Send-Brieven

Full title:

Send-Brieven, zoo aan de Hoog-edele Heeren van de Koninklijke Societeit te Londen, als aan andere Aansienelyke en Geleerde Lieden

Epistles, to the High-honored Gentlemen of the Royal Society in London, and to the other Distinguished and Learned People

The subtitle reads: "As to the high noble lords of the Royal Society of London, so to other distinguished and learned people about the various secrets of Nature, namely over the wonderful configuration of ..."

Dobell #19, containing 46 letters: AvL # I - XLVI

Pagination: xiv + 1-460 + xxviii

Front matter: pp. xiv

• Title page (placed differently in Dobell #20)
• Wilt poem
• Goeree print
• Dedication (opdragt)
• Hoogvliet poem
• Poot poem
• Engraved title with portrait inset (right; click to enlarge)

Back matter: pp. xxviii

• Index and errata (Register & Druk-fouten)
• Register van woorden en zaaken (Index of words and topics) - 28 unnumbered pages

Between 1712 and 1717, Leeuwenhoek wrote these 46 letters to a variety of people, many of them public figures, politicians and academics. He addressed about a fifth of them to the Royal Society in spite of the fact that editor Edmond Halley was showing not the slightest interest in publishing them.

In 1718, Leeuwenhoek collected the 46, numbered them in Latin (second column in table below), and published them himself in Dutch as the fourth and final volume of his collected letters. In some bound collections, it is the fifth volume. As with the other volumes of his Brieven, a total of 165 letters, he had Hendrick van Rijn translate them into Latin and published in a separate and mostly parallel volume the following year.

Half of the letters had figures, copperplate made from drawings, probably of red chalk. These images are viewable as Leeuwenhoek's Cabinet of Wonders.

In the table below, the Dutch title is the first substantive phrase from van Leeuwenhoek's inhoudsopgave. The figure numbers are his but the titles are mine, taken from his text.

In 2017, the letters in Send-Brieven will be published for the first time in an English translation in volume XVII of Alle de Brieven / Collected Letters.

The links below will display more information about each of these letters. For those marked above as having figures (right-hand column), I translated that letter's summary and included the plates with a caption for each figure. The captions are mine, taken from the text. The plates can also be viewed in larger original sizes.