Blackwell's Rare Books - Sciences by Blackwell's Bookshop

Blackwell’s Rare Books Direct Telephone: +44 (0) 1865 333555 Switchboard: +44 (0) 1865 792792 Email: rarebooks@blackwell.co.uk Fax: +44 (0) 1865 794143 www.blackwell.co.uk/rarebooks

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Blackwell’s Rare Books 48-51 Broad Street, Oxford, OX1 3BQ Direct Telephone: +44 (0) 1865 333555 Switchboard: +44 (0) 1865 792792 Email: rarebooks@blackwell.co.uk Fax: +44 (0) 1865 794143 www.blackwell.co.uk/ rarebooks Our premises are in the main Blackwell’s bookstore at 48-51 Broad Street, one of the largest and best known in the world, housing over 200,000 new book titles, covering every subject, discipline and interest, as well as a large secondhand books department. There is lift access to each floor. The bookstore is in the centre of the city, opposite the Bodleian Library and Sheldonian Theatre, and close to several of the colleges and other university buildings, with on street parking close by. Oxford is at the centre of an excellent road and rail network, close to the London - Birmingham (M40) motorway and is served by a frequent train service from London (Paddington). Hours: Monday–Saturday 9am to 6pm. (Tuesday 9:30am to 6pm.) Purchases: We are always keen to purchase books, whether single works or in quantity, and will be pleased to make arrangements to view them. Auction commissions: We attend a number of auction sales and will be happy to execute commissions on your behalf. Blackwell’s online bookshop www.blackwell.co.uk Our extensive online catalogue of new books caters for every speciality, with the latest releases and editor’s recommendations. We have something for everyone. Select from our subject areas, reviews, highlights, promotions and more. Orders and correspondence should in every case be sent to our Broad Street address (all books subject to prior sale). Please mention Sciences Catalogue when ordering. Spring 2014

Front cover illustration: Item 44 Back cover illustration: Item 57

Alexander (Johannes) A Synopsis of Algebra. Being the posthumous work of John Alexander, of Bern in Swisserland. To which is added an appendix by Humfrey Ditton. For the Use of the Two Mathematical Schools in Christ’s Hospital, London. Done from the Latin by Sam. Cobb. Printed for the Hospital by J. Barber, and are to be sold by S. Keble and B. Tooke ... and D. Midwinter, 1709, numerous diagrams in the text, the appendix with a separate title-page and pagination, but continuous register, a few scattered spots, pp. [viii], 191, [i], ii,128, 8vo, contemporary tan calf, triple blind fillet borders on sides, fleurons in blind at the corners, wavy line inner border at spine edge, black lettering piece (‘Cobbs/Algeb’), headcaps defective, two small area of loss of surface to spine, corners soft and a little worn, answers to most of the ‘Problems and Questions’ to one chapter neatly supplied in ink (?by a teacher), good ( ESTC T86349) £450 A pleasing copy of a scarce work. ‘Ditton’s main work in mathematics was not in original research but in producing textbooks and expository articles. Newton had recommended him for the post at Christ’s Hospital after being impressed with his contributions to John Harris’s Lexicon technicum (1704) and with his textbooks, The General Laws of Nature and Motion … being a Part of the Great Mr Newton’s Principles (1705) and An Institution of Fluxions … According to the Incomparable Sir Isaac Newton (1706). In 1709 Ditton corrected and added to Joannes Alexander’s A Synopsis of Algebra , which was intended for the use of the students at Christ’s Hospital..’ ( ODNB ). A Latin edition, identical in format, appeared at the same time. The original Latin edition had appeared in 1693, a copy of which, apparently marked up for an English translation, was in the Macclesfield sale (Lot 147, 10 June 2004: the succeeding lot was the present edition, which fetched £350, inclusive of premium).

