London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1876. First edition, rare on the market in this condition, of Maxwell's textbook on dynamics, “a masterpiece of natural philosophy, notable especially for introducing into physics the term relativity in a passage that combines strenuous scientific insight with a mystical awareness … [It] had..... More
Item #3849

[London:]: Taylor and Francis, [1867]. First edition, in the very rare original printed wrappers, of the first practical designs for a dynamo, made independently and almost simultaneously by Siemens and Wheatstone. Maxwell attended the February 1867 meeting of the Royal Society at which both papers were read, and he immediately..... More
Item #4305

Washington: Carnegie Institution. First edition, the very rare offprint issue, of the first of the papers documenting McClintock’s discovery of ‘control elements,’ for which she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, 1983. “Between 1948 and 1951, McClintock carried out a series of sophisticated experiments with variegated maize..... More
Item #3910

[London: Macmillan, 1939]. First edition, extremely rare offprint, of the discovery of nuclear fission, a process which had been observed by Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann the previous year but for which they were unable to provide an explanation. “In the late 1930s, a series of experiments showed that bombarding..... More
Item #5323

London: Taylor & Francis, 1910. A fine copy of Millikan’s famous experiment, later known as the ‘oil-drop experiment’, in which he first provided the definitive proof that all electrical charges are exact multiples of a definite, fundamental value—the charge of the electron. Millikan’s experiment is nowadays known as the ‘oil-drop..... More
Item #4548

London: W[illiam]. Pearson for the Author, 1718. First edition, and an unusually fine copy without any restoration, of this classic on the theory of probability, the first original work on the subject in English. “De Moivre’s book on chances is considered the foundation for the field of probability and statistics”..... More
Item #4637

Valladolid: Sebastian Martinez, 1551. First edition, very rare, of the first separate, and first illustrated, anatomical work in the vernacular printed in Spain. “While Valverde di Hamusco’s Historia de la composicion del cuerpo humano (1556) is often credited with introducing into Spain the Vesalian anatomical iconography coupled with a vernacular..... More
Item #5399

Pesaro: Girolamo Concordia, 1579. First edition, very rare, the Jones-Macclesfield copy, signed by William Jones, of the first modern theoretical treatise on the planisphere, an instrument for representing the celestial sphere on a plane surface. Guidobaldo was one of the most prominent figures in the renaissance of the mathematical sciences..... More
Item #5426

Pesaro; Bologna: apud Hieronymum Concordiam; Costantino Pisarri, 1588 [colophon, 1587]; 1711. First edition, the beautiful Macclesfield copy, of Guidobaldo’s Paraphrasis, the important companion to his Mechanicorum liber (1577), regarded as the greatest work on statics since the Greeks, which employed the mathematically rigorous proofs of Archimedes to the investigation of..... More
Item #4716

Paris: J. Quilau, 1713. Extremely rare presentation copy inscribed by the author of the greatly enlarged second edition of the first separately published textbook of probability. This second edition is arguably more important than the first, as it contains the first publication of extensive correspondence between Montmort and Johann I...... More
Item #5063

Paris: Jacque Quillau, 1708. First edition, first issue, very rare, of the first separately published textbook of probability. This issue has significant textual differences from what is usually referred to as the first edition. “In 1708 [Montmort] published his work on Chances, where with the courage of Columbus he revealed..... More
Item #4632

Paris: Antoine Boudet, 1746. First edition, rare on the market, of “the first specialized book on dental prosthetics” (G & M), and perhaps the first contribution to what would later be called “cosmetic dentistry.” “Mouton, in 1746, … gave to the light a monograph, the first extant, on mechanical dentistry..... More
Item #5166

Edinburgh; Padua: Andrew Hart; Giacomo Cadorino, 1619; [1667]. First edition, extremely rare, of this complement to Napier’s epoch-making Mirifici logorithmorum canonis descriptio (1614) – while the Descriptio gave the first ever table of logarithms, it was in the Constructio that Napier explained the method of their construction. It is here..... More
Item #4638