J. W. Mellor]]> Books]]> magnum opus of chemistry, Comprehensive Treatise on Inorganic and Theoretical Chemistry, well before the first volume was published in 1922. In all, over the next fifteen years, sixteen volumes were published, with 16,000,000 words in total, all written by one man – Joseph William Mellor.]]> Joseph W. Mellor]]> Books]]> Lafayette, Manchester]]> Photographs]]> Unknown]]> Photographs]]> Joseph William Mellor from Transactions of the British Ceramic Society. Mellor Memorial Number, Vol. XXXVIII

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British Ceramic Society]]> Pamphlets]]>
[J. W. Mellor]]]> Photographs]]> [J. W. Mellor]]]> Photographs]]> De ortu et causis subterraneorum (On Subterranean Origins and Causes) to German geologist Ferdinand Zirkel’s (1838-1912) Elemente der Mineralogy Begrundet von Carl Friedrich Naumann.]]> Harrods]]> Pamphlets]]> American Ceramic Society]]> Periodicals]]> Otago Polytechnic]]> Menus]]> John L. Russell & Sons (London)]]> Photographs]]> George VI and the Central Chancery of Knighthood]]> Medals]]> A Treatise on Quantitative Inorganic Analysis (1912). In a statement that would please any author, she was told that ‘the matter has now been corrected in our books and from now onwards you will be paid at the higher rate.’]]> Arthur Downer]]> Correspondence]]> J. W. Mellor]]> Pamphlets]]> Harrods (London)]]> Catalogs]]> Evening Sentinel, Staffordshire, 1938.]]> [Evening Sentinel?]]]> Evening Sentinel]]]> Newspapers]]> J. W. Mellor]]> Pamphlets]]> Major Sir Harry Stockley]]> Correspondence]]> J. W. Mellor]]> Cartoons (Commentary)]]> Comprehensive Treatise, which was published in 1922, Mellor writes ‘Much of the material of this work was compiled in card-index form long before my Modern Inorganic Chemistry [1912] appeared.’ Described by many as a ‘Herculean task’, Mellor wrote letters to scientists and institutions in Budapest, New York, Milwaukee, Vienna, Washington and Germany, among others, requesting the use of images for the tomes. Balancing professional duties, domestic duties, and other writings, he worked from dawn till dusk on Comprehensive Treatise. An anecdote in an obituary (1938) relates that while writing at night he had a wet towel wrapped around his head to keep himself awake.]]> J. W. Mellor]]> Books]]> Comprehensive Treatise was finished in February 1935. The work took its toll. During the writing of the last four volumes Mellor was a ‘very sick man’. This page proof, stamped 4 December 1936 by the printers Wm. Clowes and Sons, is one of the 417 pages Mellor wrote on ‘Platinum’ for the sixteenth and final volume. It was proofed by L.S. Theobald, A.T. Green, and F.H. Clews. In November 1937, an anonymous reviewer in Chemistry and Industry Review wrote that the volumes were ‘the most perfect and absolute work that ever was written in any humane science.’]]> J. W. Mellor]]> Books]]> Treatise, Mellor approached Leslie Stuart Theobald (1898-1979), an analytical chemist, to write two supplementary volumes. Mellor had worked with Theobald at the Potteries Laboratories in Staffordshire, and in 1933 was Theobald’s thesis examiner. In this letter Theobald writes of the great cost to Mellor’s health while writing his Treatise and that he personally was loathe to pay the same price. Theobald refused Mellor’s offer many times, maintaining that there was more to life than chemistry.]]> Leslie Stuart Theobald]]> Correspondence]]> Comprehensive Treatise. The number of volumes, 16, was not planned at the outset. It was continued until it was finished. Emma says of her husband ‘From a dozen, he simply went on and on and on, very tired of it and far from well.’]]> Emma Mellor]]> Correspondence]]> Comprehensive Treatise on Inorganic and Theoretical Chemistry was finally published towards the end of 1937. In October of that year the New York Herald Tribune announced that Longmans Green and Co. are ‘bring[ing] to conclusion one of the most stupendous feats of bookmaking ever accomplished in one lifetime’. Many reviewers of the volumes couldn’t believe that only one man had written every word. This letter from publisher Robert Guy Longman (1882-1971) congratulates Mellor on the completion of, what was, a monumental work.]]> Robert Guy Longman]]> Correspondence]]> Unknown]]> Photographs]]>