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Edité par Dépôt des cartes et plans de la Marine, [Paris], 1722
Vendeur : Arader Books, New York, NY, Etats-Unis
Carte Edition originale
No binding. Etat : Near fine. First. THE MOST IMPORTANT 18TH-CENTURY MAP OF THE AMERICAN SOUTHWEST. Manuscript map in ink and watercolor of the southern United States and northern Mexico. [Paris: ca. 1722-1725.] Two joined sheets (22 5/8" x 36 3/4", 575mm x 933mm; 31 3/4" x 45 3/4" framed). Some creases throughout, with marginal tanning and soiling. A couple of spots of foxing. Jean-Baptiste Bénard de La Harpe (1683-1765) came from France in 1718 to map and to set up trading posts in present-day Texas, Oklahoma and Arkansas. Whereas the Northeast was the site of contention between the French and the British, the contest in the Southwest was between France and Spain. Using New Orleans as his base, La Harpe forged connections with native Americans between the Arkansas River, which cuts through Kansas, Oklahoma and Arkansas before joining the Mississippi; and the Red River, which describes the border between eastern Oklahoma and Texas. The map is particularly detailed in its chronicling of native American settlements west of Texas: the Mexican states of Chihuahua and Sonora, New Mexico, Arizona and California into Baja California. La Harpe is particularly careful in his indications of the nature of these settlements: "Indiens Gentils" and "Chretiens," sites of silver mines, capitals/presidios and of ruined or abandoned villages. After several years of exploration as well as gathering materials from other explorers, La Harpe returned to France in 1723, and it is in the years immediately following that this map is presumed to have been made. Copied by the Dépôt des cartes et plans de la Marine (the only other known copy is in the Bibliothèque nationale de France; that is attributed to Jean-Baptiste Bourguignon d'Anville), the relationship between La Harpe's original and the present item is unclear. Certain points appear on our map that are not on the BnF example (and vice-versa), so both appear to be independent copies. Ours extends further east than the BnF copy, which stops before Florida. The BnF copy extends much further north and west, which in our copy is obscured by the legend. By comparison to printed maps of the period and even well beyond, these manuscript maps are far more accurate and detailed. Perhaps the Dépot des cartes held this information close for proprietary or military reasons. Nonetheless, the Spanish would go on to dominate the American South (La Harpe conducted the surrender of Pensacola, visible only on our map, to the Spanish) freeing the French to focus on their territorial struggles with the British in the North and East. From the collection of the late great cartographic historian Dr. Seymour I. Schwartz (his sale, Sotheby's New York, 28 June 2018, lot 145).
Edité par John Murray, London, 1859
Vendeur : Raptis Rare Books, Palm Beach, FL, Etats-Unis
Edition originale
First edition of "certainly the most important biological book ever written" (Freeman), one of 1250 copies. Octavo, bound in original cloth, half-title, one folding lithographed diagram, without advertisements. In very good condition with cracks to inner hinges and a touch of shelfwear. Housed in a custom clamshell box. A fine example of this landmark work. Darwin â revolutionized our methods of thinking and our outlook on the natural order of things. The recognition that constant change is the order of the universe had been finally established and a vast step forward in the uniformity of nature had been takenâ (PMM 344). â Without question a watershed work in the history of modern life sciences, Darwinâ s Origin elaborated a proposition that species slowly evolve from common ancestors through the mechanism of natural selection. As he himself expected, Darwinâ s theory became, and continues to be in some circles, the object of intense controversyâ (American Philosophical Society). â The five years [of Darwinâ s voyage on the Beagle] were the most important event in Darwinâ s intellectual life and in the history of biological science. Darwin sailed with no formal training. He returned a hard-headed man of scienceâ ¦ The experiences of his five years in the Beagle, how he dealt with them, and what they led to, built up into a process of epoch-making importance in the history of thoughtâ (PMM).
Edité par n.p., Oxford, 1964
Vendeur : Manhattan Rare Book Company, ABAA, ILAB, New York, NY, Etats-Unis
Manuscrit / Papier ancien Edition originale Signé
Etat : Very Good. First edition. - A MAJOR TOLKIEN AUTOGRAPH MANUSCRIPT ON THE CENTRAL THEMES OF HIS WORK AND CONTAINING A VARIANT HISTORY OF THE FIRST AGE; LIKELY THE MOST SIGNIFICANT MANUSCRIPT IN PRIVATE HANDS -A VISUALLY STUNNING HAND-DRAWN CHART, "KINSHIP OF THE HALF-ELVEN," TRACING THE GENEALOGY FROM FËANOR TO ELROND, ARWEN, AND ARAGORN -A LONG, REVEALING LETTER TO EILEEN ELGAR PRESENTING THE MANUSCRIPTS, REFLECTING ON THE RECENT DEATH OF C.S. LEWIS AND DISCUSSING LITERATURE AND WRITING, INCLUDING A DETAILED ANALYSIS OF HIS MIDDLE-EARTH POEM "FASTITOCALON". "Concerning 'The Hoard'" Manuscript: Responding to Eileen Elgar's letter about the meaning of Tolkien's poem "The Hoard," Tolkien here pens what he calls "a long screed" discussing the poem's themes and its relationship to his writing. Only recently published in The Adventures of Tom Bombadil and Other Verses from the Red Book(1962), "The Hoard" was a bardic poem telling of an ancient elven hoard successively claimed by a dwarf, a dragon, and a man - each of whom is killed in consequence of his feverish greed for the hoard. Tolkien here calls The Hoard "one of the main strands in The Silmarillion," and he explains that this work-in-process "concerns the great hoard of Nargothrond, which contained much of the treasure and works of Elvish art that had been preserved from the wreckage of the Elven-kingdoms and the assaults of the Dark Lord from his unassailable stronghold of Thangorodrim in the North." In endeavoring to give his correspondent a fuller idea of "what my proposed book, The Silmarillion, is about," Tolkien then proceeds to give a substantive account of the fate of this legendary hoard and its three great gemstones, the light-capturing silmarils magically crafted by Fëanor. The story arc and First-Age history Tolkien here charts differs in many subtle ways - especially in its rerouting of the Ruin of Doriath - from that found in The Simarillion and other related accounts of First Age history (e.g. the story of Nauglafring, as published in The Book of Lost Tales). But Tolkien's essay "Concerning 'The Hoard'" is much more than a behind-the-scenes look into "The Hoard". The nature of obsession, discussed so vividly in "Concerning 'The Hoard'", is at the core of Tolkien's most celebrated works, namely: The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion, and "Concerning 'The Hoard'"provides vital insight into the dramatic underpinnings of these works. After explaining in this manuscript how "dark and secret hoards" were originally formed and indicating that such hoards are very often "possessed and guarded by a dragon," Tolkien affirms that such "dragon-hoards were cursed, and bred in men the dragon-spirit: in possessors an obsession with mere ownership, in others a fierce desire to take the treasure for their own by violence and treachery." Beyond the insight such a "dragon-spirit" offers for the immediate analysis of The Silmarillion - where even the noblest of heroes succumb to its obsessive poison and go to extreme lengths to obtain the silmarils - we see the "dragon-spirit" driving the actions surrounding the Arkenstone in The Hobbit and The One Ring in The Lord of the Rings. Tolkien's essay gives new meaning to the dragon Smaug's role in The Hobbit (and the reveling delight he takes in his hoard) and it further helps us understand the basis for Thorin Oakenshield's insatiable avarice and his fixation on recovering a treasure that he had never seen. InThe Lord of the Ringswe see Bilbo's reluctance to relinquish the One Ring and many of the early pages are occupied by Gandolf's explication to Frodo of how the Ring has affected its bearers. And who, after all, is Gollum but one who succumbed entirely to the "dragon-spirit"? A major unpublished essay, "Concerning 'The Hoard'" is a highly important addition to Tolkien's known work. Broadening the characters and events of Middle-earth history, this manuscript affords us insight into Tolkien's evolving conception of the First Age. This manuscript was unknown to Christopher Tolkien at the time he was piecing together The Silmarillion, and one can only imagine the contribution its text might have made to that work. But even beyond its significance for The Silmarillion, this manuscript offers a penetrating view of how Tolkien conceived the "dragon-spirit" that is a driving force in all his major works. Encapsulating as it does the core history and thematic at the heart of Tokien's legendary works, "Concerning 'The Hoard'" is, to the best of our knowledge, the most significant Tolkien manuscript in private hands. "Kinship of the Half-Elven" Genealogical Tree: Tolkien's 1964 letter to Eileen Elgar also included the offered autograph genealogical tree entitled "Kinship of the Half-Elven". Tolkien was in the habit of creating itemized documents to help him keep track of the rich layers of detail present in his complex narrative structures. This particular tree begins with Fëanor in the early days of the First Age and traces his descent through the House of Hador and the House of Bëor to the Third-Age figures - Elrond, Arwen and Aragorn - we encounter inThe Lord of the Rings. The chart is a stunning visual companion to his work, meticulously and stunningly drawn with black, green, and red ink and pencil. Letter to Eileen Elgar: Tolkien's letter of March 5, 1964, presenting the chart and manuscript to Eileen Elgar, begins on a somber note, with Tolkien explaining that he had been through some troubling times, highlighting that "The death of my friend (C.S. Lewis - whom I do not think you have confused with C.D. Lewis) was the first blow." He then discusses "Concerning 'The Hoard', hoping that it will give Elgar a better idea of what "my proposed book, 'The Silmarillion' is all about." The rest of the letter is a detailed discussion of various aspects of writing and publishing: complaining about proofreaders' attempted changes to passages in The Lord of the Rings, an analysis of certain phrases with an explication.
Edité par Berlin: 1785-1797., 1797
Vendeur : Arader Galleries - AraderNYC, New York, NY, Etats-Unis
Edition originale
12 parts in 6 volumes. Folio (18 x 10 6/8 inches). Half-titles. 12 title-pages with engraved vignettes, 432 EXCEPTIONALLY FINE engraved plates with original hand-colour, some HEIGHTENED IN GOLD, SILVER AND BRONZE to reflect the metallic sheen of fish scales. Contemporary tree calf with the arms of the Duchesse de Berry (the arms of France and Spain) stamped in gilt on each cover, all edges gilt (foot of spine of volume III chipped with minor loss, other extremities with minor scuffing). Provenance: with the supra libros of Maria Carolina Ferdinanda Luisa, the Duchesse de Berry (1798-1870) on each cover; Belgian Royal Library. "the finest illustrated work on fishes ever produced" (Nissen) THE DUCHESSE DE BERRY'S COPY of the first edition in French, published contemporaneously with the German edition. A FINE AND ATTRACTIVE, COMPLETE COPY OF BLOCH'S MONUMENTAL WORK. Bloch was a German medical doctor and naturalist. He is generally considered one of the most important ichthyologists of the 18th century and is best known for his encyclopedic work in ichthyology. The drawings were taken from Bloch's collection of some 1500 fish, the largest collection of its time, which he put together from purchases made at home and from returning travellers and missionaries from all over the world including Sir William Hamilton in Naples. ". the finest illustrated work on fishes ever produced. The plates, by a variety of artists and engravers, are outstandingly coloured, and are heightened with gold, silver, and bronze to produce the metallic sheen of fish scales" (Nissen). From the distinguished library of the Duchesse de Berry, daughter of the future King Francis I of the Two Sicilies and his first wife Maria Clementina of Austria. In 1816 she married Charles Ferdinand d'Artois, Duc de Berry, the heir to the French throne. Only the year before his uncle Louis XVII had been restored to the French throne, and on this death in 1824, the Duc's father became the last Bourbon monarch, as Charles X. tragically the Duc did not inherit the crown, but was assassinated at the Paris Opera in 1820. The Duc and Duchesse's only son, the Comte de Chambord, "the miracle baby" was born seven months after his father's murder and became the Legitimist Bourbon heir. During this period the Duchesse became patron to the world's greatest botanical artist Pierre-Joseph Redoute. Not only did she support him with the purchase of his celebrated 170 watercolours of 'Roses' on vellum, but she also obtained for him the post of 'maitre de Dessin' at the Museum of Natural History in 1824, even becoming one of his students. (Nissen) Nissen ZBI 416; Wood p. 244. Catalogued by Kate Hunter.
