Nature 1869-1879: The First Twenty Volumes of What will be a Sixty-Volume Collection of Facsimile Reprints of Issues of Nature Published between 1869 and 1900

Nature started off in November 1869 as a weekly magazine of general scientific enquiry. It attracted correspondents both eminent and not so eminent, who would report their first-hand observations of phenomena, or put forward a theory to explain puzzles of the day and who could expect to read responses over the following weeks. Gradually it developed into the forum of choice for announcing important discoveries in science that it remains today. Also striking is the truly international nature of the readership and its concerns and the breadth of interest - not just the pure sciences, physics, astronomy, chemistry, geology, botany, but the technology of manufacturing and construction, public health, science education, anthropology, history, archaeology. The text is illustrated throughout with fine line drawings and early photographic plates and spectrograms. Palgrave Macmillan is proud to reprint this facsimile edition of the early years of Nature. Over the next three years sixty volumes covering the first thirty years of publication will be issued. Libraries and researchers will find them a valuable research tool in the history of science and scientists. The original indexes to the half-yearly volumes will be left in situ but for this edition an Index volume has been commissioned for each decade constructed for the first time on modern indexing principles, as an additional scholarly resource.