(Art.) THE ART OF DR AWING in Perspective: wherein the doctrine of perspective is clearly and concisely treated of, upon Geometrical Principles; and a Mechanical Method of Perspective and Designing invented, for the Benefit of such as are Strangers to Mathematics. Illustrated with Variety of Copper-Plate Figures. To which are annexed, the art of painting upon glass, and drawing in crayons; with Directions for making them after the French and Italian manner: Also the Art of Etching, and that of Japanning upon Wood, or any Metal, so as to imitate China; with Instructions for making Black or Gilt Japan-Ware, both beautiful and light; and for making the hardest and most transparent Varnishes; and, to which is added, a method of casting amber in any form whatever. The Fifth Edition. Printed for J. Johnson, 1791, folding engraved plate, some spotting and staining, first few leaves frayed at the foreedge, with a small piece missing from the first (not affecting text), plate misfolded, frayed in the protruding fore-edge, tear at the top of one of the folds and a small section crumpled but all present, pp. iv, 92, 12mo, nineteenth-century brown paper wrappers, sound ( ESTC N43022) £700

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Not a beauty, but the earliest edition recorded in ESTC , which locates just 3 copies, all in the US – Yale, Library of Congress, and Library Company of Philadelphia. Issued as a companion to Johnson’s The art of drawing and painting in water-colours, and The art of writing all the different hands, advertised at the foot of the title, and all priced one shilling. The former is as rare as the present work, in 2 of the locations above only, while the latter is not recorded in ESTC , except by way of this advertisment.

Bessel (Friederich Wilhelm) Fundamenta astronomiae pro anno MDCCLV deducta ex observationibus viri incomparabilis James Bradley in specula astronomica Grenovicensi per annos 1750-1762 institutis. Königsberg: Friedrich Nicolovius, 1818, FIRST EDITION , first gathering foxed, a few spots elsewhere, pp. xii, 325, [1], folio, contemporary half dark blue cloth, lettered in gilt on spine (‘Bradley/Astronomiæ’), nineteenth-century engraved armorial bookplate of Robert Le Poer French, good (Norman 226) £1,200 ‘The positions of Bradley’s stars valid for 1755 were published by Bessel as Fundamenta astronomiae pro anno 1755 (1818). This work also gives the proper motions of the stars, as derived from these observations of Bradley, of Piazzi, and of Bessel himself. It constitutes a milestone in the history of astronomical observations, for until then positions of stars could not be given with comparable accuracy: through Bessel’s work, Bradley’s observations were made to mark the beginning of modern astrometry. During this investigation Bessel became an admirer of the art of observation as practiced by Bradley; and because Bradley could not evaluate his own observations, Bessel followed and also taught the principle that immediately after an observation, the reduction had to be done by the observer himself. Further, he realized that the accurate determination of the motions of the planets and the stars required continuous observations of their positions until such motions could be used to predict the positions of the stars for all times with sufficient accuracy’ ( DSB ). The name Robert Le Poer French is not found in the list of subscribers (which is arranged by town: Oxford tops the list with 21 takers). Many copies went directly to libraries, and the book is quite scarce in commerce.

Blaikie (Francis) [Collection of Works]. Printed for John Harding, 1817-21, 6 works in 1 vol. (5 by Blaikie, 1 by William Salisbury), plate in the first work browned, a little water-staining in places, mostly in the first work, 12mo, contemporary half calf over drab boards, flat spine with a small gilt tool in compartments formed by gilt rules, red lettering piece (‘Pamphlets’), slightly worn, boards soiled, ink-stamped crest inside the front cover with the name erased, repeated inside the rear cover with the name (John Jervis Emerson) preserved, contemporary ticket of J. Connolly, bookseller of Dublin inside front cover, good £1,100 A native of Roxburghshire, Blaikie spent most of his working life in England, first as agent to the earl of Chesterfield at Bradley in Derbyshire. ‘It was while supervising the earl of Chesterfield’s estates that he attracted the notice of Thomas Coke of Holkham, the celebrated pioneer of Norfolk agriculture. On the death of Chesterfield Blaikie became the chief agent of the famous Holkham estate, in 1816. At Holkham, Blaikie immediately set about reforming the administration, made careful inspections of the farms, and reported on the character and capacity of the individual tenants. Some he found to be old-fashioned in their ideas and too easily satisfied with moderate results, and he offered