Edité par Officina Plantiniana, Antwerp, 1591
Vendeur : SOPHIA RARE BOOKS, Koebenhavn V, Danemark
Membre d'association : ILAB
Edition originale
First edition. THE FIRST MODERN WORLD ATLAS HAND-COLOURED AND HEIGHTENED IN GOLD. Fourth Latin edition of the first modern world atlas, and a copy hand-coloured and heightened in gold. First published in 1570, the Theatrum is the first atlas to contain maps printed in a uniform style and format and to display a catalogue of the authors whose source Ortelius used in the drawing of the maps. Ortelius's atlas "set a standard by which subsequent collections would be judged and compared" (Short). Even though it was the most expensive work published at the time, it proved an instant success with four versions of the first edition being printed in 1570 alone. Several editions were printed at the Officina Plantiniana at the end of the 16th century and from 1585 Ortelius began to include historical maps in a section called Paregon. The maps and plates in the Parergon may be considered "the most outstanding engravings depicting the wide-spread interest in classical geography in the 16th century" (Van der Krogt). The present 1592 edition, the fourth Latin edition, contains 108 maps as well as the 26 maps and views of the Parergon, as well as an index called Nomenclator Ptolemaicus that lists all the names mentioned in Ptolemy's Geographia. New to this edition are the maps of Flanders and Brabant. "This is the first edition of the Theatrum with a clear division into three parts: (1) the Atlas itself, (2) the Parergon, and (3) the Nomenclator. The Parergon had for the first time its own title page. For this title page Plantin made use of the woodblock he had used for the title page of Genesis in the Biblia Regia, printed in 1569-72. Printing started in July 1590, but because of a shortage of paper the printing lasted longer than expected. The Nomenclator was printed between February and May 1591 (the title page was dated 1591). The rest of the Theatrumwas printed in the summer of 1591. The first copies were delivered on 6 August 1591. The colophon however has the date 1592. The Plantin Press printed 525 copies of this edition. After this edition, only the fifth Additamentum would further enlarge the Theatrum" (Koeman). The present copy, which has all the maps in contemporary hand-colouring, has an early Spanish provenance, with marginal comments in Spanish and Latin. The text on the map of Valencia has been censored with a patch, erasing the text on the practice of Islam in Spain; this is the final edition of the text in which this passage appeared. The title of the atlas, the 'Theatre of the Earth,' references the idea of the theatre of nature, in which God's laws play out for a human audience. It is "a title that announces encyclopedic intentions of surveying all of nature to provide complete and ordered coverage" (Short), providing a mirror of nature for the service of humanity. This idea achieved such broad cultural penetration that Shakespeare's 1599 play As You Like It would declare that "All the world's a stage." Only three other complete copies with contemporary hand-colouring listed on RBH since 1984. Provenance: Ruperto de Zafra (inscription on title page and marginalia in Spanish and Latin); Christie's New York, 15 October 2021, lot 68, $237,500. "With the exception of his friend [Gerardus] Mercator, Ortelius (1527-98) was the principal cartographer of the sixteenth century. He was born to a Catholic family whose origins were in Augsburg. At the age of twenty he was admitted as an illuminator of maps into the guild of St. Luke in his native town. Soon he was able to earn his living by buying, coloring, and selling maps produced by map makers in various countries. Ortelius traveled widely in his profession; he went regularly to the Frankfurt Fair and visited Italy several times before 1558. In the period 1559-1560 he traveled through Lorraine and Poitou in the company of Mercator, who encouraged him to become a cartographer and to draw his own maps. The first product of this new activity was an eight-sheet map of the world published in 1564. In 1565 he published a map of Egypt (two sheets), in 1567 a map of Asia (two sheets), and in 1570 a map of Spain (six sheets). "The growing demand for maps of distant countries, caused by the rapidly expanding colonization and the development of commerce, had already led to the production of large collections of maps of various size and provenance, for instance, Lafreri's atlas published ca. 1553. At the suggestion of the Dutch merchant and map collector Hooftman, and of his friend Radermacher, Ortelius undertook the publication of a comprehensive atlas of the world. It appeared in May 1570 in the form of a single volume, in folio, entitled Theatrum orbis terrarum, published by Egidius Coppens Diesth and printed by Plantin in Antwerp. It contained fifty-three sheets with a total of seventy copperplate maps, most of them engraved by Frans Hoogenberg, and thirty-five leaves of text . "The Theatrum won for Ortelius the title of geographer to King Phillip II of Spain. It also secured for him a substantial income, enabling him to continue his travels to collect new material. In 1577 he visited England and Ireland, making the personal acquaintance of John Dee, Camden, Hakluyt, and other British geographers . During the later part of his life, Ortelius spent much time on classical studies . In 1584 he published Nomenclator Ptolemaicus, which dealt with place names in Ptolemy's geography, and Parergon, a collection of maps illustrating ancient history, printed by Plantin. The Nomenclator and the Parergon were incorporated into several of the later editions of the Theatrum" (DSB). "When the Theatrum appeared, European map production was shifting from Italy to Antwerp, Ortelius's home town and a center of entrepreneurial activity in Europe. 'Mapbooks' had appeared in several formats well before Ortelius first started preparing the Theatrum project. Portuguese discoveries of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries were documented by manuscript charts bound together in volume form.
Edité par London: printed for W. Strahan; and T. Cadell, 1776, 1776
Vendeur : Peter Harrington. ABA/ ILAB., London, Royaume-Uni
Edition originale
First edition of "the first and greatest classic of modern economic thought" (PMM). The first edition is thought to have had a press run of either 500 or 750 copies (Tribe). In his Wealth of Nations, Smith "begins with the thought that labour is the source from which a nation derives what is necessary to it. The improvement of the division of labour is the measure of productivity and in it lies the human propensity to barter and exchange. The Wealth of Nations ends with a history of economic development, a definitive onslaught on the mercantile system, and some prophetic speculations on the limits of economic control" (PMM). "The Wealth of Nations had no rival in scope or depth when published and is still one of the few works in its field to have achieved classic status, meaning simply that it has sustained yet survived repeated reading, critical and adulatory, long after the circumstances which prompted it have become the object of historical enquiry" (ODNB). Einaudi 5328; Goldsmiths' 11392; Grolier, English 57; Kress 7621; Printing and the Mind of Man 221; Rothschild 1897; Tribe 9; Vanderblue, p. 3. 2 volumes, quarto (273 x 208 mm). Contemporary calf, rebacked and recornered to style, spines richly gilt with twin black morocco labels, new endpapers. Housed in custom-made brown quarter morocco solander box by J. & S. Brockman. Bound with terminal blank leaf in Volume I and half-title in Volume II. Extremities restored, light scuffing to covers, light staining in gutter of early leaves, some foxing to contents: a very good copy.
Edité par Paris: De l'Imprimerie royale, 1770-1786., 1786
Vendeur : Arader Galleries - AraderNYC, New York, NY, Etats-Unis
Edition originale
10 volumes, folio (18 1/2 x 13 1/4 in.; 464 x 343 mm). 973 fine hand-colored plates drawn and engraved by François Nicolaus Martinet under the supervision of Edme Daubenton, text within decorative borders. Contemporary half red straight-grained morocco (extremities scuffed, bookplates removed from the front paste-downs). Provenance: George M. Pflaumer. "Ranks still as one of the most important of all bird books from the collector's point of view" (Fine Bird Books). First edition, large paper issue, bound as often found without the 35 extra plates of animals, insects, and reptiles designed to illustrate ornithological volumes of Buffon's monumental "Histoire naturelle generale" (1749-1804). Buffon was appointed keeper of the "Jardin du Roi", later the "Jardin des Plantes", and the collection connected with it, the "Cabinet du Roi" in 1739. He augmented the collection of birds exponentially, increasing it to more than 800 species gathered from all four corners of the globe. In 1765 at Buffon's direction, Martinet began drawing and painting the collection, and engraved the plates under the supervision of Edme Daubenton. In1770 the first volume devoted to birds was published: "Its popularity was primarily assured by Buffon's great literary ability which allowed him to present even the most difficult topics in such sparkling style, in such a universally understandable form, and so fascinating a manner that, as was said, even ladies found amusement in reading about them.the special merit of the work is principally due to the fact that. it was the first to create interest in Nature and natural history in wide circles" (Anker). Buffon's "Oiseaux." was ultimately issued in four formats: the large and ordinary paper folio sets were issued with hand-colored plates by and after Francois Martinet. Quarto and twelve-mo issues were also produced, illustrated with a series of black and white plates drawn by de Seve. Anker 76; "Fine Bird Books" 83; McGill/Wood 267; Nissen IVB 158; Zimmer 104-106. Catalogued by Kate Hunter.
Edité par Nuremberg: Fleischmann, and Adam Ludwig Wirsing, [plates dated 1753-1786]., 1786
Vendeur : Arader Galleries - AraderNYC, New York, NY, Etats-Unis
Edition originale Signé
Folio (18 x 13 inches). 172 fine hand-colored engraved plates by J.M. Seligman, J.M. Stock and A.L. Wirsing after G.D. Ehret, G.W. Baurenfeind, B.R. and M.B. Dietschin, N.F. Eisenberger, J.C. Keller and others (plates 60 and 61, and 121 and 122 counted as one plate each, bound without plates 90, 126, 131, 135, 179 and 180, first two plates with slight vertical crease, plate 97 with small tear at fold not affecting the image). Bound without text. Contemporary mottled calf (joints cracked, extremities scuffed). "ONE OF FINEST RECORDS OF THE CULTIVATED FLOWERS OF THE PERIOD" (Dunthorne). First edition, bound, as often found, without text, which was not published simultaneously with the plates. Described by Blunt as "one of the most decorative florilegia of the mid-eighteenth century" with more than forty of the plates based on drawings by Trew's famous protégé Georg Ehret with whom he had collaborated on "Plantae Selectae". The spectacular plates are "full sized colored figures of Hyacinths, Tulips (over 20 plates), Ranunculi, Anemones, Caryophylli, Lilies, Auriculas, Roses, Narcissi, Iris, Cheiranthi, Asters, Fritilleries, Crown Imperials" (Dunthorne), and are some of the most sought after and important botanical prints in the world. It is no wonder that he became one of the foremost illustrators of botanical images of his time, at a time when it can be said that art of this nature was highly prized and passionately collected. Like his father before him Ehret trained as a gardener, initially working on estates of German nobility, and painting flowers only occasionally, another skill taught him by his father, who was a good draughtsman. Ehret s "first major sale of flower paintings came through Dr Christoph Joseph Trew, eminent physician and botanist of Nuremberg, who recognized his exceptional talent and became both patron and lifelong friend. Ehret sent him large batches of watercolours on the fine-quality paper Trew provided. In 1733 Trew taught Ehret the botanical importance of floral sexual organs and advised that he should show them in detail in his paintings. Many Ehret watercolours were engraved in Trew's works, such as Hortus Nitidissimus [as here] (1750 86) and Plantae selecta e (1750 73), in part two of which (1751) Trew named the genus Ehretia after him. "During 1734 Ehret travelled in Switzerland and France, working as a gardener and selling his paintings. While at the Jardin des Plantes, Paris, he learned to use body-colour on vellum, thereafter his preferred medium. In 1735 he travelled to England with letters of introduction to patrons including Sir Hans Sloane and Philip Miller, curator of the Chelsea Physic Garden. In the spring of 1736 Ehret spent three months in the Netherlands. At the garden of rare plants of George Clifford, banker and director of the Dutch East India Company, he met the great Swedish naturalist, Carl Linnaeus, who was then formulating his new classification based on plant sexual organs. Ehret painted a Tabella (1736), illustrating the system, and sold engravings of it to botanists in Holland. Some of his paintings of the exotics were engraved in Linnaeus's "Hortus Cliffortianus" (1737). "[Ehret] signed and dated his work, naming the subject in pre-Linnaean terms. He published a florilegium, "Plantae et papiliones rariores" (1748 62), with eighteen hand-coloured plates, drawn and engraved by himself. Ehret also provided plant illustrations for several travel books. His distinctive style greatly influenced his successors" (Enid Slatter for DNB). The number of plates bibliographers have associated with this work differs considerably: Brunet V:943 (calls for 190 plates); Dunthorne 310 (180 plates, actually 178); Great Flower Books p. 78 (180 plates, plates 60/61 and 121/122 are represented by one plate each); Johnston "Cleveland Collections" 493 (190 plates); Nissen BBI 1995 (180 plates, 60/61 and 121/122 each on one plate, referance to Tjaden with 190 plates); Pritzel 9500 (180 pl.
Edité par Printed for W. Strahan; and T. Cadell, London, 1776
Vendeur : Raptis Rare Books, Palm Beach, FL, Etats-Unis
Edition originale
First edition of Adam Smith's magnum opus and cornerstone of economic thought. Quarto, 2 volumes, bound in full brown calf, elaborately gilt-decorated spines, front and rear panels, red morocco spine labels, marbled endpapers. In near fine condition. Remarkably clean throughout with some light toning. Housed in a custom half morocco calf clamshell box, elaborately gilt decorated spines. An exceptional example of this landmark work. "First published in 1776, Adam Smith's masterpiece The Wealth of Nations, is the foundation of modern economic thought and remains the single most important account of the rise of, and the principles behind, modern capitalism. It took Smith ten years to produce An Inquiry into the Wealth of Nations. His commentary during such an incremental time, the first years of the Industrial Revolution, sought to reform outdated theories of mercantilist and physiocratic economic thought with broader concepts that we are all familiar with today, such as the division of labor, productivity, and free markets. An important theme that persists throughout the work is the idea that the economic system is automatic, and, when left with substantial freedom, able to regulate itself. This is often referred to as the â invisible hand.â The ability to self-regulate and to ensure maximum efficiency, however, is limited by a number of external forces and â privilegesâ extended to certain members of the economy at the expense of others. The 1776 publication of An Inquiry into The Wealth of Nations was the first of only five editions that were published in Adam Smithâ s lifetime and greatly influenced a number of economists and philosophers of his time and those that followed, including Jean-Baptiste Say, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Malthus, and Ludwig von Mises. "The history of economic theory up to the end of the nineteenth century consists of two parts: the mercantilist phase which was based not so much on a doctrine as on a system of practice which grew out of social conditions; and the second phase which saw the development of the theory that the individual had the right to be unimpeded in the exercise of economic activity. While it cannot be said that Smith invented the latter theory.his work is the first major expression of it. He begins with the thought that labour is the source from which a nation derives what is necessary to it. The improvement of the division of labour is the measure of productivity and in it lies the human propensity to barter and exchange.Labour represents the three essential elements-wages, profit and rent-and these three also constitute income. From the working of the economy, Smith passes to its matter -'stock'- which encompasses all that man owns either for his own consumption or for the return which it brings him. The Wealth of Nations ends with a history of economic development, a definitive onslaught on the mercantile system, and some prophetic speculations on the limits of economic control.The Wealth of Nations is not a system, but as a provisional analysis it is complete convincing. The certainty of its criticism and its grasp of human nature have made it the first and greatest classic of modern economic thought" (PMM).
