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. The Newton Papers (OUP) tells the story of how this secret archive finally came to light—and the complex and contradictory man it revealed.

A riveting and untold story, The Newton Papers reveals a man altogether stranger and more complicated than the genius of legend.

---

‘Pure joy’-Graham Farmelo, Times Higher Education supplement

---

‘This bibliographic thriller is a delight to read’–Stuart Kelly, Scotland on Sunday

---

‘A fresh and readable chronicle’–Mordechai Feingold, Nature

---

‘Engaging,’–The Economist

---

“Dry succeeds in making the dispersal of an archive seems an event as momentous as Philip Larkin’s lines on death, when ‘the bits that were you/Start speeding away from each other forever.’ ”–Arnold Hunt, Times Higher Education Supplement