Manchester: Printed by Harrison and Crosfield for Baldwin and Cradock, 1834. Second edition (first, 1793), inscribed by Dalton, of Dalton’s first book which, according to Dalton himself, “contained the germs of most of the ideas afterwards expanded by him into discoveries” (DNB V, 428-34). Dalton (1766-1844) is famous today for..... More
Item #4946
Manchester: Russell for R. Bickerstaff, 1808-1810. First edition, inscribed by Dalton, and in original publisher’s boards with original printed spine labels, of his classic work on the atomic theory of matter. “Dalton reconstructed Newton's speculations on the structure of matter, and, applying them in a new form to chemistry, gave..... More
Item #4942
Manchester: S. Russell for R. Bickerstaff; Russell & Allen for R. Bickerstaff; Executives of S. Russell for G. Wilson, 1808-1810-1827. First edition of Dalton’s classic work on the atomic theory of matter, very rare when complete with all three parts in the original boards with the original printed spine labels..... More
Item #3950
![A new system of chemical philosophy. [Bound with:] On the Phosphates & Arseniates [and other...](/pictures/thumb/4945.jpg?v=1592230422)
Manchester; Manchester: Russell & Allen for R. Bickerstaff; : John Harrison, 1810-1827; 1840. First edition of the last two parts of Dalton’s classic work on the atomic theory of matter, inscribed by Dalton. “Dalton reconstructed Newton's speculations on the structure of matter, and, applying them in a new form to..... More
Item #4945
London: John Murray, 1862. First edition of the first of Darwin’s works to publish extensive evidence supporting his theory of evolution through natural selection. In a letter to his publisher, John Murray, Darwin wrote: “I think this little volume will do good to the Origin, as it will show that..... More
Item #5337
London: John Murray, 1872. Sixth edition (the first to employ the word ‘evolution’), inscribed by Darwin, of “the most influential scientific work of the nineteenth century” (Horblit), “the most important biological work ever written” (Freeman), and “a turning point, not only in the history of science, but in the history..... More
Item #4981
Newcastle: Printed by Edw. Walker for T. Bewick (and others), 1826. Charles Darwin's copy, signed and dated (1840) by him on the title-page of each volume, and containing additional autograph notations by Darwin, particularly with reference to the British finch. This is a highly significant volume from Darwin’s library –..... More
Item #5276
London: Rowland Hunter, 1818. First edition, in a fine contemporary royal binding, of Davy’s invention of the safety lamp, which immediately reduced the number of fatalities in coal mines, also allowed miners to mine deeper than was previously possible and was therefore fundamental to the rapid industrialisation of Britain during..... More
Item #5334
![Larismethique nouellement composee par maistre Estienne de La Roche dict Villefra[n]che natif de...](/pictures/thumb/4636.jpg?v=1592229754)
[Lyon]: Guillaume Huyon for Constantin Fradin, June 2, 1520. First edition, extremely rare, of the first published work on algebra in French. This is a fine copy in a beautiful contemporary binding. Born in Lyon, then the principal commercial centre of France, La Roche was a student of Nicolas Chuquet..... More
Item #4636
Braunschweig: Friedrich Vieweg, 1872. First edition, very rare in commerce, of Dedekind’s great work on the foundations of mathematics. “This short work [Stetigkeit und irrationale Zahlen] marks a significant epoch in the movement known as the arithmetization of analysis, that is, the replacement of intuitive geometric notions by concepts described..... More
Item #4558
Leyden: Jean Maire, 1649. First separate edition of Descartes’s magnum opus (DSB), the invention of coordinate geometry and one of the key texts in the history of mathematics – this is an exceptional copy, uncut in the original interim boards. The Geometry was originally published in French as the third..... More
Item #4776
Paris: chez Henry Le Gras, au troisième pilier de la grand’ Salle du Palais, à L couronnée, 1649. First edition of Descartes’s important psychological treatise, one of his most influential works, and the last work published before his death in the following year. This is a fine copy in an..... More
Item #4125
Paris: chez Henry Le Gras, au troisième pilier de la grand’ Salle du Palais, à L couronnée, 1649. First edition, of Descartes’s important psychological treatise, one of his most influential works, and the last work published before his death in the following year. This copy made its way to England..... More
