London: Printed for the author’s children and sold by A. Millar, et al. 1748. First edition, large-paper copy, of Maclaurin’s statement of Newtonian theory, one of the three “most outstanding popular introductions to Newtonian science of the eighteenth century” (I. B. Cohen, Franklin and Newton, 1956, p. 209). “Though a...... More
Item #3409

Messina: Pietro Spira, August 1558. First edition, ‘excessively rare’ (Sotheran), of this collection of works on ‘spherics’, the geometrical and trigonometrical techniques necessary for the description of the motion of the celestial bodies, including Maurolico’s Latin translations of works by four ancient Greek writers, Autolycus, Menelaus, Euclid and Theodosius, those..... More
Item #2881

London: Harrison & Sons, 1880. First edition, in the very rare original printed wrappers, of Maxwell’s last paper, “published posthumously in the Proceedings of the Royal Society, [which] concerned a means of measuring the speed of the Earth through the hypothetical aether, and was the inspiration for Michelson and Morley’s..... More
Item #4303

Leipzig: F.W. Vogel, 1909. First edition of Minkowski’s famous lecture on his theory of four-dimensional space-time, the first published account of this theory to be illustrated with ‘spacetime diagrams’, which were widely used later by Stephen Hawking, Roger Penrose and others in the development of general relativity. “In ‘Space and..... More
Item #5048

London: for Benjamin Motte, 1729. First edition in English of the Principia, the magnificent Jones-Macclesfield large paper copy in contemporary morocco; with its important provenance, this is surely the most desirable copy in private hands. The first edition was published in Latin in 1687 and “is generally described as the greatest..... More
Item #5105

Nuremberg: Jo. Stuchs, 1514. First edition of Werner’s “most famous work on astronomy and geography” (MacTutor), an extremely rare and highly influential work on cartography and navigation, notable for several ‘firsts’: it contains the first published direct translation of any part of Ptolemy’s Geography from the original Greek; the first..... More
Item #3080

[Northfield, Minnesota: Goodsell Observatory of Carleton College, 1914]. First edition, extremely rare separately-paginated offprint, of this classic paper describing the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram. “During his first years on the Princeton faculty, Russell’s analysis of his trigonometric parallax data led him to discover, contemporaneously with, but independently of, Danish astronomer Ejnar Hertzsprung..... More
Item #4323

Bracciano: Andreas Phaeus, 1626-1630. First edition, extremely rare large and thick paper copy, of the most lavishly illustrated astronomical work published in the first half of the seventeenth century, with many full-page illustrations of Scheiner’s observations of the sun and of the optical instruments he had designed for the purpose..... More
Item #5198

Frankfurt: Paul Jacobi for Luca Jennis, 1618. First edition, extremely rare, of “the first book about the telescope, its invention and use” (Zinner). Written by the Milanese scholar Girolamo Sirtori in 1612, only four years after the telescope was invented, it contained a complete set of instructions and diagrams for..... More
Item #4706

Oppenheim: Jakob Köbel, 1513 [colophon: 1512]. First edition, an exceptionally fine copy, of the most influential Renaissance work on astrolabes, and also the first German work on astrolabes, by leading astronomer and mathematician Johannes Stoeffler. This work, “the first book of original astronomy published in the 16th century” (mhs.ox.ac.uk/exhibits/the-renaissance-in-astronomy/panels/3-stoeffler-astrolabe/), is..... More
Item #5236

Kaluga: by the author, 1914. First edition, very rare, published by the author at his own expense, of the first separately-printed scientific work on space rockets, preceding by five years the first publication on rockets by Robert Goddard. Tsiolkovsky (1857-1935) began research into rocket propulsion and the theoretical and practical..... More
Item #4700