Edité par Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1925
Vendeur : Raptis Rare Books, Palm Beach, FL, Etats-Unis
Edition originale Signé
First edition, second issue of Fitzgerald's masterpiece with all six second issue points present, including: â echolaliaâ on page 60, â southernâ on page 119, â sickantiredâ on page 205, and â Union Stationâ on page 211. Octavo, original dark green cloth with gilt titles to the spine. Presentation copy, lengthily inscribed by the author on the front free endpaper, "For Theodore L. Liedemedt in memory of that week we went rowing in a bull-fiddle through the lovely lakes of Central Park, from Stravinski (Alias F. Scott Fitzgerald) May 1885 'Stuttgart.'" The recipient, Theodore L. Liedemedt, was a German-born musician and close personal friend of Fitzgerald's. Kept in Liedemedtâ s family for over ninety years, family lore has it that the two first met on board a transatlantic ship crossing in the 1920s (Fitzgerald traveled to Europe in 1921, 1924, 1928, and 1929). Liedemedt was a working musician who performed on some of those crossings. He died in 1929, just making it to 30. Fitzgerald, older only by three years, just outlived his friend, dying in 1940 at 44. A South New Jerseyian in the later part of his short life, Liedemedt arrived on American shores in 1915 during the First World War. He worked first on the crew of a German merchantman, interned in the Delaware River, then from June 1916 at a day job in Philadelphia. When the United States entered the First World War officially on April 6, 1917, Liedemedt was detained by the FBI on April 7. He was released a few days later when they found that he did not hare the political convictions of his home country and was, therefore, not a threat to the United States. Fitzgerald took up residence in New Jersey in in 1911 when he attended the Newman School, a Catholic prep school in Hackensack. After graduating he attending Princeton University, only a few miles from Liedemedtâ s stomping grounds, where Fitzgerald abruptly left in 1917 to join the American Army. Having avoided active service in Europe he moved to New York City where he would begin his career as a writer. Fitzgerald and Liedemedt were never more than roughly 80 miles from each other, from Liedemedtâ s landing in 1915 to his early death 14 years later. The nature of the inscriptionâ "knowing, familiar, full of inside referencesâ "points to an intimacy not documented in an other sources in Fitzgeraldâ s archives. In very good condition. Housed in a custom half morocco clamshell box made by the Harcourt Bindery. An exceptional inscription from Fitzgerald. In 1922, Fitzgerald announced his decision to write "something new--something extraordinary and beautiful and simple and intricately patterned." That extraordinary, beautiful, intricately patterned, and above all, simple novel became The Great Gatsby, arguably Fitzgerald's finest work and certainly the book for which he is best known. A portrait of the Jazz Age in all of its decadence and excess, Gatsby captured the spirit of the author's generation and earned itself a permanent place in American mythology. Cyril Connolly called The Great Gatsby one of the half dozen best American novels: "Gatsby remains a prose poem of delight and sadness which has by now introduced two generations to the romance of America, as Huckleberry Finn and Leaves of Grass introduced those before it" (Modern Movement 48). Consistently gaining popularity after World War II, the novel became an important part of American high school curricula. Today it is widely considered to be a literary classic and a contender for the title "Great American Novel". In 1998, the Modern Library editorial board voted it the 20th century's best American novel and second best English-language novel of the same time period. It was the basis for numerous stage and film adaptations. Gatsby had four film adaptations, with two exceptionally big-budget versions: the 1974 version starring Robert Redford and Mia Farrow, as well as Baz Luhrmannâ s 2013 version starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Tobey Maguire and Carrie Mulligan. Fitzgeraldâ s granddaughter praised Lurhmannâ s adaptation, stating â Scott would be proud.â Second printing, with â echolaliaâ on p. 60, â northernâ for â southernâ on p. 119, â sickantiredâ on p. 205, and â Union Street stationâ for â Union Stationâ on p. 211.
Edité par by I[ohn] Wolfe for Edward White, London, 1588
Vendeur : Arader Books, New York, NY, Etats-Unis
Edition originale
Hardcover. First. THE FIRST EUROPEAN BOOK TO PRINT CHINESE TEXT -- London: Printed by I. Wolfe for Edward White, 1588. First edition in English. Octavo (7 1/8" x 5 3/8", 181mm x 136mm). [Full collation available.] Bound in later (XVIIc?) paneled speckled calf. On the spine, five raised bands. Title gilt to the second panel. Blind roll to the edges of the boards. All edges of the text-block speckled red. Headpiece and fore-corners strengthened. Surface-cracking at the hinges, with some erosion to the boards (perhaps from moisture). Upper front fore-corner worn. Paste-downs renewed. Mildly evenly tanned throughout. Signs of damp to the lower margin through quire E, most pronounced to the title-leaf. Marginal ink-stain to L3-7. Paper flaws to H4 (marginal) and to M4 (about five lines high, two to three words across). Lacking the final blank. Armorial bookplate of Edward William Harcourt with a graphite shelf-mark to the front paste-down. Juan Gonzáles de Mendoza (1545-1618) was an Augustinian friar who, despite the subject of the present work, never went to China. He was, rather, appointed Bishop of Chiapas (Mexico, 1607) and then of Popayán (Colombia, 1608) -- and so might rather have become a scholar of the Americas. Indeed, the final part of the work does discuss the Caribbean and Mexico at some length, so much so that Ortelius crowns the present work the most informative in the preparation of his own atlas. In the end it was not the Augustinians but the Jesuits who made the greatest Western inroads to China, such that the opening decades of the XVIIc would see a surge in Chinese interest fueled by the publications of Matteo Ricci most of all. Yet for the curious Elizabethans, Parke's translation of the work (first published in 1585 in Spanish) -- made at the behest of Richard Hakluyt, who published a compendium of explorations (the Principall Navigations of 1589) -- was the largest window onto the kingdom of whose fifteen provinces Gonzales writes "every one of them is bigger then [sic] the greatest kingdome that we doo understand to be in all Europe" (p. 13). The second part (in two "bookes," pp. 136-237 and 238-304) expands the geographic remit with Spanish voyages to the Philippines. For all the accusations that the text is fundamentally derivative, it is still of considerable note for being the first to print, with western type, Chinese characters (pp. 92 & 93). The third part, drawn as it is from personal experience or at least personal research in "New Spain," has a more compelling authority. His description of Mexico City as a sort of Venetian Eden (p. 317) is particularly alluring. The Augustinians, like -- albeit to a lesser degree than -- the Jesuits, had a strong network of sources in the region that allowed for a comprehensive study of the region's topography, nature and people. As such, the volume is as much an important work of Elizabethan Americana (Sabin writes that it is "so rare that we have never seen it") as it is of Sinica. The volume was in the vast library (noted on p. 211 (sub Parke) of the 1883 catalogue) of Edward William Vernon Harcourt (1825-1891) of Nuneham House in Nuneham Courtenay in Oxfordshire. Harcourt was an MP from 1878-1885 for Oxforshire and then for Henley. His library shows him to be a passionate naturalist and Orientalist; he owned in addition to this English edition two Italian editions of the work. The work is indeed rare; it has come to auction only seven times in this century (commanding prices as high as $216,600!) and only 37 examples are recorded on OCLC. Purchased at Sotheby's London 4 November 2014, lot 189. Cordier, Sinica 13; ESTC S103230; Sabin 27783.
Edité par London: T. Bensley for the publisher, [1799]-1807., 1807
Vendeur : Arader Galleries - AraderNYC, New York, NY, Etats-Unis
Edition originale
3 parts bound in two volumes, broadsheets (23 x 17 4/8 inches). Part I: engraved half-title "A British Trophy ."; engraved portrait of Thornton by F. Bartolozzi after Russell, and additional portraits of Millington, Grew, Ray, Vaillant, Bonnet, Hales, and Townsend; engraved plate "The Universal Power of Love"; engraved title-page "The Prize dissertation or the Sexes of Plates by Carolus von Linnaeus. 1759"; 3 engraved tables; and 22 fine engraved plates of flowers showing their separate components according to Linnaeus. Part II: mezzotint portrait of Linnaeus in Lapland dress by Dunkarton after Hoffman, engraved portrait of Linnaeus and further portraits of Pitton, Tournefort, de Jussieu, Larmarck, Rousseau, Hill, Bute, Martyn, Milne, Withering, Curtis, Smith, Lambert, Rutherford, Woodville, Shaw, and Erasmus Darwin; engraved half-title and title-page; 2 engraved tables; 66 engraved plates of flowers showing their separate components according to Linnaean classification. Part III: engraved title-page on 2 sheets; engraved table of contents; engraved dedication on 2 sheets; engraved part-title; 3 engraved plates: "Flora Dispensing her Favours on Earth" (aquatint and stipple engraved, hand-colored), and "Aesculapius, Flora, Ceres and Cupid ." and "Cupid Inspiring the Plants with Love" (color-printed stipple-engravings finished by hand); 28 mezzotint and/or aquatint engraved plates printed in colors and/or colored by hand, comprising: "The Snowdrop" [Dunthorne state I]; "The Persian Cyclamen" [III]; "Hyacinths" [II]; "Roses" [II]; "A Group of Carnations" [II]; "A Group of Auriculas" [two only, II]; "Tulips" [II]; "The Queen"; "The Aloe" [I]; "The Nodding Renealmia" [I]; "The Night Blowing Cereus" [Plate A, State II]; "The Oblique-Leaved Begonia" [III]; "Large Flowering Sensitive Plant" [III]; "The Blue Passion Flower" [III]; "The Winged Passion Flower" [III]; "The Quadrangular Passion Flower" [II]; "The White Lily" [III]; 'The Superb Lily' [B, III]; "The Dragon Arum" [IV]; "The Maggot-Bearing Stapelia" [II]; "American Bog Plants" [II]; "The Pontic Rhododendron"; "The American Cowslip" [I]; "The Narrow Leaved Kalmia"; "The China Limodoron"; "The Indian Reed" [II]; "The Sacred Egyptian Bean"; "The Blue Egyptian Water Lily" (endleaves and preliminaries creased, some marginal spotting). Contemporary maroon morocco gilt (hinges very weak). First edition. Only one of the justly celebrated plates of flowers ("The Roses") was by Thornton, the others are after paintings by Abraham Pether, Philip Reinagle, Sydenham Edwards, Peter Henderson and others, although he selected the subjects of the plates, their symbolism and dramatic landscapes. A doctor by training, a substantial inheritance allowed Thornton to achieve his dream of "an immense work in many volumes which in scope, illustration, paper and typography would surpass anything in any other European country" (Grigson). However the enterprise brought about his financial ruin and in spite of several lotteries designed to raise funds Thornton was forced to return to medical practice in order to support himself. "At the heart of the 'New Illustration' was Thornton's scheme to produce a specifically British botanical publication of a magnificence to surpass all previous examples. Teams of master engravers and colourists, including Francesco Bartolozzi, Richard Earlom, and John Landseer, used the full range of modern printing techniques to produce coloured illustrations after paintings by such prominent artists as Sir William Beechey, James Opie, Henry Raeburn, John Russell, Abraham Pether, and his two favoured illustrators, Peter Henderson and Philip Reinagle. The illustrations were not restricted to the 'choicest flowers' in the world, but included portraits of eminent botanists-including the famous portrait of Linnaeus in Lapp (Sami) dress-elaborate allegories, such as 'Cupid Inspiring the Plants to Love', and a bust of Linnaeus being honoured by Aesculapius, Flora, Ceres, and Cupid. The.
Edité par LondonF.G. Moon -49., 1846
Vendeur : Robert Frew Ltd. ABA ILAB, London, Royaume-Uni
Livre Edition originale
FIRST EDITION, SUBSCRIBERS' ISSUE. 3 volumes, large folio (60 x 43 cm). Contemporary red half morocco for M. Ogle & Son of Glasgow, spines with 6 raised bands, each decorated with triple gilt fillets, compartments richly gilt and lettered direct, sides and corners trimmed with quadruple gilt fillets, Placard pattern marbled sides, pale primrose surface-paper endpapers, all edges gilt. 124 tinted lithographed plates, 3 vignette-titles and 121 plates, in the scarcest form, with original hand-colour, cut to the edge of the image and mounted on card in imitation of watercolours, as issued, mounted on guards throughout. Cntemporary presentation inscription to the title page "Alex Crum Ewing /From his affectionate uncle /James Crum /1859." (The Crum Ewings were a prominent Glasgow family of the day) Bindings professionally refurbished, plates and letterpress clean and bright. A most handsome copy. First edition, in the preferred deluxe format with exquisite hand-colouring, of "one of the most important and elaborate ventures of 19th-century publishing. the apotheosis of the tinted lithograph" (Abbey Travel). Roberts's work was published in three formats between 1842 and 1849, with the present deluxe coloured-and-mounted issue offered at triple the price of the simplest format. David Roberts, RA (1796-1864), enjoyed a wide popularity in his day for his European views, but it is on the outstanding success of this project that the modern appreciation of his work is based. In August 1838 he arrived in Alexandria to start a carefully planned enterprise. It is claimed that he was the first European to have unlimited access to the mosques in Cairo, under the proviso that he did not commit desecration by using brushes made from hog's bristle. Leaving Cairo, he sailed up the Nile to record the monuments represented in the Egypt & Nubia division of the work, travelling as far as Wadi Halfa and the Second Cataract. At the time of publication, it was these views that excited the most widespread enthusiasm. Before leaving for the Near East, Roberts had already discussed publication with the engravers Edward and William Finden, but on his return both Finden and the publisher John Murray, who was also approached, baulked at the risks involved in a publication of the size and grandeur envisaged. However, Francis Graham Moon - "a self-made man from a modest background" (ODNB) who had attracted the attention of the queen and ventured to represent himself as "Publisher in Ordinary to her Majesty" - accepted the challenge, and persuaded Louis Haghe to lithograph Roberts's drawings. Roberts acknowledged that Haghe's work was hardly less important than his own, complimenting his "masterly vigour and boldness". The burdensome demands of the task may have even prompted Haghe's early retirement as a lithographer. The Reverend George Croly (1780-1860), poet and well-known contributor to Blackwood's and The Literary Gazette, was engaged to edit the text from Roberts's journal. At an investment of a staggering 50,000, this was "undoubtedly the most costly and lavish, and potentially risky, publishing enterprise that Moon had ever undertaken". As a promotional tool, an exhibition of the original drawings was opened in London in 1840 and subsequently toured the country, creating a considerable stir and drawing praise from Ruskin who described them as "faithful and laborious beyond any outlines from nature I have ever seen." The exhibition catalogue also served as a prospectus for the projected work, and was apparently very successful in bringing forward subscribers, without whom any work of this size would have been doomed. Egypt & Nubia was subsequently published in a variety of smaller formats. In a dramatic gesture, the lithographic stones for the original large format work were broken at an auction of the remaining plates in December 1853 so that the originals could never be reproduced. Widely recognised as the ultimate expression of tinted lithography, an artistic and commercial triumph, Roberts's Egypt & Nubia was the result of a uniquely fortuitous collaboration between artist, publisher and engraver. This - a wonderful copy, in the preferred state, in a splendid contemporary binding - fully embodies the continuing impact of the project. Abbey Travel 272; Tooley 401-2; Blackmer 1432.
