Faraday's Diary: being the various Philosophical Notes of Experimental Investigation made by Michael Faraday, DCL, FRS, during the Years 1820–1862 and bequeathed by him to the Royal Institution of Great Britain

Abstract

THE Faraday diary is not a find in the spectacular sense of that of the Boswell papers. Faraday's laboratory notebooks, various lecture notes and account books, the notes which he took of lectures by Tatum and by Davy, with specimens of various books bound by his own hands were gifted, as the expressive Scots word has it, to the Royal Institution by himself or by his widow. No mystery surrounds these possessions; no ebony cabinet has been rifled to reveal manuscripts long lost and long sought, as those destined to make the name of Boswell a by-word in the mouths of the examiners of would be doctors of philosophy. These treasures have been jealously preserved in the archives of the Royal Institution; privileged observers have been permitted to see and to handle them.

Faraday's Diary: being the various Philosophical Notes of Experimental Investigation made by Michael Faraday, D.C.L., F.R.S., during the Years 1820–1862 and bequeathed by him to the Royal Institution of Great Britain.

Now, by order of the Managers, printed and published for the first time, under the editorial super-vision of Thomas Martin. With a Foreword by Sir William H. Bragg. In 7 vols. Vol. 1: Sept., 1820-June 11, 1832. Pp. xxv + 430. Vol. 2: Aug. 25, 1832–Feb. 29, 1836. Pp. xvii + 467. (London: G. Bell and Sons, Ltd., 1932.) 7 vols., £12 12s. Od. net.