Grievous difficulty: shuffling Letters 28 - 52

For three years, from 1684 through 1686, Leeuwenhoek went up another learning curve. Having taught himself so much already, he learned how to both document his work and share it with a world-wide audience. He published his letters in Dutch and Latin translation. After he better understood the process, he was able to make the publications more orderly and book-like.

However, during the first three years, he was not very well organized. The result is what Dobell called a "grievous difficulty" (1932 p. 495).

Looking back, I think he would have published Letters 28 through 52 in two or three groups. Perhaps that's what he had in mind with four titles beginning Ondervindingen en Beschouwingen (Experiences and Considerations) in 1684 and five with Ontledingen en Ontdekkingen (Dissections and Discoveries) in 1685. He may also have been coming to the decision or realization that the first 27 letters were not going to be included in this series. In 1686, he published what turned out to be the earliest, Letters 28 through 31.

The publication was the first to include a frontispiece, which clearly suggested that he saw it as the beginning section of a larger volume. It caught him up to Letter 47 and was followed by Dobell's #9 Cinnebar Naturalis with letters 48 through 52.

Along the way, he had enough foresight to separately paginate every letter or continuous sequence of two or three letter -- except those that Boutesteyn issued in 1686 titled Onsigtbare Verborgentheden. In it, Letter 42 followed Letter 38 in continuous pagination, beginning with page 25. The problem was that the preceding Letter 41, issued with the title Humor Cristillanus, was paginated 1 - 26.

Turns out none of that mattered. Given the customs of the time, Leeuwenhoek was probably not aware of all the ways booksellers or collectors bound his letters. Those that survive are not a statistically valid sample, but they give a sense of the range of options.

The table below shows the variaton in several sets considered to be complete Werken and Opera Omnia.

Dobell

Because Dobell notes letters out of order in other places, I can only assume that his Part I was bound in the numerical order of his volumes (column 2 and title pages on left sidebar) and not the order of the letters. However, his bibliography notes:

Deel I —Made up of Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 : thus containing Letters 28-52. With engraved title dated 1685 (1st state, with Dutch lettering "Ontdeckte Onsigtbaar-heeden ").

Degenaar and KB 1686

Degenaar's set, once owned by Schierbeek, contains the corresponding letters in Part IV. This volume seems to have no order and includes another edition of 10. Vervolg der Brieven that is in his Part II. The version available online at Google Books has the same order as the Schierbeek/Degenaar volume on the table below.

KB that I saw

The STCN (Short Title Catalogue Netherlands) lists two copies of Werken Part I at the Koninklijke Bibliotheek (Royal Library) in Den Haag and one at the university library in Utrecht that have all the letters in numerical order, which makes that part match the other three by deconstructing the pamphlets that Dobell numbered 1 through 9 and re-ordering the parts. This is the third set on the table below. Because most of the pamphlets were paginated 1 through to the end, that logical re-ordering however, only slightly jumbles the pagination.

KB Google

Google Books has made available online (digitized 2 Jul 2015) a volume that they credit to the National Library of the Netherlands (original from the University of Amsterdam).

They all have title pages except the three marked with an asterisk. Those three were taken from the volumes in which they were originally printed and placed later in the bundle. In only one place is the pagination illogical: the first page of Letter 42, page 25 (orignally from Dobell 8) follows the last page of Letter 41, page 26.

Note in the photo above right that the Degenaar/Schierbeek volumes all have Send-Brieven on the spine. Indeed, the volume that Leeuwenhoek titled Send-Brieven, containing letters written at the end of his career, is the first part of Degenaar's set and the earliest letters are the final part.