Bologna: Press of the Academy of Sciences, 1791. First edition, incredibly rare offprint, one of 12 copies issued, of this epoch-making work, one of the most important in the history of electricity. Galvani’s paper was published in one of the ‘Opuscula’ of the journal De Bononiensi scientiarum et artium instituto..... More
Item #4822

London: Peter Short, 1600. First edition of “the first major English scientific treatise based on experimental methods of research. Gilbert was chiefly concerned with magnetism; but as a digression he discusses in his second book the attractive effect of amber (electrum), and thus may be regarded as the founder of..... More
Item #4577

[Leyden]: in bibliopolio Commeliniano sumptibus viduae Joannis Comelini, 1620. First edition, extremely rare, of one of the earliest modern works on atomism. “Gorlaeus is counted among the founders of modern atomism, which he proposed as an alternative to Aristotelian matter theory. Because of his notion of atomic compounds, he is..... More
Item #4573

Nuremberg: printed by Christoph Gerhard for Paulus Fürst, 1666. First edition of one of the most beautiful instrument books published in the seventeenth century and certainly one of the rarest, particularly with the full complement of plates. This work is an enlargement, by his student Sturm, of Habrecht’s famous treatise..... More
Item #4705

Paris: J. Anisson, 1694. First edition, rare, of Hartsoeker's first and most important work, in which he reviewed the principles of optics as far as they were known by the end of the 17th century. In addition to the physics of light and the physiology of vision, the book also..... More
Item #4518

Berlin: Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1882-1883. First edition, extremely rare author’s presentation offprints, of all three parts of one of the founding paper of chemical thermodynamics, along with Josiah Willard Gibbs’s 1876 paper ‘On the Equilibrium of Heterogeneous Substances.’ In these papers, Helmholtz introduced the concept of ‘free energy’ and proved..... More
Item #5192

Philadelphia: Printed by James Kay, Jun. & Brothers, 1839. First edition, author’s presentation offprint, of the third and most important part of Henry’s Contributions to Electricity and Magnetism. Following on from his discovery of electromagnetic self-induction in 1832, in the present paper Henry extends his results on ‘galvanic’ electricity (current..... More
Item #4282

[1813-1850]. An extraordinary collection of works by Sir John Herschel (1792-1871), the outstanding astronomer and physical scientist of his day, assembled for presentation to his son William James Herschel (not to be confused with John’s father, the astronomer Frederick William). The collection includes offprints of Herschel’s three most important publications..... More
Item #4321

Frankfurt: Claudius Marnius & heirs of Johannes Aubrius, 1604. First edition, an excellent copy, of the foundation work of modern optics. “Working within the perspectivist tradition of Alhazen, Roger Bacon, Witelo, John Pecham, and others, Kepler accepts that sight is possible due to rays emitted from visible objects, with these..... More
Item #5230

The Hague: H. Scheurleer, 1758. First edition, extremely rare, of Lambert’s first published book, dealing with the path of light rays in air and other media. Lambert began working on aspects of refraction through the atmosphere in 1752, and from 1754 this work was carried out in parallel with his..... More
Item #4514

Paris: H. Estienne & W. Hopyl, 27 June 1503. First edition of this very rare collection of works, in an attractive Roger Payne binding. The individual works are all first editions with the exception of Lefèvre’s Epitome of Boethius’ De arithmetica (first, 1496) and an unattributed Opusculum de p[r]axi numerorum..... More
Item #3866

London: for William and John Innys, 1720. First edition, very rare in commerce, of Maclaurin’s first book, dedicated to Newton and bearing his imprimatur as president of the Royal Society; this is a presentation copy, inscribed by Maclaurin. Maclaurin is best known for his Treatise of Fluxions (1742), “the earliest..... More
Item #5250

Florence: Giuseppe Cocchini, 1666 (dedication dated 14 July, 1667). First edition, the rare first issue, and owing to the magnificent contemporary Italian red morocco binding, a presentation copy (see below), of the only publication of the Accademia del Cimento, the first organisation founded for the sole purpose of making scientific..... More
Item #4707