Edité par N.p., [Edinburgh, 1785
Vendeur : SOPHIA RARE BOOKS, Koebenhavn V, Danemark
Membre d'association : ILAB
Edition originale
First edition. INSCRIBED PRESENTATION COPY OF THE EXTREMELY RARE ABSTRACT. First edition, inscribed presentation copy from Hutton to Matthew Boulton, of one of the great rarities in the history of science, Hutton's first announcement of his revolutionary view that our earth was shaped by slow, steady forces acting over a long period of time - the doctrine of uniformitarianism. According to Victor Eyles, "10 or at most 12" copies of this Abstract exist (photocopy of letter from Eyles to a previous owner laid in; Eyles is the author of a published bibliographical account of the Abstract, and of the DSB article on Hutton). "Hutton's theory, or 'System of the Earth,' as he called it originally, was first made public at two meetings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, early in 1785. The society published it in full in 1788, but offprints of this paper were in circulation in 1787, and possibly in 1786. The theory first appeared in print in condensed form, in a thirty-page pamphlet entitled Abstract of a Dissertation . Concerning the System of the Earth, Its Duration, and Stability, which Hutton circulated privately in 1785. The interest of this pamphlet is that it states all the conclusions which were essential to the theory as a whole. It emphasizes that even at this early date Hutton's thinking was far ahead of that of his contemporaries" (ibid.). "Hutton's most important contribution to science was his theory of the earth, first announced in 1785. Hutton had then been actively interested in geology for fully thirty years. It is known that he had completed the theory in outline some years earlier, and according to Black, writing in 1787, Hutton had formed its principal parts more than twenty years before. In essence the theory was simple, yet it was of such fundamental importance that Hutton has been called the founder of modern geology" (DSB). "The effect of his ideas on the learned world can be compared only to the earlier revolution in thought brought about by Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus, German astronomer Johannes Kepler, and Italian astronomer Galileo when they displaced the concept of a universe centred on Earth with the concept of a solar system centred on the Sun. Both advances challenged existing thought and were fiercely resisted for many years" (Britannica)."Born in Edinburgh, James Hutton (1726-97) studied medicine at the university there during 1744-47, after which he spent two years in Paris, where he probably first developed an interest in geology. Hutton returned to Edinburgh in 1750, where "he entered fully into the intellectual and social life of the city. Joseph Black became his most intimate friend. Through Black he became a friend of James Watt, in whose work he took much interest . About 1781 he first met [John] Playfair, and later he befriended Sir James Hall, who attained distinction as a geologist and chemist" (DSB). Through Watt, Hutton met the members of the Lunar Society of Birmingham, a group of scientists, engineers and industrialists from the English Midlands, which included Watt's business partner, Matthew Boulton. Six copies are recorded by ESTC: three in Britain and three in America. ABPC/RBH list one other copy (Sotheby's, 1988). Provenance: Matthew Boulton (1728-1809) (presentation inscription on title in Hutton's hand: 'Matthew Bolton [sic] Esqr from James Hutton'); Henry Faul (d. 1981). Hutton's closest friends included Joseph Black, Adam Smith (who appointed Hutton and Black as his literary executors), and James Watt. It was Watt who introduced him to Matthew Bolton, manufacturer, scientist and entrepreneur, very probably when visiting Birmingham in 1774 as Watt moved to that city to join in partnership with Bolton to develop the steam engine. Hutton was a 'satellite' member of the famous Lunar Society, which included John Whitehurst, Boulton, Josiah Wedgewood, Erasmus Darwin, Joseph Priestley, Watt, William Withering, and others. Henry Faul was professor of geophysics at the University of Pennsylvania and a noted collector of rare geological books. Laid in is a photocopy of a letter from V. A. Eyles to Faul, dated 26 October 1971, discussing the rarity ("10 or at most 12") of the book and the importance of this copy and authenticating the inscription. In the Abstract, "Hutton describes briefly his purpose in carrying out the inquiry, the methods he employed in reaching his conclusions, and the conclusions themselves. His purpose was to ascertain (a) the length of time the earth had existed as a "habitable world"; (b) the changes it had undergone in the past; and (c) whether any end to the present state of affairs could be foreseen. He stated that the facts of the history of the earth were to be found in 'natural history,' not in human records, and he ignored the biblical account of creation as a source of scientific information (a view he expressed explicitly later on). The method he employed in carrying out his inquiry had been a careful examination of the rocks of the earth's crust, and a study of the natural processes that operated on the earth's surface, or might be supposed, from his examination of the rocks, to have operated in the past. In this way, 'from principles of natural philosophy,' he attempted to arrive at some knowledge of the order and system in the economy of the globe, and to form a rational opinion as to the course of nature and the possible course of natural events in the future. "Hutton concluded that rocks in general (clearly he referred here to the sedimentary rocks) are composed of the products of the sea (fossils) and of other materials similar to those found on the seashore (the products of erosion). Hence they could not have formed part of the original crust of the earth, but were formed by a 'second cause' and had originally been deposited at the bottom of the ocean. This reasoning, he stated, implies that while the present land was forming there must have existed a former land on which organic life existed, that this former lan.
Edité par Fisher, Knight & Co, St. Albans, 1953
Vendeur : SOPHIA RARE BOOKS, Koebenhavn V, Danemark
Membre d'association : ILAB
Edition originale Signé
First edition. DISCOVERY OF THE STRUCTURE OF DNA. SIGNED BY ALL BUT ONE OF THE AUTHORS. First edition, offprint, signed by Watson, Crick, Wilkins, Gosling, Stokes & Wilson, i.e. six of the seven authors. We know of no copy signed by Franklin, and strongly doubt that any such copy exists. Furthermore this copy is, what we believe to be, just one of three copies signed by six authors. One of the most important scientific papers of the twentieth century, which "records the discovery of the molecular structure of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), the main component of chromosomes and the material that transfers genetic characteristics in all life forms. Publication of this paper initiated the science of molecular biology. Forty years after Watson and Crick's discovery, so much of the basic understanding of medicine and disease has advanced to the molecular level that their paper may be considered the most significant single contribution to biology and medicine in the twentieth century" (One Hundred Books Famous in Medicine, p. 362). "The discovery in 1953 of the double helix, the twisted-ladder structure of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), by James Watson and Francis Crick marked a milestone in the history of science and gave rise to modern molecular biology, which is largely concerned with understanding how genes control the chemical processes within cells. In short order, their discovery yielded ground-breaking insights into the genetic code and protein synthesis. During the 1970s and 1980s, it helped to produce new and powerful scientific techniques, specifically recombinant DNA research, genetic engineering, rapid gene sequencing, and monoclonal antibodies, techniques on which today's multi-billion dollar biotechnology industry is founded. Major current advances in science, namely genetic fingerprinting and modern forensics, the mapping of the human genome, and the promise, yet unfulfilled, of gene therapy, all have their origins in Watson and Crick's inspired work. The double helix has not only reshaped biology, it has become a cultural icon, represented in sculpture, visual art, jewelry, and toys" (Francis Crick Papers, National Library of Medicine, profiles./SC/Views/Exhibit/narrative/). In 1962, Watson, Crick, and Wilkins shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine "for their discoveries concerning the molecular structure of nucleic acids and its significance for information transfer in living material." This copy is signed by all the authors except Rosalind Franklin (1920 -1958) - we have never seen or heard of a copy signed by her. In 1869, the Swiss physiological chemist Friedrich Miescher (1844-95) first identified what he called 'nuclein' inside the nuclei of human white blood cells. (The term 'nuclein' was later changed to 'nucleic acid' and eventually to 'deoxyribonucleic acid,' or 'DNA.') Miescher's plan was to isolate and characterize not the nuclein (which nobody at that time realized existed) but instead the protein components of leukocytes (white blood cells). Miescher thus made arrangements for a local surgical clinic to send him used, pus-coated patient bandages; once he received the bandages, he planned to wash them, filter out the leukocytes, and extract and identify the various proteins within the white blood cells. But when he came across a substance from the cell nuclei that had chemical properties unlike any protein, including a much higher phosphorous content and resistance to proteolysis (protein digestion), Miescher realized that he had discovered a new substance. Sensing the importance of his findings, Miescher wrote, "It seems probable to me that a whole family of such slightly varying phosphorous-containing substances will appear, as a group of nucleins, equivalent to proteins". But Miescher's discovery of nucleic acids was not appreciated by the scientific community, and his name had fallen into obscurity by the 20th century. "Researchers working on DNA in the early 1950s used the term 'gene' to mean the smallest unit of genetic information, but they did not know what a gene actually looked like structurally and chemically, or how it was copied, with very few errors, generation after generation. In 1944, Oswald Avery had shown that DNA was the 'transforming principle,' the carrier of hereditary information, in pneumococcal bacteria. Nevertheless, many scientists continued to believe that DNA had a structure too uniform and simple to store genetic information for making complex living organisms. The genetic material, they reasoned, must consist of proteins, much more diverse and intricate molecules known to perform a multitude of biological functions in the cell. "Crick and Watson recognized, at an early stage in their careers, that gaining a detailed knowledge of the three-dimensional configuration of the gene was the central problem in molecular biology. Without such knowledge, heredity and reproduction could not be understood. They seized on this problem during their very first encounter, in the summer of 1951, and pursued it with single-minded focus over the course of the next eighteen months. This meant taking on the arduous intellectual task of immersing themselves in all the fields of science involved: genetics, biochemistry, chemistry, physical chemistry, and X-ray crystallography. Drawing on the experimental results of others (they conducted no DNA experiments of their own), taking advantage of their complementary scientific backgrounds in physics and X-ray crystallography (Crick) and viral and bacterial genetics (Watson), and relying on their brilliant intuition, persistence, and luck, the two showed that DNA had a structure sufficiently complex and yet elegantly simple enough to be the master molecule of life. "Other researchers had made important but seemingly unconnected findings about the composition of DNA; it fell to Watson and Crick to unify these disparate findings into a coherent theory of genetic transfer. The organic chemist Alexander Todd had determined t.
Edité par [Speyer, Peter Drach, before April 1487]., 1487
Vendeur : Antiquariat INLIBRIS Gilhofer Nfg. GmbH, Vienna, A, Autriche
Edition originale
Folio. 129 ff. Rubricated with lombardic initials in red and blue. 19th century white paper boards with printed paper spine label. Stored in custom-made full green morocco gilt clamshell box. Considered unobtainable: the first edition of the notorious "Hammer of Witches", which laid down procedures for finding out and convicting witches. Called one of "the most vicious [.] book[s] in all of world literature" (Jerouschek, 500 Years of the Malleus Maleficarum, xxxi), it is certainly among the most misogynistic texts ever written and provided justification for the murder of tens of thousands of women in medieval Europe. Arguably, no book has been more damaging to the history of women than the Malleus. It "owes much of its notoriety to its infamous diatribe on the female sex. Kramer attempts to establish a direct connection between diabolic witchcraft and women throughout his treatise, and dedicates an entire chapter (Liber 1, Quaestio 6) exclusively to explaining why women are more prone to become witches than are men. In this chapter, he contends that women's nature is weaker than men's not only physically, but also psychologically, intellectually, and morally. Kramer argues that women's lascivious nature and moral and intellectual inferiority are the reasons for their greater proclivity to witchcraft. He [.] claims that the devil takes advantage of women's insatiable lust and inherent propensity to receive the influence of a disembodied spirit in order to harm Christian society" (Herzig, 27f.) While the Malleus was one of the most widespread texts of its time and went through no fewer than thirteen subsequent editions within three decades, complete copies of the first edition are of the utmost rarity, and only a few copies are found in American institutions. According to Rarebookhub, it has appeared at auction only once since 1925 (Sotheby's, Witchcraft and the Occult: Selected Books from the Collection of the late Robert Lenkiewicz, 2003, lot 295). - Upper cover stained and soiled, first three pages of text with some soiling and staining, neat repair to final printed leaf. All in all, a remarkably fine, clean copy. - From the famous Donaueschingen library of the princes of Fürstenberg with their printed spine title and shelfmark "298" on the spine label (repeated in pencil on recto of f. 1). - HC* 9238. Goff I-163. British Library IB.8581 (acquired in 1867 but not recorded in BMC). ISTC ii00163000. Coumont I4.2. Danet 16. Graesse III, 425. T. Herzig, "Witches, Saints, and Heretics: Heinrich Kramer's Ties with Italian Women Mystics", Magic, Ritual, and Witchcraft 1 (2006), pp. 24-55.
