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: 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
Venice: Bernardo Giunta & G.B. Ciotti, 1609. First edition, very rare, of the principal astronomical work of one of the greatest Renaissance mathematicians. “Guidobaldo was Galileo’s patron and friend for twenty years and was possibly the greatest single influence on the mechanics of Galileo” (DSB). Guidobaldo was also influential in..... More
Item #2745
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
Palermo: Reale Stamperia, 1792. First edition, very rare, of Piazzi’s account of the Palermo Observatory, which he established, and where he made the observations that led to his discovery, on January 1, 1801, of the minor planet Ceres. Specola Astronomica includes Piazzi’s description of the astronomical instruments he had commissioned..... More
Item #3288
Palermo: Stamperia Reale, 1817. First edition, very rare, of Piazzi’s Palermo Observatory handbook. Having obtained a grant from the Viceroy of Sicily, Piazzi set up the observatory in 1789; as the southern-most European observatory, it offered unequalled access to the southern skies. Piazzi was able to acquire a great masterpiece..... More
Item #4360
![In hoc opere haec co[n]tinentur: Noua translatio primi libri Geographiæ Cl. Ptolomæi Geographia...](/pictures/thumb/3080.jpg?v=1592228657)
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
Venice: Johannes Hamman, 31 August 1496. First edition, and a beautiful, large and fresh copy in an outstanding contemporary Italian binding preserved in its original state, of this epochal work by the leading astronomer of the fifteenth century. “The importance of this book lies in the fact that it enshrines..... More
Item #4813
Basel: [colophon:] Heinrich Petri & Peter Perna, 1561. Second, much augmented, edition of “the first systematic treatise on plane and spherical trigonometry to be published in Europe” (Rose, p. 99), completed by 1464 but first published in 1533 at Nuremberg by Johann Schöner. “Regiomontanus’s monumental work on Triangles, the first..... More
Item #2852
Bologna: heirs of Vittorio Benacci, 1651. First edition of Riccioli's ‘New Almagest’, his attempt at a comprehensive non-Copernican account of the heavens that would excel in detail and accuracy all previous models and reconcile theology with observational astronomy. Divided into ten books, this work was one of the greatest productions..... More
Item #5123
[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
Venice: Erhard Ratdolt, 1482. First printing, rare, of this assembly of basic texts of pre-Copernican astronomy, an exceptional copy in an untouched contemporary binding (this book, and its several fifteenth-century reprints, are almost always found in 19th or 20th century bindings). Sacrobosco’s De sphaera mundi (editio princeps 1472) was the..... More
Item #3949
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
Ingolstadt: Eder for Elisabeth Angermaria, 1614 & 1615. First edition, in a beautiful contemporary binding, of Scheiner’s very rare work containing the second earliest map of the moon – but the first to give topographical details – as well as the first illustrations of a telescope. It builds upon Scheiner’s..... More
Item #4126
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
[St. Petersburg: 1874]. First edition, extremely rare offprint, of Struve’s ‘discovery’ of the faint companion to the star Procyon, which together form a binary system. This offprint is accompanied by two signed autograph letters from Struve to the Scottish amateur astronomer Robert Stirling Newall (1812-89), who at the time owned..... More
Item #4324
St. Petersburg: E. L. Porokhovshchikov, 1903. First edition, extraordinarily rare, of the first published work on space rockets, preceding by 16 years the first publication on rockets by Robert Goddard and by 20 years that of Hermann Oberth. In his bibliography of works on spaceflight, NASA engineer Michael L. Ciancone..... More
Item #4929
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
![Cursus Mathematici Practici Volumen Primum [all published]: continens Illustr. & Generosi Dn. Dn....](/pictures/thumb/4862.jpg?v=1592230162)
Cölln an der Spree: Martin Guthius, 1618. First edition, exceptionally rare, of the book that introduced logarithms to Continental Europe; in particular, it was through this work that Johannes Kepler, in ‘a happy calamity,’ as he called it, became aware of Napier’s epoch-making work, a discovery that enabled him to..... More
Item #4862