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advice on improvement both directly and by writing further pamphlets on such subjects as the conversion of arable land to pasture and the management of manure (a vital element in improving the light sandy soils of the estate). Subsequently he wrote on hedgerows and hedgerow timber, and on mildew and smut in wheat. Some of his pamphlets reached second and third editions’ ( ODNB ). Contents, with holdings found in COPAC : 1. Blaikie (Francis) The Management of Farm-Yard Manure. New edition, enlarged, 1821, pp. [iv], 40. (Bodley only). 2. Blaikie (Francis) A Practical Treatise on the Culture of Potatoes. A New Edition, Enlarged , 1821, pp. iv, 56. (BL and Soton). 3. Blaikie (Francis) A Treatise on the Management of Hedges and Hedge-Row Timber. A New Edition, 1821, pp. [iv], 52. (This edition not in COPAC ). 4. Blaikie (Francis) On the Conversion of Arable Land into Pasture, and other Rural Subjects, [1817], tear in title towards the gutter through 2 letters, without loss, first gathering misbound, but complete, pp. 42. (BL only with this imprint, 4 others printed at Burnham). 5. Salisbury (William) The Cottager’s Companion, or, a Complete System of Cottage Horticulture. Printed for the Author, 1817, FIRST EDITION , pp. [viii], [3-] 78, apparently complete. Contains chapters on: Vegetables cultivated for Culinary Purposes; and A List of wild Plants useful for culinary purposes. There is an advertisement for a second part at the end of the text, promised ‘speedily.’ The Cottager’s Agricultural Companion did not appear until 1822. (Bristol only). 6. Blaikie (Francis) A Treatise on Mildew, and the Cultivation of Wheat. Second edition, enlarged, 1820, pp. [vi], 36. (BL only). All of these are scarce: intended for practical use by the labouring classes, the low survival rate is not surprising.

Boyle (Robert) New Experiments and Observations touching Cold, or An experimental history of cold, begun. To which are added an examen of antiperistasis, and an examen of Mr. Hobs’s doctrine about cold ... Whereunto is annexed An account of freezing, brought in to the Royal Society, by the learned Dr. C. Merret, a Fellow of it. Printed for John Crook, 1665, FIRST EDITION , title in red and black, 2 folding engraved plates, titlepage slightly soiled, a few scattered spots, textblock strained at mid-point and 2 leaves pulling at inner margin, signature ‘aa’ misbound after ‘a’, without the terminal blank, pp. [lx], 696, [4], 697-845, [2, ads], [8 (gathering aa)], 54, 8vo, contemporary calf, blind tooled fleurons in the corners, rebacked and recased, corners slightly worn, good (Fulton 70) £5,000

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‘The treatise on Cold is a milestone in the history of chemistry since it applies a quantitative tool, namely the thermometer, to study of the interaction of elemental substances and mixtures’ (Fulton). Scarce.

Bradley (Richard) Ten Practical Discourses concerning Earth and Water, Fire and Air, as they relate to the growth of plants. With a collection of new discoveries for the improvement of land, either in the farm or garden. Westminster: Printed by J. Cluer and A. Campbell, for B. Creake, 1727, FIRST EDITION , woodcut head- and tail-pieces, some water-staining at either end, pp. [viii], 195, [5, ads], 8vo, contemporary calf, double gilt fillets on sides and on either side of raised bands on spine, unlettered, good (Henrey 510; ESTC T6440) £750 Bradley had a ‘colourful’ career. In 1723 he ‘optimistically asked Sloane to support his application for the botany chair at Oxford being endowed by William Sherard, but Sherard’s condition for the endowment was that it go to Johann Jacob Dillenius. In 1724 Bradley was appointed the first professor of botany at Cambridge. Bradley’s immediate successors in that chair were first John Martyn and later John’s son, Thomas. Long after Bradley’s death Thomas Martyn claimed that “Bradley was never of any university” and that he obtained the appointment “by means of a verbal recommendation from Dr Sherard to Dr Bentley; and pompous assurances that [Bradley] would procure the University a public Botanic Garden by his own private purse and personal interest” (Egerton, Relationship, 60, 73n.). Bradley was unable to arrange for a botanical garden, but he did write and publish two sets of course lectures, on general and practical botany ( Ten Practical Discourses, 1727) and on pharmaceutical botany (A Course of Lectures upon the Materia medica , 1730). Although Thomas Martyn also claimed that Bradley did not teach, the subtitle of the latter work says these lectures were read “in the Physick Schools at Cambridge”. Bradley’s early ecological ideas – on the balance of nature and biological productivity – added to his reputation’ ( ODNB ). Scarce.