Edité par Jan Maire, Leiden, 1637
Vendeur : SOPHIA RARE BOOKS, Koebenhavn V, Danemark
Membre d'association : ILAB
Edition originale
First edition. PMM 129 - THE INVENTION OF ANALYTIC GEOMETRY. First edition, a fine, large copy, of Descartes' first and most famous work. Following the Discours, now celebrated as one of the canonical texts of Western philosophy, are three 'Essais', the last of which, La Géométrie, contains the birth of analytical or co-ordinate geometry, "of epoch-making importance" (Cajori, History of Mathematics, p. 174), designated by John Stuart Mill as "the greatest single step ever made in the progress of the exact sciences". It "rendered possible the later achievements of seventeenth-century mathematical physics" (Hall, Nature and nature's laws (1970), p. 91). The first of the Essais, La Dioptrique, contains Descartes' discovery of 'Snell's law' of refraction of light (earlier than Snell); the second, Les Météores, contains Descartes' explanation of the rainbow, based on the optical theories developed in the first Essai. "It is no exaggeration to say that Descartes was the first of modern philosophers and one of the first modern scientists; in both branches of learning his influence has been vast . The revolution he caused can be most easily found in his reassertion of the principle (lost in the middle ages) that knowledge, if it is to have any value, must be intelligence and not erudition. His application of modern algebraic arithmetic to ancient geometry created the analytical geometry which is the basis of the post-Euclidean development of that science. His statement of the elementary laws of matter and movement in the physical universe, the theory of vortices, and many other speculations threw light on every branch of science from optics to biology. Not least may be remarked his discussion of Harvey's discovery of the circulation of blood, the first mention of it by a prominent foreign scholar. All this found its starting point in the 'Discourse on the Method for Proper Reasoning and Investigating Truth in the Sciences'. Descartes's purpose is to find the simple indestructible proposition which gives to the universe and thought their order and system. Three points are made: the truth of thought, when thought is true to itself (thus cogito, ergo, sum), the inevitable elevation of its partial state in our finite consciousness to its full state in the infinite existence of God, and the ultimate reduction of the material universe to extension and local movement" (PMM). Provenance: Lessing J. Rosenwald (small morocco monogram bookplate); given to the Library of Congress (bookplate and duplicate stamp); Richard Green (Christie's NY, 17 June 2008, The Richard Green Library, lot 87, $116,500). In October 1629 Descartes began work on The World, which included not only his Treatise on Light, first published as Le Monde in 1664, and the Treatise on Man, first published two years earlier as Renatus Descartes de Homine, but also the material on the formation of colours in the Meteors and the material on geometrical optics in the Dioptrics, both subsequently published in 1637 along with the Discourse and the Geometry. Descartes sets out the details of the treatise he was working on from mid-1629 to 1633 in part 5 of the Discourse: "I tried to explain the principles in a Treatise which certain considerations prevented me from publishing, and I know of no better way of making them known than to set out here briefly what it contained. I had as my aim to include in it everything that I thought I knew before I wrote it about the nature of material things. But just as painters, not being able to represent all the different sides of a body equally well on a flat canvas, choose one of the main ones and set it facing the light, and shade the others so as to make them stand out only when viewed from the perspective of the chosen side; so too, fearing that I could not put everything I had in mind in my discourse, I undertook to expound fully only what I knew about light. Then, as the opportunity arose, I added something about the Sun and the fixed stars, because almost all of it comes from them; the heavens, because they transmit it; the planets, comets, and the earth, because they reflect light; and especially bodies on the earth, because they are coloured, or transparent, or luminous; and finally about man, because he observes these bodies" (quoted in Gaukroger (ed.), Rene Descartes: The World and Other Writings, p. xi). But The World was never published in Descartes' lifetime. "During the years immediately following the condemnation of Galileo, Descartes held fast to his initial view that the cardinals had made a mistake, though one that was potentially dangerous for himself. His fundamental idea was that the decision involved a misunderstanding of the role of the Bible as a source of scientific knowledge. He also argued that he was not bound to accept the Roman decision as a matter of faith, and he hoped that it would be reversed in due course so that he could publish his World without fear of censure. He had to concede, however, that as long as there was no change of mind about Galileo by the church, the World would remain 'out of season' . In these circumstances, the next-best option was to consider ways in which parts of his work that were not theologically sensitive could be released to the public. Accordingly, during the years from 1633 to 1637, Descartes spent most of his time on this project. His efforts came to fruition with the publication of the Discourse on the Method for Guiding one's Reason and Searching for Truth in the Sciences, together with the Dioptrics, the Meteors, and the Geometry, which are samples of this Method (1637) . [It] omitted what Descartes called the 'foundations of my physics', that is, the controversial view of the universe that included heliocentrism. He offered instead some examples of the results that one could expect from his basic theory when applied to specific areas such as dioptrics. For good measure, he made sure that the book appeared anonymously. "The standard practice among scholars.
Vendeur : Jonathan A. Hill, Bookseller Inc., New York, NY, Etats-Unis
Edition originale
15 double-page woodblock-printed color illustrations. 9.5 folding leaves & colophon page; 8.5 folding leaves & colophon page. Two vols. 8vo (255 x 189 mm.), orig. blue patterned wrappers (gajo jitate-style, somewhat rubbed), with slightly oxidized silver pigment decoration, orig. block-printed labels on both covers (labels a little worn). [From Vols. I & II colophons]: Edo: Tsutaya Juzaburo, [ca. 1791 or 1792]. First edition, of the utmost rarity, the final installment in Utamaro's trilogy, considered the pinnacle of Japanese book illustration. Following The Insect Book [Ehon mushi erabi] (1788) and The Shell Book [Shiohi no tsuto] (ca. 1789/90), this intricately printed work, devoted to birds through the seasons and paired with kyoka poetry, was published in the early 1790s. In an article posthumously published in 1997, Jack Hillier wrote: "His achievements in yet another sphere, that of the album or picture-book, demonstrate the breadth of Utamaro's genius. [The three books] form a trilogy in a genre in which no other ukiyo-e artist, except Shigemasa, competes."-"A Second Look at Utamaro," Impressions, No. 19 (1997), p. 53. "For the 'Bird Book', Momo Chidori Kyoka Awase, undated but, judging by the publisher's advertisements contained in it for books by Utamaro and Shigemasa dated 1790 and 1791 respectively, probably published in 1791, a return was made to the 'Fifteen Verse Pairs' pattern, the framework for the 'Insect Book'. The two volumes comprising the work contain a total of fifteen prints of birds with flowers, and on each print there are two kyoka, transcribed by the poets, according to the fanciful preface, from the songs of the birds themselves. "There is a quieter, more subdued kind of colour-printing in this album than in the 'Insect Book' or the 'Shell Book', but it is none the less remarkably beautiful. The plumage of the birds is rendered with a downy softness and by the very nature of the subjects, there is a quicker tempo, a greater liveliness, in the compositions. In one instance, a double artifice of the print-makers achieved the sort of subtle effects that can only be appreciated by viewing the original itself. In this print, a cormorant is diving and its half-submerged body and the fish it is chasing are in a shadowy grey tone, whilst the tail-end of the body is in clear-cut line and bright colour; two snowy herons are wading nearby, their forms in white reserve on the pale ground, and their plumage rendered by gauffrage. Other prints lend themselves better to reproduction: the confrontation of a woodpecker on a pine bole and an hawfinch on a branch leads to an electric alertness in the perched birds; the owl and the jay, on the other hand, are back to back on a leafless branch, little colour being used and the ruffled feathers of the owl conveyed with astonishing economy. The 'Bird Book' was probably published in 1791."-Hillier, The Art of the Japanese Book (1987), pp. 411 & 422-24 (pictured on pp. 422-23). Fine copy of a book that we have been looking for over several decades. The plates and text leaves in Vol. II have nearly invisible expert and minor repairs, mostly in blank portions, because of worming. Housed in a chitsu and a contemporary wooden box, with two handwritten labels. â § Louise Norton Brown, Block Printing & Book Illustration in Japan (1924), p. 169-70-(she records the two volumes as separate publications due to both having colophons). For a superlative translation of the poems in this book, see the Metropolitan Museum of Art's copy, as presented on their "The Met Collection" page.
Edité par Chapman and Hall, 1841
Vendeur : Gerard A.J. Stodolski, Inc. Autographs, Bedford, NH, Etats-Unis
Livre Edition originale
Hardcover. Etat : Fine. 1st Edition. DICKENS, CHARLES. (1812-1870). English novelist of the Victorian era; his numerous beloved works include: A Christmas Carol , A Tale of Two Cities Barnaby Rudge , Bleak House , David Copperfield , Dombey and Son , Great Expectations , Martin Chuzzlewit , Nicholas Nickleby , Oliver Twist , The Old Curiosity Shop , and The Pickwick Papers . His book: THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP. London: [Bradbury and Evans for] Chapman and Hall, 1841. Quired in 6s (251 x 167 mm). Dedication leaf to Samuel Rogers (not called for by Smith, but that in vol.1 of Master Humphrey's Clock from which this is separately issued). Illustrations in text by George Cattermole and Hablot K. Browne ["Phiz"]. Gilt-ruled on covers, gilt-decorated on spine, deep green/black and red morocco lettering pieces, all edges gilt, ink stamp of Chapman and Hall on front free endpaper and of the binder Hayday on rear free endpaper. Housed in a vintage custom full leather embossed slip case, of excellent quality. BOLDLY INSCRIBED TO: WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR FROM HIS HEARTY FRIEND, CHARLES DICKENS , ON THE TITLE PAGE. THIS PRESENTATION IS ONE OF EXTRAORDINARY ASSOCIATIONS, one made even more so when one considers Landor (1775 - 1864) was 37 years Dickens senior, and then further inscribed by Landor to his son, opposite the title page, Arnold Savage Landor / from Babbo [a family nickname]. Landor was an immediate admirer of Dickens works. In April 1839, before Dickens was introduced to Landor by John Forster, [both Landor s and Dickens biographer, literary advisor and inner circle friend], Landor wrote to Forster, Tell Dickens he has drawn from me more tears and more smiles than are remaining to me for all the rest of the world, real or ideal. Dickens and Landor first met in January 1840, through Forster, at Lady Blessington s literary salon. On February 10, 1840, Landor wrote to his friend G.P.R. James: In town I made a new acquaintance -- is a really popular, and what is much better, truly extraordinary man the author of Nicholas Nickleby. He comes on Saturday to spend a few days with me at Bath, and on Monday I have invited my elite of beauty (the Paynters) to meet him How I wish you could too! Dickens is really a good as well as a delightful man. It is rarely that two such persons meet, as you and he nor in any other society could I easily be the least of three. In 1869, a year before his death, Dickens wrote to Forster: Landor s ghost goes along the silent streets before me. Forster wrote it was the first meeting in Bath on February 7, 1840, that there came into the novelist s mind the first stirrings of imagination that eventually took form as Little Nell who became to Landor as one who had really lived and died. Dickens on May 9, 1869, in a letter to Forster, confirmed what Landor had often previously told friends that it was at Landor s lodgings in Bath that Dickens first thought of Nell. Landor later declared that he had never in his life regretted anything so much as having failed to buy the house and burn it to the ground, so that no meaner association should ever desecrate the birthplace of Nell. It was during this first trip that Rose Paynter, Landor s elite of beauty and best friend in Bath, introduced Dickens to the original of Quilp in The Old Curiosity Shop , a frightful little dwarf named Prior, who let donkeys on hire and used a heavy stick impartially on his wife and donkeys. On September 13, 1840, in a letter to John Forster, Dickens determined he wanted to separate and publish The Old Curiosity Shop from Master Humphrey s Clock, although it wasn t until April 20, 1841, in a letter to his dear friend Miss Angela Burdett Coutts [Coutts Bank family] that he had given his binder instructions to put The Old Curiosity Shop in one Volume. Since The Old Curiosity Shop (40 weekly numbers published from April 25, 1840 to February 6, 1841) was a part of Master Humphrey s Clock, Dickens had to add sections to make it a viable separate novel. On February 11, 1841, Dickens asked Landor to be his newly born fourth child s godfather, which incredibly excited and honored Landor. The Christening took place on December 4, 1841, eleven days before the first separate publication of The Old Curiosity Shop . Landor s life is a story in its own right. It is an amazing catalogue of incidents and misfortunes, many of them self-inflicted, but some of no fault of his own. His headstrong nature and hot-headed temperament, combined with a complete contempt for authority, landed him in a great deal of trouble over the years. Landor s writing often landed him on the wrong side of the laws of libel. Many times his friends, including Dickens and Forster, had to come to his aid in smoothing the ruffled feathers of his opponents or in encouraging him to moderate his behavior. His friends were equally active in the desperate attempt to get his work published, where he offended or felt cheated by a succession of publishers who found his work either unsellable or unpublishable. He was repeatedly involved in legal disputes with his neighbors and Dickens characterization of him as Lawrence Boythorn in Bleak House (1852-3) revolves around such a dispute over a gate between Boythorn and Sir Leicester Dedlock. His stormy marriage with his long-suffering wife resulted in a long separation (she and his family lived in Florence) and when she finally decided to take him back, he tried to escape several times, only to be brought or coaxed back. Yet, Landor was described as the kindest and gentlest of men. He collected a coterie of friends who went to great lengths to help him as his loyalty and liberality of heart were as inexhaustible as his bounty and beneficence of hand. Modern day biographers of Dickens concluded that Landor s aggressive talk was a cover for an extremely sensitive, sentimental and generous character, who was exceptionally loyal to his friends. Simply superb and with associations of the highest order!.
