Eureka: A Prose Poem
$17,500 · Offered by Biblio
First edition
New York: George P. Putnam, 1848. First Edition. Very Good. First edition, first issue of the famous American author's take on physics and cosmology that preceded the Big Bang Theory by nearly a century. 143, 15, [1] pp. Bound in publisher's straight-grained black cloth stamped in blind and spine lettered in gilt with Eureka having no reviews at p. 2 of advertisements. Very Good with slight lean to binding, minor loss of cloth at crown and corners with crimping at foot. Light soiling and staining to cloth with faint scuffing and wear; small nick to top edge of front board. Modest foxing to peach endpapers, tiny nick to rear endpaper with associated staining to rear blank. A rather odd deviation from his poetical oeuvre that followed a serious illness (related in part to alcoholism, the death of his wife, and thoughts of his own mortality), Poe turned to the heavens for consolation. Adapted from a lecture and written from intuition, the book presents his theory of the universe's creation and destiny, proposing that all matter originated from a single point and will eventually return to it, driven by forces of attraction and repulsion. An eerily prescient book that predicted several modern theories of physics. While riddled with scientific errors, it includes one of the first credible solutions to Olbers' paradox, anticipating Kelvin. Rare to market as it is one of only 500 copies published by Putnam, due in part to its peculiar subject matter, just a year before the author's p
- Publisher: George P. Putnam
- Year: 1848
- Edition: First Edition
- Binding: unknown
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