Experimental Researches in Electricity: Read November 24, 1831, pp. 125-162. [With]: The Bakerian Lecture: Experimental Researches in Electricity, Second Series... Read January 12, 1832, pp. 163-194. [Within] Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London for the Year 1832: Part I.

London: Richard Taylor, 1832. Read November 24, 1831, pp. 125-162. [With]: The Bakerian Lecture: Experimental Researches in Electricity, Second Series... Read January 12, 1832, pp. 163-194. [Within] The Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London for the Year 1832: Part I. London: Richard Taylor, 1832.

First edition of Faraday's first two papers, from a series of 29 published in Philosophical Transactions starting in 1832. A rare offprint. Comprises:

First Series. 1. On the Induction of Electric Currents. 2. On the Evolution of Electricity from Magnetism. 3. On a new Electrical Condition of Matter. 4. On Arago's Magnetic Phenomena. Pages. 125-162, with 1 plate. Read November 24, 1831.

Second Series. 5. Terrestrial Magneto-electric Induction. 6. Force and Direction of Magneto-electric Induction generally. Pages 163-194, with 1 plate. Read January 12, 1832.

One quarto volume (11 x 9 inches; 290 x 230 mm). With together, two engraved plates related to the Faraday papers, and an additional copy of each plate laid in.

Original about fine drab blue wrappers. Date and "Pt. 1" lettered in ink on spine. Some minor rubbing and soiling to wrappers. Text is fine and with just some minor chipping to bound plates. Laid in plates with less chipping. Housed in a full custom cloth clamshell, with printed paper label. Overall about fine.

The first of his papers, Experimental Researches in Electricity is considered Faraday's greatest paper, as it reports the first production of electricity by electro-magnetic induction.

Faraday was both one of the greatest physicists of the nineteenth century and one of the finest experimenters of all time. His principal contributions were made in advancing our knowledge of the nature and potentialities of electricity. Faraday pursued some suggestions of Wollaston based upon Oersted's discovery that a magnetic needle was deflected by an electric current (282), and in 1821 showed that a current-carrying wire would rotate round a magnetic pole, or a pole round a curent-carrying wire. This is the principle of the electric motor, Faraday long sought the opposite effect, that is the production of electricity magnetism, and finally discovered in 1831 that when a wire moved with respect to a magnetic pole a current flowed in it. This was the principle of the dynamo and of the transformer, and with it Faraday opened his great series of investigations into electricity. Faraday himself however was interested in these experiments only as a stage in his investigation of the phenomena of electromagnetism, by which he finally succeeded in demonstrating the identity of all forms of electricity however produced, whether by friction machines, voltaic piles, electric fish, lightning discharges or by any other means. He also showed that in electrolysis the quantity of chemical action is directly proportionate to the quantity of electricity used. Finally he enunciated his theory of 'lines' or 'tubes' of magnetic force which was the starting point for the revolutionary theories of Clerk Maxwell (355) and later of Einstein (408). Although his discovery of the electric motor and the dynamo was almost entirely incidental to his theoretical discoveries, it laid the foundation of the modern electrical industry- electric light and power, telephony, wireless telegraphy, television, etc.- by providing for the production of continuous mechanical motion from an electrical source, and vice versa." (PMM 308).

"In 1831, after successfully inducing one electrical current by another, Faraday began his famous series of thirty Experimental Researches in Electricity. One of the finest experimental physicists of his time, he investigated electromagnetisim, electrochemistry, and electrostatics, to a point where he verged on the brink of field theory, the electron theory of matter, and the electromagnetic theory of light." (Sotheby's).

PMM 308 (regarding reprint of 1839).

HBS 68644.

$10,000.