牛顿手稿的“奥德赛”之旅--评萨拉·德里著《牛顿手稿漂流史》

The Odyssey of Newton's Manuscripts:A Review of Sarah Dry's Newton Papers

牛顿去世后留下大批手稿,其中大部分直到1930年代才得以公开,从而掀开了牛顿研究的新局面。对于这批手稿近300年的保存和流传历史,学界过去仅知大概情形和零碎细节,萨拉·德里著《牛顿手稿漂流史》则首次为我们提供了一个连贯完整的叙事,详细再现了手稿在众多亲属、收藏者和学者手中被隐藏、买卖、转赠和编辑的过程。该书兼具可读性和学术性,将牛顿手稿的流传、牛顿形象的变化以及科学史学科的发展巧妙地结合了起来。

After his death,Newton left behind a large body of manuscripts,most of which were not made public until the 1930s,a revelation that ushered in a new stage in Newtonian studies.While the history of the preservation and circulation of these manuscripts over a period of nearly 300 years was previously known only in general terms and in fragmentary detail,Sarah Derry's The Newton Papers provides the first coherent and complete narrative of the long process,during which they were hidden,bought,sold,transferred and edited by a wide range of relatives,collectors and scholars.Both readable and scholarly,the book skilfully combines the circulation of manuscripts,the changing image of Newton,and the discipline of the history of science.