Alle de brieven van Antoni van Leeuwenhoek

Abstract

IN 1931 when the Royal Dutch Academy of Science and the leading medical authorities in Holland were considering how best to celebrate the tercentenary of the birth of Leeuwenhoek in 1632, it was resolved to prepare and publish a complete annotated edition of his scientific writings, accompanied by English translations. English-speaking people will be grateful for the translations, and will appreciate cordially the compliment implied in this decision. The Royal Society of London from the very outset gave valuable encouragement to its humble Dutch correspondent, and in doing so displayed the soundest judgment, since Leeuwenhoek's earliest letters by no means foreshadowed the important results he was later to achieve; and this is all the more surprising when it is remembered that his first letter was written at the age of forty.

Alle de brieven van Antoni van Leeuwenhoek

(The Collected Letters of Antoni van Leeuwenhoek). Uitgegeven, geillustreerd en van aanteekeningen voorzien door een Commissie van Nederlandsche geleerden (edited, illustrated and annotated by a Committee of Dutch scientists). Deel (part) 1. Pp. 454 + 40 plates. (Amsterdam: N. V. Swets and Zeitlinger, 1939.)