In 1985, I had a single goal: to purchase a copy of Coddington’s 1829 book on optics, for reasons I will save for later. This process actually took me 10 years. And, of course, the month I found one Coddington, I came independently on to three copies; I bought them all.
In this period, I acquired over 500 volumes in optics, astronomy, and physics, predominantly, pre-1930. Over time, I will highlight some of these and soon I will build a link to the list of books.
My diversion was initially created from a trip to Yale University, where the librarian at Perkin-Elmer Corp. had found there was a copy. This was the early 1980s, and for mere money ($30/mo. as I recall) you were allowed to enter the stacks and wander anywhere. This changed my life. Coddington was there on the shelf, surrounded by literally hundreds of volumes on optics, most from the 1800s. Here, for example, is where I saw the Edinburgh encyclopedia for the first time (and I expected the last). The Edinburgh encyclopedia is particularly interesting because in 1820, there were very few encyclopedias. This particular encyclopedia was written on a subscription basis and edited by David Brewster. David Brewster is famous for a number of things, including Brewster’s angle in polarization and arguably the invention of the kaleidoscope (at least in his mind, although he never got any money for it). The topics of the encyclopedia were relatively random as the structure of encyclopedias had yet to be standardized. One clue to this is that there are 18 (large, 1,000 page) volumes. Fifteen of these cover the first half of the alphabet, A-M, and three volumes cover O (including optics) through Z. More on this fascinating collection another time. Once in, I spent three days in the stacks, and formulated my plan to assemble a similar collection in a more accessible location.
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