Carlyon (Clement) A short Appeal to the Cottagers of Cornwall on the subject of Typhus Fever, and its close connection with want of cleanliness. With some additional remarks of a moral and religious nature. Truro: Printed by J. Carthew, Cornwall Library; Sold by Longman and Co., London [et al.], 1828, FIRST ( ONLY ) EDITION , a modicum of very mild foxing, and a little dust-staining, pp. 24, 8vo, original printed card wrappers, very good (Goldsmith’s 25630) £300 Carlyon (1777-1864) was a native of Truro, and a schoolfellow of Humphry Davy. After graduating from Cambridge he travelled to Germany where he met Samuel Taylor Coleridge and joined him on a walking tour in the Harz – ‘His autobiography, Early Years and Late Reflections, was published in four volumes between 1836 and 1858. The interesting and lively reminiscences of the first two volumes are replaced in the third and fourth by reams of dreary theology’ ( ODNB ). He published Observations on the Endemic Typhus Fever of Cornwall in 1827, which, according to the preliminary remarks here, was ‘rather meant to attract the notice of persons of weight and influence, than to claim the attention of those classes for whose benefit they were chiefly written.’ The present pamphlet therefore is for ‘those classes’, and is a rarity. The doctrine that ‘Cleanliness is next to Godliness’ is strenuously expounded, with much on Catch-pits, and the inadvisability of poor townsfolk keeping pigs in their courtlets. The only copy we can locate is that in Goldsmith’s.

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The title is repeated, within a decorative border, on the front wrapper, without mention of Longman, but rather ‘Printed and Sold by J. Carthew’, with ‘Price 3d or 2s 6d per Dozen.’

(Cookery. Manuscript. Military.) CROOKS (Keith) [Recipes and Notes from a course at the London School of Cookery]. September - November, 1940, 2 ruled note books, filled in in manuscript, one 4to, the other folio (the latter a cash book), c. 40 and 50 pp. respectively (with additions: see below), original cloth, both a little worn, especially the folio, sound £450 Army catering in WWII . The writer of these lecture notes was a private in the Royal Army Ordinance Corps, attending a course at what is now the Westminster Kingsway College’s School of Hospitality. Army catering had undergone many changes in the years immediately before WWII , and the present manuscript gives a clear and full idea of what troops might expect for their rations. The recipes are each for 100 men, or double that number, and therefore the quantities are prodigious, e.g. 57 lbs of beef for Curried Beef – curry is prevalent, always in the form of curry powder. The meat is frozen, and from Australia, New Zealand or the Argentine. Another copious ingredient is marg (margarine). Vegetables are plentiful in the various stews, and potatoes omnipresent. The recipes are brief. Notes are also taken on the various types of equipment, and there are lists of what is required in that department. The 4to notebook is written in a cursive hand. A number of pages have been torn out, but this seems to be essentially the complete course, with the names of the lecturers given. The folio volume seems to have been produced for ‘graduation’, being formally written in capitals (though with several errors in spelling), and endorsed at the end by the Chief Instructor, School of Cookery. Possibly because of post-war shortage of paper, the folio volume was used by Susan Crooks, presumably Private Crooks’s daughter, as a school exercise book (not uninteresting in itself as a record of post-war education).

A “très belle règle” Cramer (Gabriel) Introduction a l’Analyse des Lignes courbes algébriques. Geneva: the brothers Cramer and Cl. Philibert, 1750, FIRST EDITION , title printed in red and black, with 33 folding engraved plates and 1 folding letterpress table, rather foxed at the beginning and less so intermittently, a few leaves and plates a little browned, pp. xxiii, 680, xi (Index), [1, errata], 4to, with, loosely inserted, a page of additional errata in a contemporary hand (only as far as p. 254 however), contemporary Continental mottled calf, spine richly gilt, lettered direct, marbled edges matching the splendid pastedowns and endleaves, good £2,000