Edité par Amsterdam, Wetsten, Smith and Jannson-Waesberg, 1734-1765, 1765
Vendeur : Arader Galleries - AraderNYC, New York, NY, Etats-Unis
Edition originale
4 volumes. Folio (20 x 13 inches). Text in Latin and Dutch. Half-titles, title-pages printed in red and black with engraved vignettes. Engraved allegorical frontispiece after L.F. Dubourg by P. Tanj, portrait of Seba by J. Houbraken after J.M. Quinkhard, and 449 engraved plates including 175 double-page, by P. Tanji, A Van der Laan, F. de Bakker, A. van Buysen, de la Croix, J. Folkema, W. Jongman, F. Morellon, K.D. Ptter, J. Punt and J. van der Speyk, engraved headpieces, blank label pasted over the last two digits of date on colophon of volume III. Contemporary mottled calf (rebacked in 1932 in brown morocco, very worn). Provenance: with the 18th -century bookplate of the Earl of Moira, probably John Rawdon, the first early (1720-1793), on the verso of each half-title; with the bookplate of the Leicester City Libraries on the front paste-down of each volume, and their discreet blind library stamp to the upper margin of the preliminaries of each volume, and about ten plates. First edition of one of the great eighteenth century "cabinet of curiosities" and one of the century's most desirable natural history books. Seba, a German-born apothecary and a wealthy member of the Dutch East India Company, practised in Amsterdam where his enormous wunderkammer became internationally famous as one of the city's essential sights. In 1717 his first collection was sold to Peter the Great of Russia. Most of the text of the first two volumes was written by Seba himself. After his death in 1736, publication could only be continued by using the proceeds of an auction of his second collection of curiosities. Seba's collaborators on the work included many noted scientists of the day, including H. Boerhaave, H.D. Graubius, P. Massuet and P. van Musschenbroek. Possibly the most important contribution was the description of fishes by P. Artedi who worked at the recommendation of Linnaeus (who declined an opportunity to participate himself). The plates depicts birds, mammals, insects, butterflies, reptiles, amphibians, spiders, millepedes, fish, molluscs, crustacea, minerals and fossils and sixty plates depicting some six thousand examples of shells in beautiful arrangements. The book is also popular for its illustrations of monsters and freaks of nature, including a seven-headed hydra and some almost unmentionable subjects which were probably the result of vivisection. Baron Cuvier re-issued the plates in Paris, 1827-1830. Anker 454; Pritzel 8562; Landwehr 179. Catalogued by Kate Hunter.(6.4V.3C).
Edité par Late 1940s to 1971, New York, 1940
Vendeur : Second Story Books, ABAA, Rockville, MD, Etats-Unis
Edition originale
A collection of approximately 2,000 photographs and negatives, taken by African-American independent photographer Malcolm Downes Thomas (c. 1900 - c. 1972) from the late 1940s to 1971. Thomas photographed various aspects of New York City street and family scenes in both Manhattan and Harlem, Eastern Long Island landscapes and wildlife and a variety of images taken on various Caribbean islands. The collection also includes over a hundred original photographs and negatives of Bettie Page in a private session taken in 1952. In its entirety, this collection represents a vision of nature, street scenes, human interest, and erotica as seen from the perspective of an affluent African-American. Thomas focused his photographs of human subjects on his fellow African-Americans, taking not only numerous study series of portraits but also spontaneous shots of everyday life. Children playing, people watching television on the couch, and social gatherings are all represented. New York local events are recorded in this collection, including Wrestling Matches (3/29/53), a New York fire and efforts to extinguish it (1/7/53), African-American's swimming in the ocean (1953), and outdoor Ice-Skating (12/51). His cityscape work is not limited to either the narrow or the broad, allowing both views of facades and paint as well as skylines. The nature work follows a similar trend, with close-ups of grasshoppers, rabbits, flowers, and others, followed by islands and landscapes. His early travels included Mexico in 1951/52, St. Thomas in 1953, and Nassau in 1953 where he and his wife participated in various photographic contests and won awards or citations for specific images. Fashion and erotica are represented as well. Thomas photographed an unknown African-American woman modelling various outfits in various poses (12/20/52). His erotica images include a private Bettie Page session dated 3/8/52 with over a hundred negatives and an unknown East-Asian woman photographed nude on at least three different occasions, 2/16/52, 12/18/53 and 12/19/53. Thomas was a Navy radar installer and later a Master Electrician. In 1943 he married his third wife Velma Henry who was a registered nurse. Together they took up photography as a hobby, traveling frequently to the Caribbean and Mexico searching for photographic opportunities. They both preferred Leica cameras for their shots. Thomas developed his own work in their kitchen, some birds and flowers were done in color, the rest were black and white. They subsequently built a home in Quoque, Long Island for weekend trips and vacations. They had no children. According to family lore, during the 1940s Malcolm Thomas became a member of the Pioneer Photography Club, comprised of black friends. There is a story that one of the members (Jerry Tibbs) was on a New York beach and saw this beautiful woman (Bettie Mae Page) who agreed to pose for him and other members of the Pioneer Photography Club. This story is similar to the one told by Bettie Page herself, that in 1950, while walking along the Coney Island shore, Bettie met NYPD officer Jerry Tibbs. Jerry was an avid photographer and gave Bettie his card. He suggested she'd make a good pin-up model, and in exchange for allowing him to photograph her, he'd help make up her first pin-up portfolio, free of charge. Tibbs introduced Page to other Harlem photographers like the legendary Jamaican nude photographer and jazz musician Cass Carr. Carr hired her as a model in 1952 for his nude "Camera Club Outings" in which amateur and professional cameramen would pay her ten dollars to pose. By 1955 Bettie Page had become the most photographed glamour model in the United States and was the January 1955 Playboy magazine Playmate of the Month In addition to the photographic archive, the owner of the collection, Malcolm Thomas' nephew Louis P. Brown, has created an uncorrected oblong folio proof copy of Malcom Thomas' photographic works titled "Malcolm Thomas: Photographic Memoir" He is interested in assigning the proof and copyright to the publication of the book along with the copyright and physical images of the photographs as an entirety transaction. Purchase of this collection includes all related rights. 1342967. Special Collections.
Edité par John Matthews, London, 1712
Vendeur : SOPHIA RARE BOOKS, Koebenhavn V, Danemark
Membre d'association : ILAB
Edition originale
Hardcover. First edition. THE FOUNDATION FOR MODERN ASTRONOMY - PROBABLY BOUND FOR QUEEN ANNE. The true first edition, extremely rare, of Flamsteed's catalogue of fixed stars and sextant observations, the foundation of modern observational astronomy; this copy was probably bound for Queen Anne (please see below). Flamsteed's catalogue was far more extensive and accurate than anything that had gone before. It was the first constructed with instruments using telescopic sights and micrometer eyepieces; Flamsteed was the first to study systematic errors in his instruments; he was the first to urge the fundamental importance of using clocks and taking meridian altitudes; and he insisted on having assistants to repeat the observations and the calculations. The catalogue contains about 3000 naked eye stars (Ptolemy and Tycho listed 1000, Hevelius 2000) with an accuracy of about 10 seconds of arc. However, Flamsteed, although appointed Astronomer Royal in 1675, by the turn of the eighteenth century had still not published any of his observations. Isaac Newton and Edmond Halley pressed him to do so; Flamsteed's refusal led to one of the most famous, and bitterest, disputes in the history of astronomy, and to the present work being published against Flamsteed's will. Flamsteed's response, in 1716, was to destroy 300 of the 400 copies printed, so just a few years after publication no more than 100 copies survived. Flamsteed published his own, 'authorised', version of his star catalogue in 1725. Provenance: The Hon. George Baillie (1664-1738), a Lord of the Treasury, with manuscript shelf-mark on blank margin of frontispiece. Baillie was a leading member of the Squadrone Volante, a group of members who were influential in the debates which led to the union with England in 1707. In 1711, he was appointed Commissioner for Trade and Plantations by Queen Anne. "Born a somewhat sickly child at Denby, near Derby, Flamsteed's condition seems to have worsened in 1660 by what sounds like an attack of rheumatic fever. He was taken away from school and devoted himself to the study of mathematics and astronomy. A visit to Ireland in 1665 to be touched by Vincent Greatrakes, a famous healer of the day as a seventh son of a seventh son, had no effect upon his health. Shortly afterwards, however, his work began to be noticed by a number of Fellows of the Royal Society. Amongst these was Sir Jonas Moore, who was considering building a private observatory for Flamsteed. It proved unnecessary, for in 1675 Flamsteed was appointed to be the first Astronomer Royal by Charles II. As the first holder of the post, Flamsteed was responsible for the building and organisation of the new observatory at Greenwich. He also found that on a salary of £100 a year he was expected to engage and pay his own staff, and to provide his own instruments. Although some instruments were donated by Moore and others, Flamsteed still found it necessary to spend £120 of his own money on a mural arc. Made and divided by Abraham Sharp it was ready for use in September 1689. As a result of this expenditure, all observations made after 1689 seemed to Flamsteed to be unarguably his own property, and his to do with as he willed. "He met Newton for the first time in Cambridge in 1674. The first substantial issue between them arose over the nature of the comet of 1680-1. Newton was convinced that two comets were present and in letters to Flamsteed argued so at length. Flamsteed, however, insisted only one comet was present, a position Newton finally accepted in September 1685. Relations remained cordial and in 1687 Flamsteed was one of the few scholars selected to receive a presentation copy of Principia. It contained, he noted, only 'very slight acknowledgements' to his Greenwich observations. "On 1 September 1694 Newton paid his first visit to Greenwich. He spoke with Flamsteed about the moon. Newton was keen to examine Flamsteed's lunar data in order to correct and improve the lunar theory presented in Principia. Flamsteed offered to loan Newton 150 'places of the moon' on two conditions: firstly, that Newton would not show the work to anyone else; secondly, and more unreasonably, Newton would have to agree not to reveal any results derived from Flamsteed's observations to any other scholar. It was the beginning of an ill-tempered dispute which would last until Flamsteed's death. His own version of the quarrel is contained in his History of his own Life and Labors published in Baily (An Account of the Revd John Flamsteed (1966), pp. 7-105). It is a most bitter document. "None of Newton's proposals found favour with Flamsteed. The offer in November 1694 'to gratify you to your satisfaction' brought the answer that he was not tempted with 'covetousness' and the lament that Newton could have ever thought so meanly of him. An offer in 1695 to pay Flamsteed's scribe two guineas for his transcriptions brought an equally forthright rejection. It was enough, Newton was told, to offer 'verball acknowledgements'; a 'superfluity of monys', he found, 'is always pernicious to my Servants it makes them run into company and wast their time Idly or worse'. If Newton asked for 'your Observations only', Flamsteed complained of being treated like a drudge; if, however, calculations were asked for as well, Flamsteed would respond that such work required all kinds of tedious analysis for which he had little time . "Over the period 1694-5 Newton received another 150 observations. They were, however, none too reliable, having been made with the help of a stellar catalogue constructed with the help of a sextant alone. By this time Flamsteed was beginning to resent Newton's somewhat imperial tone. 'But I did not think myself obliged', he complained, 'to employ my pains to serve a person that was so inconsiderate as to presume he had a right to that which was only a courtesy (Baily, p. 63). Consequently, he returned to his own work, leaving Newton to work through the observations he had already receiv.
Edité par Printed at the Theater, for Moses Pitt at the Angel in St. Pauls Church-Yard, London, 1680-1681-1683-1682, 1680
Vendeur : Arader Galleries - AraderNYC, New York, NY, Etats-Unis
Livre Edition originale
Hardcover. Etat : Fine. 1st Edition. 4 volumes. Folio (21 4/8 x 14 inches). Letterpress title-pages, two printed in red and black and with small engraved vignettes, letterpress in volume one ruled in red throughout. Fine engraved portrait of Charles II, engraved by R. White, in volume one by (laid down on heavier stock at an early date) and double-engraved plate of Laplanders by F. van den Houe with magnificent original hand-colour in full, 3 further folding plates and 166 double-page maps of the world by John Seller and Janssonius and Northern Europe, all with original hand-colour in part, the cartouches with original hand-colour in full, those in volume one occasionally HEIGHTENED IN GOLD and gum arabic, all cartouches and other fine details in volume IV HEIGHTENED IN GOLD and gum arabic, all maps in this volume ruled in red (world map by Seller trimmed and laid down on heavier stock, volume one without map 35 'Ducatus Stomariae' and 40 'Regni Norvegiae'; map 35 in volume II 'Marchia Vetus' trimmed and laid down on heavier stock; volume III with maps 'Totius Sveviae', 'Walachia' and 'Iuliacensis Ducatus' trimmed and laid down, without map 126 'Diocesis Leodeniensi' but with additional map 'Oldenburg'; volume IV lacking map 141 'Fossa Eugeniana' but with additional map 'Namurcum Comitatus'). Fine contemporary blind paneled smooth and mottled calf, the spines in 8 compartments with 7 raised bands, one lettered in gilt, the others decorated with fine gilt tools (expertly rebacked preserving the original backstrips, a bit rubbed). Provenance: with the engraved armorial bookplate of George Tollet Esq. (d. 1719), mathematician and naval administrator, on the verso of each title-page; with the engraved armorial bookplate of the Weston Library of the Earls of Bradford on each front paste-down. First edition. The two world maps are John Seller's "Novissima Totius Terrarum Orbis Tabula." (Shirley 460) and Pieter van den Keere's "Nova totius terrarum orbis geographica ac hydrographica tabula" in the revised Janssonius, post 1620, state (Shirley 504) with a dedication to the Bishop of Oxford in the upper left. The map of the North Pole is Janssonius's "Nova et accurata Poli Arctici" and not that of Moses Pitt. The remaining maps are of Northern and Eastern Europe, all based on Dutch cartography, as Pitt's intention had been to publish a mammoth atlas to rival that of Blaeu, "giving a reprise to many of the plates which Janssonius had acquired over the years, some of them going as far back as the stocks that were used for Mercator's Atlas" (Goss) . However, as with many grand publishing designs the venture faltered after only these four volumes. The maps in volume one, in addition to the world map, and that of the Arctic, are of Russia, Poland, and Scandinavia; volumes II and III are of the German Empire; and IV contains the Seventeen Provinces of the Low Countries, or Netherlands. Moses Pitt was neither a cartographer nor a scholar, yet in 1670 he undertook a project that came to be called 'The English Atlas'. Despite the seemingly difficult, if not unrealistic, task at hand--hardly mitigated by the paucity of skilled commercial cartographers in England--Pitt's endeavor was backed by Sir Christopher Wren and Robert Hooke, and his partners included the Dutch map publisher Jan Jansson and the Englishman Steven Stewart. Based on the concept of the Atlas Maior by Joan Blaeu ,Pitt's atlas was to consist of twelve volumes, but only four were completed (covering places "next to the North-pole," Muscovy, Poland, Sweden, Denmark, Germany and the seventeen provinces of the Low Countries). Pitt had envisioned the project as a reissue of a Dutch atlas in "English guise"--in which existing Dutch maps would be repackaged with accompanying text in English--whereas his partners envisioned the printing of an atlas with entirely new maps. Such conflicts, along with economic factors and the overly ambitious nature of the project envisioned, eventually led to its demise. After only four parts. Atlas.
