In Focus: Resources on Antoni van Leeuwenhoek's life and work.
'The Collected Letters of Antoni van Leeuwenhoek' ('Alle de Brieven ..') - volumes 1-15 of the books now transcribed and available free online.
The Netherlands based project to offer both modern Dutch and English translations of these letters with extensive footnotes by experts and high quality copies of the
original illustrations will be well known to those interested in the history of microscopy. Starting in 1939, carrying on through World War II, with volume 16 published in 2014 and volume 17 for 2015 (of the planned 19), it is a monumental piece of work.
A digitised set of the letters (Dutch/English) and illustrations from volumes 1-15 are now freely available at www.dbnl.org (De Digitale Bibliotheek voor de Nederlandse Letteren / The Digital Library of Dutch Literature) to view online or download as pdf files. A search function and extensive secondary literature is also available.
Thank you to Douglas Anderson's splendid Lens on Leeuwenhoek website for drawing attention to these; this is an important
development in digital resources offered on the history of microscopy. The DBNL in turn deserve hearty congratulations on completing their own daunting task of transcribing the works so effectively.
The modern translations of the 'Collected Letters' are complemented by the letters which were published in whole or in part in Philosophical Transactions and freely accessible on The Royal Society's website since 2011. (The 'Lens on Leeuwenhoek' website carefully cross references these with the latest 'Collected Letters' resource.) Very high quality scans of the original
plates and text in contemporary
Latin editions e.g. 'Opera Omnia' (1722) are also available e.g. on the ECHO website.
An accessible overview to Leeuwenhoek's letters are Hoole's (ca. 1800) 'Select Works ...' available free online at www.archive.org or as modern print facsimiles in 2 vols. (both sadly without full scans of Hoole's plates as copies of the original book are extremely rare ... and expensive).
'Still going strong: Leeuwenhoek at eighty' a fascinating paper by Douglas Anderson in the July 2014 edition of the 'Antonie van Leeuwenhoek' journal to celebrate the journal's eightieth publication year. Full version freely downloadable
and assesses Antoni van Leeuwenhoek's private, public and scientific life and work when he was aged eighty.
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National Institute of General Medical Sciences "Life Magnified" Online - an attractive online gallery of false colour SEM imagery from the life sciences with notes. This complements a '2014 exhibit at
Dulles International Airport'. Thank you to David Goldstein for drawing
attention to the site.
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