The mysterious forces exerted by magnets have long been a source of wonderment. This set of two books and two boxes was designed as a magnetic playground. illustrations are collaged from vintage textbooks on physics, electromagnetics, and astronomy. All handwritten text is from William Gilbert’s marvelous work De Magnete (1600). Drawing on years of careful experimentation, Gilbert was the first to realize that the Earth itself behaved as a great magnet. (The translation by P. Fleury Mottelay (1893) is titled On the Loadstone and Magnetic Bodies and on the Great Magnet the Earth. I have used “lodestone” as the preferred modern spelling.) A wood box among the set houses a lodestone, a naturally occurring magnet, similar to the terrellas, or “little earthkins” of Gilbert’s experiments. Other stones housed in the book are magnetized hematite.

Congratulations to Susan Collard, a BEST OF SHOW AWARD winner for Infinite Possibilities!