In the original dust jacket. Black cloth binding with silver title on the spine.

We provide an in-depth photographic presentation of this item to stimulate your feeling and touch. More traditional book descriptions are immediately available

• Note: This book carries a £5.00 discount to those that subscribe to the F.B.A. mailing list

For conditions, please view our photographs. A nice clean rare copy from the library gathered by the famous Cambridge Don, computer scientist, food and wine connoisseur, Jack Arnold LANG.

A fascinating slice of true-crime history that unfolds in 1695, when law enforcement was unheard of and modern money was little more than a concept. When renowned scientist Isaac Newton took up the post of Warden of His Majesty’s Mint in London, another kind of genius–a preternaturally gifted counterfeiter named William Chaloner–had already taken up residence in the city, rising quickly in an unruly, competitive underworld. In the courts and streets of London, and amid the tremors of a world being transformed by ideas Newton himself had set in motion, Chaloner crosses paths with the formidable new warden. An epic game of cat and mouse ensues in Newton and the Counterfeiter, revealing for the first time that Newton was not only one of the greatest minds of his age, but also a remarkably intrepid investigator.

Review: Sir Isaac Newton summons immediate thoughts of and a belief in the greatest scientific thinker of 17th Century England. A loner and reclusive man who applied himself to mastering a full understanding of calculus, mathematical interpretation and, in mechanical completeness, those physical laws such as motion, energy, light, optics, etc. which could definitively explain his and our understanding of, essentially, God as Creator of His ‘system of the world.’ In recent years his less well known but long-term embracing of alchemy, divinity and biblical prophecy, have all been revealed. Two books which cover these essential aspects of Newton’s life are the succinctly explanatory ‘Newton’s Gift’ by David Berlinski and the first-rate ‘Isaac Newton The Last Sorcerer’ by Michael White. Adding further now to Newton’s colossal cerebral achievements, Thomas Levenson, a most wonderful raconteur and storyteller, has written the fluid yet truthful account ‘Newton and the Counterfeiter.’ It reads as well as all good novels should, yet remains true to the facts – no easy feat – so that we can now be made aware that in The Royal Mint’s direst hour – when England’s currency had become bastardised, debased and brought so low in worth that the country teetered on the edge of monetary ruin, it was the self same Newton who, as Warden of the Mint, oversaw and implemented a complete overhaul of the production of the coin of the realm, arguably saving England from national fiscal insolvency. Yet the book does not confine itself to Newton’s planning, management and production skills for his country’s newly-revitalised currency. Enter William Chaloner, master counterfeiter, and oftentimes a most worthy and cunning opponent for the greatest analytical mind of the age. Even if the story of Chaloner’s efforts to swindle the nation, and to produce counterfeit currency on an enormous scale never quite reaches the dizzy heights of Holmes versus Moriarty, the game was clearly afoot and a ripping yarn awaits. Except that this ripping yarn is true. Newton certainly needed all his resolve, single-mindedness, detective skills and a certain police-like control of a network of informers and ‘thief-takers,’ who assisted him to defeat all who stood against England’s glorious and wealthy future. Chaloner never realised that Newton equated counterfeiting and debasing of the currency with profane crime, almost blasphemy, and a crime that threatened divine law itself. That Newton was on a mission from Parliament was obvious, but the author shows us a side of his character that embraced such a ruthlessness and unforgiving aspect of his nature that it can only properly be explained by accepting that Newton himself believed that he was also engaged in God’s work. Newton was not a hater. Put simply, he was a driven man and this book reveals him as such. The book is superbly researched, historically titillating and splendidly descriptive of the stink and squalor that made its disgusting home alongside the mercantile expansion, foppery and naive riches of London from the mid 17th Century on. A worthy addition to all we thought we knew about arguably the greatest original thinking scientist of the modern age. An absolutely absorbing and brilliant read.

Thomas Levenson is an American academic, science writer and documentary film-maker. As of 2012, he is Professor of Science Writing and director of the graduate program in science writing at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He has written six books: Ice Time: Climate, Science and Life on Earth; Measure for Measure: A Musical History of Science; Einstein in Berlin; The Hunt for Vulcan: And How Albert Einstein Destroyed a Planet, Discovered Relativity, and Deciphered the Universe (shortlisted for the Royal Society Insight Investment Science Book Prize 2016);Newton and the Counterfeiter and Money for Nothing: The Scientists, Fraudsters, and Corrupt Politicians Who Reinvented Money, Panicked a Nation, and Made the World Rich. He also writes articles and reviews for newspapers and magazines.