On editing the works of Robert Boyle

Abstract

Abstract After ten years of preparation, a definitive new edition of The Works of Robert Boyle by Edward B. Davis and myself was published in two batches of seven volumes, the first in July 1999 and the second in September 2000. This is the second time that a complete edition of Boyle's works has been produced, the first, by the cleric and antiquary Thomas Birch, having come out in 1744. The current edition is intended to supersede Birch's, and I hope that it will remain the standard edition as least as long as his, if not longer. More recently still, in August 2001, a sequel to the new edition of the Works has appeared in the form of a complete edition of Boyle's Correspondence in a further six volumes: this comparably supersedes the edition of a selection of letters to and from Boyle which formed part of Birch's edition, and which has hitherto represented the most substantial printed source for Boyle's correspondence. Here, I will limit myself to the new fourteen-volume Works of Boyle, reflecting on some of the challenges that had to be faced in producing the edition, and on some of the lessons that have been learned from executing it—both about Boyle and about editing more generally.