phenomena they observed, Newton explained the underlying universal laws. The Principia provided the great synthesis of the cosmos, proving finally its physical unity. Newton showed that the important and dramatic aspects of nature that were subject to the universal law of gravitation could be explained, in mathematical terms, within a single physical theory. … It was this grand conception that produced a general revolution in human thought, equaled perhaps only by that following Darwin's Origin of Species" (PMM).

Gray 23. Babson 20. ESTC T18677. PMM 161 (for the first edition). Near Fine (Item #7898)