2 volumes. xxix, [3], 425; xxiii, [1], 444 + 15 ad pp.; errata slip in Vol. I. With 20 plates. 22.2x14 cm (8¾x5½"), original reddish-brown cloth, spines lettered in gilt. First Edition, First Issue.

First edition of the fundamental book on modern electromagnetism. James Clerk Maxwell is considered by many to be the greatest theoretical physicist of the nineteenth century. Clerk Maxwell, while acknowledging his debt to Faraday, extended the theoretical to the mathematical, leading him to define light as an electromagnetic phenomenon. In Printing and the Mind of Man, 355, it is noted that Einstein's work on relativity was founded directly upon Maxwell's electromagnetic theory.

The book exists in different states of binding, errata and advertisement leaves. This copy with a single errata slip, before p.1 in Vol. I; later copies were issued with one in Vol. II as well.