[MAXWELL, JAMES CLERK]. A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism. Oxford at the Clarendon Press, 1881.
SECOND EDITION. In two volumes; leather-bound; hardcover; octavo (22 x 14 cm); pp. xxxi, [1], 464; xxiii, [1], 449. English text. Handsome contemporary full dark green morocco gilt prize binding, King's College London Coats of Arms in gilt to front covers, covers ruled in blind, spines gilt decorated in compartments, all edges gilt, printed King's College Prize label to front pastedown, awarded to Charles Henry Wordingham (1866-1925), City Electrical Engineer, Manchester, later Head of the Electrical Engineering Department of the Admiralty, Tennant Prize for Geology, Easter Term, 1884. 21 full-page plates in total, volume I containing plates 1-13 at end plus further full page plate facing p.170, text illustrations; volume II containing plates 14-20 at end, text illustrations. Condition: NEAR FINE. A beautifully preserved set, most handsomely bound.
Notes: Scarce second edition of this classic work on the electromagnetic theory of light by Maxwell (1831-1879), probably the greatest theoretical physicist of the nineteenth century. Here he demonstrates that electromagnetism travels through space in transverse waves similar to those of light and having the same velocity, advancing the hypothesis that light and electricity are the same in their ultimate source. "A generation later Einstein's work on relativity was founded directly upon Maxwell's celebrated contribution to electro-magnetic theory; it was this that led him to equate Faraday with Galileo and Maxwell with Newton" (PMM). For the first edition (1873), see Dibner, Ten Founding Fathers of the Electrical Sciences, pp. 45-46; Horblit, 72; Norman, II, 1466; Printing & the Mind of Man, 355.
