ROYAL SOCIETY. Biographical Memoirs of the Fellows of the Royal Society 1-61. With The Royal Society Catalogue of Portraits. And The Royal Society its Origins and its Founders - 63 Volumes in Total. The Royal Society, 1955-2015.
Royal 8vo, original blue cloth, most volumes in dust-jackets (volumes 1, 23 and 48 lacking djs); variously illustrated with plates and images to text; very good with signs of ex-libris origins in occasional volumes.
First edition.
The Royal Society first published obituaries of its Fellows in 1830, in Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Initially obituaries were read at the Anniversary meeting, often by the President himself, and were printed within the record of that meeting. From 1859, the tenth volume of Proceedings, they appeared in a separate section at the back. Articles were anonymous until the 1880s, when the authors initials were appended. In 1905, Proceedings split into two series, Series A, (papers on the mathematical and physical sciences) and Series B, (biological sciences). Occasionally a Fellow has an obituary in both series.
From 1932 obituaries of nearly every deceased Fellow and Foreign Member have appeared in Obituary Notices of Fellows of the Royal Society (1932 to 1954) and Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society (1955 onwards as offered here). Biographical Memoirs have been published annually since 1955. Each memoir is carefully researched, resulting in a unique biographical collection of lives and achievements.
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