Manuscript on paper, entitled on the upper wrapper. One full-page manuscript map, in brush & ink, of the eight major roads or provinces of Korea & many tables in the text. 111 numbered folding leaves. Small folio (302 x 215), orig. patterned wrappers (wrappers a little soiled & wormed), stitched as issued. [Korea: 18th or 19th century].

Manuscript gazetteer describing Chosŏn Korea, which was referred to as “the East” (tung) or the “Eastern kingdom” (tungguk) before the 20th century. Our manuscript was written between 1694 (we find that date in the text) and 1895, when the eight provinces shown on... More

Four folding engraved plates. xxxviii, [2], 184 pp. 4to, cont. mottled calf, spine gilt, red morocco lettering piece on spine. Paris: David l’aîné, 1749.

First edition of one of Alembert’s most important books. “During the late 1740’s, d’Alembert, Clairaut, and Euler were all working on the famous three-body problem, with varying success. D’Alembert’s interest in celestial mechanics thus led him, in 1749, to publish a masterly work, the Recherches sur la Précession des Equinoxes…The precession of the equinoxes, a problem previously attacked by Clairaut, was very difficult. D’Alembert’s method was similar to Clairaut’s but he employed more terms in his... More

80 pp. 8vo (216 x 135 mm.), early 20th-cent. cloth-backed marbled boards & orig. printed wrappers mounted on stubs, gilt title on spine. Paris: Bonnefons Delavialle, Ch. Paillet; London: Treuttel & Wurtz, Jarman; Amsterdam: Dufour & De la Chaux; Brussels: Danot; Berlin: Logier & Simon Schropp; Vienna: Schabacher, [1826].

A fascinating and rare auction catalogue of an extensive and influential collection of Asian artifacts belonging to a “F. Sallé,” with many contemporary pencil annotations in the margins. We have been unable to ascertain his first name, but Sallé appears in numerous early 19th-century Parisian auction catalogues as the commissaire-priseur.

This... More

Large woodcut printer’s device on each title & numerous woodcuts & illus. and printed tables in the text. 470, [7] pp., one blank leaf; 217, [1] pp., two leaves of dedication. Two parts in one vol. Large 4to, cont. binding from the south of France of red morocco (rather browned throughout as always with this book due to the quality of the paper, some minor worming towards end touching a few letters & carefully repaired), arms in gilt on covers of François de Rignac (1580-1663; see below), roulette border in gilt round sides, spine gilt. Frankfurt: J.G. Schönwetter, 1648.

First... More

147 woodcut diagrams in the text. 6 p.l., 196 leaves. Small folio (272 x 190 mm.), cont. Parisian binding of light brown calf (very skillful restorations to the binding), panelled in blind with gilt fleurons in the corners, gilt floral tool in the center of each cover of a hand holding flowers, small gilt stars in the six compartments of spine. Nuremberg: J. Petreius, 1543.

First edition, and a very fine and crisp copy, of “the earliest of the three books of science that most clarified the relationship of man and his universe (along with Newton’s Principia and Darwin’s Origin... More

Finely engraved added title & numerous woodcut diagrams & printed tables in the text. Printed title in red & black. 9 p.l. (incl. engraved title), 323, 184 pp. Two parts in one vol. Large 4to, cont. vellum over boards, covers nicely decorated with coats-of-arms in gilt & silver (now oxidized) on each cover, a.e.g., ties gone. Hamburg: Frobenius, 1634.

First edition of this handsome and rare work on trigonometry by a student of Tycho Brahe. Frobenius (1566-1645), after studying in Tübingen and Wittenberg, went in 1591 to the island of Hven where he intended to live and study with Tycho... More

Woodcut device of the Medicean stars on title & two woodcut diagrams in the text. 2 p.l., 54 pp., one blank leaf. Small 4to, late 19th-cent. green diced morocco, arms of the House of Visconti in gilt within a richly decorated border, spine richly gilt, a.e.g. Florence: P. Cecconcelli, 1619.

First edition and a very fine copy. Although published under the name of his pupil and assistant Mario Guiducci (1585-1646), the present book is actually the work of Galileo (the autograph manuscript survives). It is a concealed reply to the attack of the Jesuit Orazio Grassi’s De Tribus Cometis, published... More

Woodcut Medicean arms on title. 36 pp. Small 4to, attractive antique calf (final five leaves a little stained & with some minor marginal paper repairs), spine gilt, red morocco lettering piece on spine. Florence: C. Giunti, 1605.

First edition of this rare and important book on the new star of October 1604; it plays a significant role in the first great controversy of Galileo’s scientific career in which he turned his back on the whole philosophical approach to science and sought reliable information and secure knowledge about the physical world through observations and calculations. The controversy which arose from the... More

Circular silver photographic print, 92 mm. in diameter, mounted on paper incorporating a printed title and descriptive letterpress dated August 1890 with the signatures of two of Herschel’s sons, mounted on card. Some small areas of abrasions to the paper surface. In the original frame, by Ryman & Co. of Oxford, made from the rungs of the ladder to the telescope. With a fragment of an original (?) printed descriptive notice on the back.

This is the earliest photograph of a scientific instrument and the first photograph deliberately taken to record an object prior to its disappearance (the earliest “record”... More

Engraved vignette on title & 47 folding engraved plates. Title printed in red & black. 2 p.l., [1]-636, [10] pp. Large 4to, cont. Dutch vellum over boards, panelled in blind with a blind arabesque in center of each cover. Leiden: J. & H. Verbeek, 1725.

First Latin edition of Keill’s lectures on physics and astronomy delivered at Oxford University; each was first separately published in 1702 (physics) and 1718 (astronomy). The 1702 Introductio ad veram Physicam was “probably the first textbook of Newtonian physics ever to appear.”–Gjertsen, The Newton Handbook, p. 284–(giving the date as 1701).

Keill (1671-1721), a student... More

Finely engraved frontis. port. of the author & eight folding engraved plates. Five vols. 8vo, fine cont. mottled calf (a few minor defects), flat spines gilt, red morocco lettering pieces on spines. Paris: Maradan, 1797.

Second edition, corrected, and enlarged. This edition expands the sections on mineralogy and petrology from two volumes to four. First published in 1795, this is the author’s chief work, which enjoyed considerable popularity among his contemporaries; it was founded for the most part on Werner’s teachings. “Taking a broad cosmogonical view of creation, Lamétherie regarded the major features of the earth as the result of... More

Folding engraved plate in Vol. IV. Five vols. Large 4to, handsome antique blue morocco-backed marbled boards, flat spines nicely gilt. Paris: J.B.M. Duprat & others, An VII [1798]-1825.

First edition and a complete set with all the supplements. In this monumental and fundamental astronomical work, Laplace -- the "Newton of France" -- codified and developed the theories and achievements of Newton, Euler, d'Alembert, and Lagrange. "Laplace maintained that while all planets revolve round the sun their eccentricities and the inclinations of their orbits to each other will always remain small. He also showed that all these irregularities in movements and positions... More