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Cramer’s major work, an important and scarce book, is ‘less well known than it merits ... The first chapter ... defines regular, irregular, transcendental, mechanical and irrational curves and discusses some techniques of graphing, including our present convention for the positive directions of coordinate axes. The second chapter deals with curves, especially those which simplify their equations, and the third chapter develops a classification of algebraic curves by order of degree, abandoning Descartes’s classification by genera. Both Cramer’s rule and Cramer’s paradox develop out of this chapter. The remaining ten chapters include discussions of the graphical solutions of equations, diameters, branch points and singular points, tangents, points of inflection, maxima, minima, and curvature ... He ... states that he has found a general and convenient rule for the solution of a set of v linear equations in v unknowns; but since this is algebra, he has put it in to appendix 1… The use of raised numerals as indices, not exponents, applied to coefficients represented by capital letters enabled Cramer to state his rule in general terms and to define the signs of the products in terms of the number of inversions of these indices when the factors are arranged in alphabetical order. Although Leibniz had suggested a method for solving systems of linear equations in a letter to L’Hospital in 1693, and centuries earlier the Chinese had used similar patterns in solving them, Cramer has been given priority in the publication of this rule. However, Boyer has shown . . . that an equivalent rule was published in Maclaurin’s Treatise of Algebra in 1748. He thinks that Cramer’s superior notation explains why Maclaurin’s statement of this rule was ignored even though his book was popular. Another reason may be that Euler’s popular algebra text gave Cramer credit for this “très belle règle”’ ( DSB ).

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Cullyer (John) The Gentleman and Farmers’ Assistant Containing first, Tables for finding the content of any piece of land from dimension taken in yards. Second, Tables shewing the width required for an acre in any square piece of land from 1 to 500 yards in length. Third, a Table shewing the number of loads that will manure an acre of land by knowing the distance of the heaps. Norwich: Printed for the Author, and sold by Crouse, Stevenson and Matchety. And all other booksellers, [1795], FIRST EDITION , printed on bluish paper, a few diagrams in the text, signed by the author at the end of the Preface (as called for) and a few manuscript corrections in the text, pp. xx, [2], 120, square 12mo, original sheep, joints cracked but firm, corners slightly worn, very good ( ESTC N7900) £750 A delightful copy of the rare first edition – BL and Rutgers only in ESTC . The large number of subscribers, almost exclusively from Norfolk, and the large number of editions – at least 17 – testify to the utility of the work. A fourth Table, for Thatchers’ work, was added the the second edition of 1798.

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Sir Kenelm Digby’s copy Danti (Egnazio) Le scienze matematiche ridotte in tauole. Bologna: la Compagnia della Stampa, 1577, FIRST EDITION , splendid woodcut printer’s device on title, woodcut initials, G1 and Hi signed with small stuck-on pieces of paper, minor damp-staining, short tear in lower margin of K2, pp. [iv], 59, folio (350 x 225mm), eighteenth-century half calf, skilfully rebacked, red lettering piece, red edges, the Macclesfield copy with blind stamp and book plate, inscribed by Kenelm Digby on the title-page (see below) good (Riccardi i, 392,2 ‘raro’; CNCE 15999) £3,500

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Sir Kenelm Digby’s copy of this scarce work, a schematisation of all the sciences – mathematics in particular (including music) occupies the first 14 pages. The work moves on to astronomy (Ptolemaic, but with a mention of Copernicus), optics in its various branches, including perspective, geography, &c. Also included is a list of the things which travellers ought to be looking out for; names of the winds throughout Europe (this section polyglot); military architecture; &c. Digby has signed the title-page boldly, ‘Kenelme’ (as it was often spelled) on the left of the device and ‘Digby’ on the right. Below the imprint he has written the price: ‘reals 3’, that is, the currency of Spain. Digby was twice in Spain. In 1617-18, as a youth, accompanying a distant cousin, Sir John Digby, who had been appointed ambassador. Again in 1623, when ‘Digby’s cousin John Digby, now earl of Bristol ... summoned him to Spain to join the negotiations for the marriage of Charles, prince of Wales, to the Spanish infanta. Digby arrived in Madrid in the spring of 1623 ... He also found time to collect books ... The extraordinary intelligence, courage, and ambition that carried Sir Kenelm Digby through so many adventures in his youth and made such an impression at court inspired him to take part in the philosophical and scientific revolution of the seventeenth century ... All in all, Digby was one of the most remarkable thinkers and scientific enquirers of his day’ ( ODNB ). Besides the signature and the price there are a few numerals scattered about, in 3 groups towards the left of the imprint, of unknown significance. When Digby died in 1665 his books were in Paris and were sold there, many now in the BNF and other Paris libraries. Others however were bought by George, the second Earl of Bristol, and his library, following his death in 1677, was sold in 1680. Bound with a copy of the sixth edition of Sturm’s Mathesis compendiaria , Koburg, 1714 (foxed, as you would expect). In the Macclesfield sale a third work was included in this volume, but was apparently extracted at the time of rebacking.