Vendeur : Antiquariaat FORUM BV, Houten, Pays-Bas
Edition originale
Finely hand-coloured copy of the 1766-1799 Netherlands edition (in French) of Buffon's justly famous Histoire naturelle, the complete first series, covering the formation of the earth, humans, mammalian quadrupeds and apes, reptiles and amphibians, birds, fishes and even minerals, also describing the royal collection of Louis XV. Buffon's work presents ''for the first time a complete survey of natural history in popular form'' (PMM). The present set, in the work s rarest and most expensive form, is exquisite. The subscription notices periodically mention copies printed on fine paper, but they do not mention hand-coloured copies. Landwehr, discussing the first Dutch-language edition (no. 46, by the same publisher) cites contemporary sources referring to four forms of publication: on regular paper, on large paper, with hand-coloured plates and (most expensive of all) with hand-coloured plates and vignettes.Buffon opens the first volume with an essay called "Théorie de la terre", where "for the first time he outlines a satisfactory account of the history of our globe and of its development as a fitting home for living things. In his view the earth had been originally part of the sun which was broken off by the impact of a comet. It gradually condensed from its gaseous state, and the forces shaping its continents and mountains are still active'' (PMM). From his exhaustive research for the Histoire naturelle des quadrupèdes, Buffon came to the conclusion that it was necessary to reintroduce the notion of family. Breaking with the spirit of his time, Buffon attempted to separate science from metaphysical and religious ideas. As a disciple of Locke he denied idealistic metaphysics, stating that mental abstractions can never become principles of either existence or real knowledge; these can come only as the results of sensation'' (DSB).Buffon did not believe in the fixity of species but proposed that nature is constantly changing. For instance, in the case of quadrupeds he stated that there were 38 basic types that degenerated over the centuries. According to Buffon, the monkey is a degenerated man, the ass a degenerated horse. His interest in the precise connection between groups of animals that are obviously related prompted Buffon to devote much attention to comparative anatomy in the Histoire naturelle. He also stressed the importance of the study of earth sciences for botany and zoology. "Life and animation, instead of being a metaphysical point in being, is a physical property of matter" (DSB). Buffon's views on the origin and development of species and the history of the earth show how he tried to describe natural phenomena by means of science, discarding metaphysical and religious explanations. "He was the first to create an autonomous science, free of any theological influence . [and] establish[ed] the intellectual framework within which most naturalists up to Darwin worked" (DSB).Buffon was assisted by the anatomist Louis Daubenton and others, and the final volumes were completed after his death under the direction of Comte de Lacépède.With the owner s name "Sir G[eorge]. Murray" (1772-1846) on the half-title of most volumes. He was a Scottish soldier from a noble family, who served in Flanders, the West Indies, Egypt and elsewhere, eventually becoming quarter master general of Wellington s staff in Spain and Portugal and reaching the rank of General. He was Knighted in 1813, held governorships of several colonies and the military college at Sandhurst, along with leading posts at the Colonial Office (where he helped establish the colony of Western Australia) and served from 1823 as a member of the British parliament. With the bookplate of the German entrepreneur and bibliophile Hans Dedi (1918-2016). Lacking a few half-titles (for example in the bird volumes 1 and 2), but otherwise in very good condition (most of the plates fine), with occasional stains and spots, a few tears and repairs, the binding also with some minor wear and repairs. A splendid copy of a seminal monument of natural history.l Landwehr, Coloured plates 45 (and 46, Dutch ed.); Nissen, ZBI, 678.
Edité par Paris: C.L.F. Panckoucke, 1827- [1833]., 1833
Vendeur : Arader Galleries - AraderNYC, New York, NY, Etats-Unis
Edition originale
Large 4to., (12 4/8 x 9 2/8 inches). Letterpress title-page, 2-page "advertisement", "Table Alphabétique et Explicative des plantes figurées dans cet ouvrage (9 leaves, paginated [1]-17, verso of 9th leaf blank), final blank leaf. 144 fine stipple-engraved plates BEFORE NUMBERS, printed in colors and finished by hand, by Langlois, Bessin, Chapuy, and Victor, after Redouté (some occasional light browning, one or two insignificant spots). Contemporary French half maroon morocco gilt, marbled boards (extremities a bit scuffed and bumped). First edition, preferred issue with the plates before numbers, originally published in parts between May 1827 and June 1833. Also published in a very limited large paper edition, Hunt reports five copies only, but there were probably more. Unlike later editions this first edition has no sectional titles, and in this copy the plates are bound according to Guillemin's strict "Table Alphabetique". The "Choix", for this Redoute's last great and extremely popular work, is personal: "Éclairé par l'expérience, encouragé par les souffrages les plus flatteurs des naturalistes et des peintres de mon pays et des contrées les plus éloignées; c'est en me livrant aux travaux botaniques les plus étendus, c'est en étudiant sans cesse la nature dans la constance et dans la variété des formes et de ses couleurs, que je crois être parvenu à réussir sous le triple rapport d'exactitude, de la composition et du coloris, dont la réunion peut seule porter à perfection l'iconogrpahie végétale" - "Enlightened by experience and encouraged by the extremely flattering pleas of naturalists and painters from my own country as well as from most distant realms; it is by devoting myself to extensive botanical study, by examining nature unremittingly, observing both its constancy and variety of shapes and colours, that I believe finally to have succeeded, by the triple means of exactitude, composition and colouring, the union of which only, may bring to perfection the iconography of plants" (Redouté, "Preface"). Pierre-Joseph Redoute (1759-1840), often called "the Raphael of flowers," was born in the Belgian Ardennes - the son, grandson, great-grandson and brother of artists. From the beginning, Redoute's talents were recognized by distinguished men and women who took pleasure in forwarding his career. For the study of botany, his teacher was Heritier de Brutelle, one of the outstanding naturalists of his day. Gerard van Spaendonck, Flower Painter to the King, taught Redoute the technique of painting in watercolor on vellum. But by the master's own account, the pupil's work was finer. The luminosity of stipple engraving is particularly suited to the reproduction of botanical detail. It is essentially a technique of engraving a copper plate with a dense grid of dots which can be modulated to convey delicate gradations of color. Because the ink lies on the paper in miniscule dots, it does not obscure the "light" of the white paper beneath the color. After this complicated printing process was complete, the prints were then finished by hand in watercolor, so as to conform to the models Redoute provided. Redoute had, as pupils or patrons, five queens and empresses of France, from Marie Antoinette to Josephine's successor, the Empress Marie-Louise. Despite many changes of regime in this turbulent epoch, he worked without interruption, eventually contributing to over fifty books on natural history and archaeology. The "Choix des Plus Belles Fleurs" is one of Redoute's last works. The "choice" is personal, the favorite flowers and fruits of a master who had devoted a lifetime to the arc of botanical illustration. There are the spectacular blooms of formal gardening, but also many more modest blooms of wayside flowers. Although small in size, these prints have the peculiar virtue of concentration, by which we can savor the essence of each beautiful flower. Dunthorne 235; "Great Flower Books" p.129; cf. Hunt "Redout.
Edité par Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 1944
Vendeur : Raptis Rare Books, Palm Beach, FL, Etats-Unis
Edition originale Signé
First edition of von Neumann and Morgenstern's landmark work. Octavo, original cloth. Boldly signed by John von Neumann on the title page. Near fine in a very good dust jacket. With the original â Corrigendaâ slip laid in. Housed in a custom half morocco clamshell box made by the Harcourt Bindery. Books signed by von Neumann are exceptionally rare. â One of the major scientific contributions of the 20th centuryâ (Goldstine & Wigner). John von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern conceived a groundbreaking mathematical theory of economic and social organization, based on a theory of games of strategy. Not only would this revolutionize economics, but the entirely new field of scientific inquiry it yielded--game theory--has since been widely used to analyze a host of real-world phenomena from arms races to optimal policy choices of presidential candidates, from vaccination policy to major league baseball salary negotiations. â Had it merely called to our attention the existence and exact nature of certain fundamental gaps in economic theory, the Theory of Games and Economic Behaviorâ ¦ would have been a book of outstanding importance. But it does more than that. It is essentially constructive: where existing theory is considered to be inadequate, the authors put in its place a highly novel analytical apparatus designed to cope with the problem. It would be doing the authors an injustice to say that theirs is a contribution to economics only. The scope of the book is much broader. The techniques applied by the authors in tackling economic problems are of sufficient generality to be valid in political science, sociology, or even military strategy. The applicability to games proper (chess and poker) is obvious from the title. Moreover, the book is of considerable interest from a purely mathematical point of viewâ ¦ The appearance of a book of the caliber of the Theory of Games is indeed a rare eventâ (World of Mathematics II:1267-84). However, "it would be doing the authors an injustice to say that theirs is a contribution to economics only. The scope of the book is much broader. The techniques applied by the authors in tackling economic problems are of sufficient generality to be valid in political science, sociology, or even military strategy. The applicability to games proper (chess and poker) is obvious from the title. Moreover, the book is of considerable interest from a purely mathematical point of view." (Hurwicz in World of Mathematics, vol 2). In the words of two Nobel Prize-winning economists, "a landmark in the history of ideas" and a seminal work in mathematics and economics, which "has had a profound impact on statistics" (Dorfman, Samuelson & Solow, Linear Programming and Economic Analysis pp 417, 445).
Edité par Adrian Vlacq, The Hague, 1659
Vendeur : Liber Antiquus Early Books & Manuscripts, Chevy Chase, MD, Etats-Unis
Edition originale Signé
Hardcover. Etat : Fine. FIRST EDITION. [Bound with:] De circuli magnitudine inventa. Accedunt eiusdem problematum quorundam illustrium constructiones. Leiden: Elzevir, 1654 Quarto: II. (8), 71, (1) p. Collation: *4, A-I4 FIRST EDITION of Huygens' landmark work on Saturn bound with the FIRST EDITION of Huygens' work on the quadrature of the circle, "De circuli magnitudine inventa."(1654). Very fine copies in contemporary vellum with a very pale damp-stain to leading edge of a few leaves. First work with 11 engravings in the text, several woodcut diagrams, and 1 folding engraved plate. Vellum scuffed and marked with minor soiling. The first edition of Huygens' announcement of the discovery of the rings of Saturn and the planet's enormous moon, Titan. The work was preceded by a one-sentence anagram by planted by Huygens in Petrus Borel's "De vero telescopii inventore" (1655/56) to secure priority of his discovery. The title of the book reads "The System of Saturn, or On the matter of Saturn's remarkable appearance, and its satellite, the new planet." Around 1654 Huygens and his brother Constantijn devised a new and better way of grinding and polishing lenses. In early 1655, the Huygens brothers completed a telescope with an objective focal length of 377 cm. (twelve feet), an estimated ocular focal length of 7.5 cm, and a magnification of about 50. The original objective of this telescope (0.32 cm thick, 5.7 cm diameter) is now kept in the Museum Boerhaave at Leiden. The telescopes constructed by Huygens were the best and most powerful of his time. On 25 March 1655 he directed his telescope towards the planets, first to Venus and Mars, later to Jupiter and Saturn. "With the first telescope he and his brother had built, Huygens discovered, in March 1655, a satellite of Saturn, later named Titan. He determined its period of revolution to be about 16 days, and noted that the satellite moved in the same plane as the 'arms' of Saturn. Those extraordinary appendages of the planet had presented astronomers since Galileo with a serious problem of interpretation; Huygens solved these problems with the hypothesis that Saturn is surrounded by a ring. He arrived at this solution partly through the use of better observational equipment, but also by an acute argument based on the use of the Cartesian vortex (the whirl of celestial matter around a heavenly body supporting its satellites.)" Bos, DSB VI.604 The 'Systema Saturnium' also describes the observations of the Orion nebula, discovered by Huygens in 1656. "Although Galileo had observed the peculiar shape of the planet Saturn, it was the advanced telescope construction and observation of Huygens that led to a correct analysis of its changes. In 'Systema Saturnium' the rings and satellites of Saturn were described, also the explanation of their appearance and disappearance, and a micrometer used in making the observations." (Dibner, Heralds) "'Systema Saturnium' opens with the preface to Prince Leopold. In this preface Huygens declares that Saturn, its ring, and its satellite forms a system which supports the Copernican system of a heliocentric universe. The preface is followed by an encomium to Huygens by Nicolaas Heinsius and a poem on the Saturnian system by Huygens's brother Constantijn. The main text begins with descriptions of Huygens's telescopes and some of his early observations of other planets, stars, and the Great Nebula in Orion. Then his discussion turns to the discovery of Saturn's moon and the determination of its orbital period around Saturn. "On page 34, Huygens begins the discussion of the changing and unusual nature of Saturn's appearance. He discusses earlier observations of the planet going back to Galileo, notes how these observations suffered from the use of inadequate telescopes, and goes into some detail on the hypotheses of Hevelius, Roberval, and Hodierna. After arguing against these explanations, Huygens offers his theory of a thick solid ring circling Saturn at its equator and in equilibrium under Saturn's gravitational force. He then goes into detail about how the plane of the ring is tilted 20 degrees to the plane of Saturn's orbit and that the ring maintains a constant orientation as the planet orbits the Sun. This means that the ring's angle changes with respect to us and thus explained the varying appearance of Saturn. When the ring was edgewise to the Earth it would seem to practically disappear and then slowly the angle would change and the rings would open themselves back up to us. The book ends with Huygens's observations of all the planets and his calculations of their sizes in relation to the Sun." (Ronald Brashear) The Magnitude of the Circle: "In his first publication,'Theoremata de quadratura hyperboles, ellipses, et circuli', Huygens derived a relation between the quadrature and the center of gravity of segments of circles, ellipses, and hyperbolas. He applied this result to the quadratures of the hyperbola and the circle. In the'De circuli magnitudine inventa'(1654)he approximated the center of gravity of a segment of a circle by the center of the gravity of a segment of a parabola, and thus found an approximation of the quadrature; with this he was able to refine the inequalities between the area of the circle and those of the inscribed and circumscribed polygons used in the calculations of Ï . The same approximation with segments of the parabola, in the case of the hyperbola, yields a quick and simple method to calculate logarithms, a finding he explained before the Academy in 1666-1667."(DSB).
