‘Very inconsiderable exceptg that they are the Hand writing of so great a Man’: The Provenance of Isaac Newton’s Manuscripts at New College, Oxford

In 1872 a set of Isaac Newton’s manuscripts was bequeathed to New College, Oxford by the Reverend Jeffrey Ekins. Although Newton scholars were well aware of this collection, its provenance is shrouded in mystery.
In this article, I first investigate the contents of Newton's vast archive of manuscripts and how they were handed down after his death in 1727. Then I examine the provenance of the specific set of manuscripts that was bequeathed to New College, Oxford in 1872. Although this topic has been scrutinized extensively in the literature, I believe the main narrative is flawed. By collecting all the available evidence and drawing some new connections, I present an alternative narrative that avoids those flaws. Lastly, I delve into the manuscript collection and focus on the manuscript folio on which Newton's famous optical diagram appears. I discuss the provenance of that specific sketch and link it to a similar but neater sketch that appears in the library of Geneva. This allows me to get a clearer picture of the various stages at which the 'vignette' for the 1722 French translation of Newton's Opticks was conceived from sketch (New College, Oxford) to publication (1722 Opticks).
I conclude by drawing the connection between the various contingent circumstances under which Newton's manuscripts have come down to us and the current state of the scholarship based on the availability of these resources.