Item #4536
London: Abell Jeffes, 1591. Second and best edition of this important Elizabethan work on practical geometry, in which “for the first time, we have indications of an instrument which we may call a reflecting telescope” (King, The History of the Telescope, p. 29). This second edition contains several appendices by Thomas..... More
Item #5131
Paris: H. Drouart, 1621. Editio princeps of the first systematic treatise on algebra (Smith, Rara Arithmetica, p. 348), comprising the first printing of the Greek text, accompanied by Xylander’s Latin translation (1575) and Bachet’s commentary. “The Arithmetica is essentially a logistical work, but with the difference that Diophantus’ problems are..... More
Item #2441
![Rerum arithmeticarum libri sex, quoru[m] primi duo adiecta habent scholia, maximi (ut conjectura...](/pictures/thumb/4710.jpg?v=1592229912)
Basel: Eusebius & Heirs of Nikolaus Episcopius, 1575. First edition, very rare, of the first systematic treatise on algebra (Smith, Rara Arithmetica, p. 348), which “inspired the rebirth of number theory” (Britannica), translated from the Greek by Wilhelm Holtzmann [Xylander] – the original Greek text was not published until 1621..... More
Item #4710
[London: Harrison & Sons for the Royal Society, 1926]. First edition, inscribed presentation offprint, of Dirac’s paper, which “is justly seen as a major contribution to quantum theory” (Kragh, p. 36). It introduced his quantum mechanical derivation of what is now called Fermi-Dirac statistics, which describes a distribution of particles..... More
Item #4390
Paris: Sebastien Mabre-Cramoisy at l’Imprimerie Royale, 1675 [colophon date]-1676 [title page date]. First edition of “one of the great books in the history of botanical illustration, where all the technical resources of engraving were utilized in presenting the plants as accurately as possible” (Hunt), here accompanied by 5 additional engraved..... More
Item #5358
Venice: Tomasso Baglioni, 1611. First edition, extremely rare, of this important early work on the optics of the telescope and related optical phenomena, and containing the first essentially correct theory of the rainbow to be published. Dominis and Galileo were both teaching mathematics and physics in Padua at the same..... More
Item #5287
Prague: Gottlieb Haase & Sons, 1846. First edition, very rare separately-paginated offprint, of this important complement to Doppler’s epoch-making discovery in 1842 of the principle named after him. The three articles comprising this offprint contain extensions of the Doppler principle, as well as the first suggestion to use photographic and..... More
Item #4936
[Cambridge: University Press, 1905]. First edition, extremely rare offprint, inscribed by Edgeworth, of his most important contribution to mathematical statistics. “The most important of the papers relating to this subject” (Bowley). “‘Of all the great economists in this book, he [Edgeworth] is (apart from Bernoulli and Slutsky) the only one..... More
Item #4955
London: Published and sold at the Commissioners of Patents Sale Department [British Patent Office], 1880. First edition, of the greatest rarity, of the first British patent granted to Edison for his most famous invention, that of an incandescent electric light. Perhaps more than any other, it was this invention that..... More
Item #4839
Lancaster, PA: American Physical Society, 1945-46. First edition, extremely rare offprints, of Einstein & Straus’s introduction of the ‘Swiss-cheese’ model of the universe. “After [a] decade and a half of sometimes intense work on cosmology, Einstein returned to the subject only occasionally in his later years. His most significant later..... More
Item #5054
Lancaster, PA: American Physical Society, 1935. First edition, very rare offprint, of the famous ‘EPR paper’, one of the most discussed and debated papers of modern physics, and the foundation for the new fields of quantum computing and cryptography. “In the May 15, 1935 issue of Physical Review Albert Einstein..... More
Item #5045
Braunschweig: Vieweg & Sohn, 1914. First edition, extremely rare author’s presentation offprint (with ‘Überreicht vom Verfasser’ (Presented by the Author) printed on front wrapper), and the copy of Einstein’s close friend and colleague Paul Ehrenfest, of this crucial transitional paper in which Einstein uses the light quantum hypothesis to give..... More
Item #4295