title: An Elementary Treatise on Electricity
text: # An Elementary Treatise on Electricity
  
  An Elementary Treatise on Electricity is a posthumously published treatise on electricity by James Clerk Maxwell that was edited by William Garnett. The book was published in 1881 by Oxford University Press two years after Maxwell died in 1879. The editor's note at the beginning of the book states that most of the book's content was written about five years prior to Maxwell's death, some of which was used in the lectures Maxwell gave on electricity to members of the Cavendish Laboratory.
  
  In 2023, a copy of the book was returned to New Bedford Free Public Library in New Bedford, Massachusetts, more than 119 years overdue.
  
  ## Publication history
  
  * Maxwell, James Clerk (1881). Garnett, William (ed.). An elementary treatise on electricity. University of California Libraries. Oxford, Clarendon Press.
  * Maxwell, James Clerk (1888). Garnett, William (ed.). An Elementary Treatise on Electricity (2nd ed.). At the Clarendon Press.
  