Date d'édition : 1869
Vendeur : Bauman Rare Books, Philadelphia, PA, Etats-Unis
Edition originale Signé
"DARWIN, Charles. Autograph letter signed. WITH: On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or The Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life. Kent, United Kingdom, November 24, [1869] and New York: D. Appleton, 1870. Single sheet of unlined paper, measuring 5 by 8 inches folded; pp. 4. Housed in a custom cloth portfolio. WITH: Octavo, original purple cloth. Housed together in a custom clamshell box. $125,000.Very rare and desirable signed autograph letter from Charles Darwin to American publisher D. Appleton's London agent, Charles Layton, agreeing to a second American edition of the Origin of Species, with a slightly raised price, but requiring that Appleton also commit to an American edition of The Descent of Man. Accompanied by the second American edition of Origin of Species in original cloth.The letter, written entirely in Darwin's hand and dated "Nov. 24th. Beckenham [Kent]," reads in full: "Dear Sir, I am much obliged by your note. You say that Messrs. Appleton 'would also like to have a set of stereotyped plates of new edit of Origin of Species on same terms.' I am not sure that I understand this, for I have not permitted the Origin to be stereotyped in England. If it means that Messrs. Appleton will print a new edition in Stereotype Plates (or in common type which would be much preferable) I gladly agree to his terms for this edition & for my next book. I have long earnestly wished for a new edition of the Origin in the United States, as it is 92 pages longer than the 2nd edition, besides endless small though important corrections. I feel sure that the continued large sale of this book in England Germany & France has depended on my keeping up each edition to the existing standard of science. I hope I am right in supposing that Messrs. Appleton are willing to print in some form a new edition; for though unwilling to act in a disobliging manner toward them I had resolved soon to write to Professor Asa Gray to ask him to find some publisher who would print the new edition of the Origin, on condition of my supplying him with the sheets of my new book as they printed & which book will probably have a large sale. Will you be so kind as to let me hear soon how the case stands; & I should like in case the answer is favourable to send in M.S. half a dozen small corrections for the Origin. I must inform you that although Mr Murray has inserted a notice of my new book, I do not suppose it will be printed for nearly a year, although a considerable portion is ready for the press. Dear Sir, yours faithfully, Ch. Darwin. You will understand that I cannot agree with Mr Appleton about my new book, unless he is willing to print a new edit of Origin. The price of the latter might fairly be raised a little; as Mr Murray has by 1s. & it shd be advertised as largely added to & corrected."According to the Darwin Correspondent Project at Cambridge, the recipient of this letter was Charles Layton, the American publisher D. Appleton's London agent. This letter refers to details regarding the publication of a new American edition of the Origin of Species. Darwin begins by clarifying that fact, as the proposal was for a stereotyped American edition as Darwin had been resistant to stereotyping his work in England. Darwin may have seen the first U.S. edition, published in 1860 from stereotypes of the British second edition, and was aware of the decline in quality compared to conventional typesetting. In England, Darwin still wanted the best printing possible, while the overseas printing was of slightly less concern. In letter dated April 1869, Darwin had, in fact, approached Orange, Judd, & Co., who published the American version of Variation, about publishing a new American edition of the Origin. Here, however, Darwin only mentions potential correspondence with Asa Gray, a Harvard botanist with whom Darwin exchanged hundreds of letters. Darwin's fame in America largely rested on Gray's positive review of Origin in The Atlantic and his subsequent pro-evolution debates with zoologist Louis Agassiz, which Gray won handily. Darwin's decision to mention Gray here was likely meant to emphasize Darwin's influence in the American scientific community and to underline the scientific prominence of Darwin's American supporters. This letter indicates Darwin's willingness to go along with Appleton publication proposal despite that inquiry, for both this work and for his upcoming book, The Descent of Man. The Murray notice that Darwin refers to was an advance advertisement for Descent published in October of 1869. Descent, delayed as Darwin indicates, was not actually published until early in 1871. Appleton managed to publish the second U.S. edition, based on a corrected and expanded version of the fifth English edition, by 1870, before their publication of Descent in 1871. Darwin kept a proprietorial hand on all of his work: other editions were also receiving tweaks at the same time he was considering the Appleton proposal. For instance, Darwin mentions sending several corrections to the fifth English edition of Origin to improve its upcoming publication in French and German.This letter is accompanied by the second American edition of On the Origin of Species, the subject of the letter. "This, the most important single work in science, brought man to his true place in nature" (Heralds of Science 199). Darwin "was intent upon carrying Lyell's demonstration of the uniformity of natural causes over into the organic world In accomplishing this Darwin not only drew an entirely new picture of the workings of organic nature; he revolutionized our methods of thinking and our outlook on the natural order of things. The recognition that constant change is the order of the universe had been finally established and a vast step forward in the uniformity of nature had been taken" (PMM 344). Excerpts of this letter were published in Darwin's Correspondence, Volume 17. The book is labeled "Fifth Edition, With. Signed.
Vendeur : Sokol Books Ltd. ABA ILAB, London, Royaume-Uni
Livre Edition originale
Hardcover. Etat : Very Good. 1st Edition. FIRST COMPLETE NOVEL IN ENGLISH London, Printed for Edward Blounte, 1620?, 1620. FIRST COMPLETE EDITION IN ENGLISH, FIRST EDITION of II. 2 vols. I: pp. [12], 572, [4]; II: [2], [16], 504, lacking final blank. Roman letter, little Italic. Engraved titles with Don Quixote and Sancho Panza on horseback, woodcut vignette to second title, decorated initials and ornaments. Textblock trimmed close at head, occasionally touching typographical ruling, or running title of vol.II, engraved titles and last versos dusty, upper outer corner of P7 (II) torn, affecting two letters, small light water stain to lower outer blank corner of last two ll. (II), the odd minor marginal spot or mark. Very good, fresh and clean copies in modern limp vellum antique by B. Middleton, silk ties, a.e.r., early shelfmark labels preserved at foot of spines, bookplates of Kenneth Rapoport and Michael Curtis Phillips. In folding box. The first complete edition in English, and the first English edition of Part II, of this ground-breaking literary work - the first modern European novel, rarely found complete, as a uniform set. Attributed to Renold Elstrack, the engraved frontispiece, which reprised the title vignette of the first 1618 French edition, was the illustration of Don Quixote and Sancho to appear in print. Don Quixote is one of those universal works which are read by all ages at all times, and there are very few who have not at one time or another felt themselves to be Don Quixote confronting the windmills or Sancho Panza at the inn (PMM 111). The epic novel tells the deeds of the minor aristocrat Alonso Quijano, so keen a reader of medieval chivalric romances that he loses his mind (or pretends to), and becomes absorbed in an imaginary world of knightly adventures. After assuming the name Don Quixote , as a knight-errant, he travels with his witty squire Sancho Panza (a local farmer), facing comic situations he interprets as heroic, including the famous, symbolic and now proverbial fight against windmills. Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (1547-1616) led a picaresque life. Having written a handful of plays, he published Part I of Don Quixote in 1605, followed by Part II in 1615. It was first translated from Castilian into English the first translation into any language - by the Irish Catholic Thomas Shelton (fl.1604-20) in 1612, using the text of the 1607 edition, printed in Brussels, where Shelton taught Spanish. The c.1620 Part I is a reprint of Shelton s text. Previously attributed to Shelton and probably based on the 1615 edition, Part II is now considered to be the work of the Hispanist Leonard Digges (1588-1635). Digges was among the authors of dedicatory poems prefacing Shakespeare s First Folio, also published by Edward Blount. The English translation of Quixote greatly influenced the language and ideas of English playwrights and poets, including Shakespeare and Jonson. Not merely once but on a variety of occasions the C17 English writers [influenced by Quixote ] reflect and actually participate in the sheer fun of the work by playing with the protagonist s name. They invent the adjectives Quixoticall (1642), Quixot-like (1664) [ ]; the past participle Don quixoted (1658) [ ]; and the nouns Don Quichoterie (1659), Quixotry (1665) [ ]. In short, both the nature and the contagious fun of the character [ ] were actually adapted, incorporated, and made manifest in fresh English words (Randall, pp.xxxvi-xxxvii). I: STC (2nd ed.), 4917; Pforzheimer, 140; ESTC S107641; PMM 111 (first Spanish ed.). II: STC (2nd ed.), 4917; Pforzheimer, 140; ESTC S107642; PMM 111 (first Spanish ed.). M. Cervantes de Saavedra, The History of Don Quixote of the Mancha, vol. III (1896); D. Randall, Cervantes in seventeenth-century England (2009).
Edité par Paris Imprimerie de Dondey-Dupré, 1825
Vendeur : Shapero Rare Books, London, Royaume-Uni
Livre Edition originale
First edition, folio (59.2 x 43.8 cm), engraved title page, dedication, 52 pp., 12 engraved vignettes in text, 40 fine hand-coloured lithographs by Lemercier after Dupré, all plates titled and numbered, and blind-stamped with the artist's monogram encircled; complete with the Turkish Firman, text leaves a bit spotted, small marginal repair to lower blank margin plate 1, last plate a little toned with small marginal repairs to verso, all tissue guards taped to verso of preceding plate, contemporary Greek red half morocco gilt by Lardi of Athens with his ticket, neatly rebacked, corners renewed, covers a little spotted. First edition of the finest colour plate book ever produced on Greece and Turkey. Born in Versailles in 1789, little is known about Dupré's family or childhood. However, he had a powerful patron in Count Clément de Ris, thanks to whom he was able to study at the school of the renowned painter Jacques-Louis David, an apprenticeship that had a decisive impact on his personality as well as his art. In 1811, Cardinal Joseph Fesch, Bishop of Lyon, connoisseur and statesman, sent Dupré to Kassel, where he was named court painter to the king of Westphalia, Jérôme Bonaparte, who also facilitated Dupré's journey to Rome to study, in 1813. In Italy, Dupré travelled, studied and drew antiquities, in particular vases, while developing his skills in landscape and portrait painting. He became acquainted with artists such as the sculptor David d'Angers, the painter J.A.D. Ingres, the composer J. Rossini and the architect C.R. Cockerell. He met three British art lovers, Hyett, Hay and Vivian, who suggested that he accompany them on their journey to Greece, in February 1819. This journey, which lasted until April 1820, completely met Dupré's expectations. He saw the ideal world of ancient Greece reveal itself before his eyes, the scope of his subjects became broader and his art was animated by a fresh élan. The party of four travelled to Corfu, Epirus, Thessaly, Central Greece, Attica, and the Saronic islands. Dupré himself continued on to Constantinople and Bucharest, invited by Michael Soutsos (1784-1864), great dragoman of the Sublime Porte and prince of Moldavia. Polite, sociable, energetic, forthright, courageous and honest, with a love of freedom and homeland, Dupré was well-liked by the Greeks. In 1825, after his return home, he published his travel album with forty lithographs in colour, made by the best lithographers in France, and from 1827 he exhibited his Greek-themed paintings in the yearly Paris Salon. 'Man, nature, religious sentiment, the reminiscence of antiquity and the charm of the East are Dupré's favourite subjects. However, the journey to Greece was a landmark in the evolution of his thematic repertoire. Although nature has the power to give new wings to memory and imagination, Dupré gave priority to portraits and costumes. He depicts human types with precision, devoid of passion, exempt of exoticism, he makes an appraisal of countenance, posture and dress, while each detail refers the viewer to the whole and vice versa. In all of Dupré's works there is a clarity of subject, while the ethos of the representation is enhanced in a balanced composition. His fluid, flexible lines achieve a harmonious union of drawing and colour. He succeeds in highlighting the cultural differences between East and West' (Ioli Vingopoulou, Aikaterini Laskaridis Foundation). Atabey 381; Blackmer 517; Colas 916; Koç II, 243; Lipperheide 1434.