A commemorative Newton medallion from the collection.

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The Grace K. Babson Collection of the Works of Sir Isaac Newton is a monument to the most enlightened sort of book collecting. Not simply a gathering of trophies and famous titles, the collection is a powerful scholarly resource, with both depth and breadth. It contains works famous and obscure, taking in nearly every aspect of the intellectual development of its subject, the great English scientist Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727).

Almost unique in its completeness, the depth of the Babson Collection is rivaled only by the collections of Newton material at Cambridge University and the British Library. The Babson Collection is all the more impressive given the nearly two-century head start of those other collections, and the fact that it was assembled over the comparatively brief span of forty years by just one inspired collector: Grace Knight Babson, whose avid interest in Newton began early in her studies at Mount Holyoke College during the 1890s.

The Burndy Library's own rich holdings of Newtoniana beautifully complement the Babson Collection. Burndy holds a number of Newton editions not available in the Babson Collection, but more importantly, its very rich holdings in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century science provide essential context for the more tightly focused Babson Collection. Burndy also has comprehensive holdings of more recent works about the history of science. The combination of the two collections significantly increases the value of both to scholars, providing them with a resource of enormous richness and depth.