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(Darwiniana.) [TEESDALE (Maria)] Poems by M.T. Edited by her children. Printed for Private Circulation [by Ballantyne, Hanson & Co., Edinburgh and London], 1888, printed in sepia, portrait frontispiece and 5 lithographed plates, tissue guard to frontispiece browned (not affecting image), pp. [iv, blanks], viii, [ix-x], (11)-99, [4], 8vo, original green cloth with gilt single-line border around the front board, title in gilt within the border, all edges gilt, ends of spine a trifle worn, inscription on first blank ‘A. G. Milne from M. J. T., Jan. 1889’, very good £220 The five plates show the houses in which Maria Teesdale had lived, each one fronting a section of poetry written when living at those houses. The final group of four poems were written at Downe Hall, Kent, 1876-1882, and has a fine lithograph of the house. See Freeman, Charles Darwin A Companion, page 272 – Teesdale was on the ‘Personal Friends Invited’ list for Darwin’s funeral. COPAC lists the BL copy only.

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De Moivre (Abraham) The Doctrine of Chances: or, A Method of Calculating the Probabilities of Events in Play. The Third Edition, Fuller, Clearer, and more Correct than the Former. Printed for A. Millar, 1756, Large paper copy (290 x 230 mm), with engraved medallion portrait on the title-page, and engraved head- and tail-pieces, slightly browned in places, pp. [iv], xi, [i], 348, 4to, contemporary calf, spine richly gilt, red lettering piece, rebacked preserving original spine, contemporary engraved armorial bookplate of Lord Arundell of Wardour (?8th Baron) inside front cover, good £2,200 At 290 x 230 mm, this is probably a large paper copy. ‘After three more improved editions of the Annuities in 1743, 1750, and 1752, the last version of it was published in the third edition of the Doctrine. The Doctrine, especially, attracted Lagrange and Laplace to de Moivre’s work; it derived from de Moivre’s solution of the problem of the duration of play by means of what he called recurrent series, which amounted to the solution of a homogeneous linear differential equation with constant coefficients. In fact, the most effective analytical tool that Laplace developed for the calculus of probabilities, the theory of generating functions, is a consequence of his occupation with recurrent series: thus the most important results of de Moivre’s Doctrine reappear in Laplace’s probability theory represented in a new mathematical form and in a new philosophical context, confirming de Moivre’s status as a pioneer in this field’ ( ODNB ). De Moivre, by then blind, approved of all the improvements made to this edition, but died before it was published.

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(Encyclopédie. Mathématiques.) (Denis), J. Le Rond d’Alembert, et al. Encyclopédie méthodique. Mathématiques. Tome Premier [- Troisième]. [together with:] Dictionaire des Jeux, Faisant suite au Tome III des Mathématiques. [Six volumes in total.] Paris: Pancoucke [and Liège: Plomteux], 1784-92, 4 vols. in 5 (vol. ii in 2 vols.), plus plate vol., general title to the entire Encyclopédie bound as ‘half-titles’ in vols. i-iii, plate vol. with 43 engraved plates, some doublepage, very occasional browning (but more particularly to the plates), a few scattered spots, pp. [iv], cxiv, 721, [1]; [iv], 787 (divided at p. 400); [iv], xxviii, 56, 184, 4to, uncut in the original publisher’s boards, vol. iii of Mathématiques with a printed ‘Tables des objets’ pasted to the upper cover (see below), the plate volume rebacked, printed paper labels on the vols. of Mathématiques, some wear and tear but on the whole good, a remarkable survival £4,500 DIDEROT

Pancouke took over the publication of the Encyclopédie in 1765 and continued it until 1780, by which time pirated editions were springing up. Pancoucke attempted to gain the field with his own ‘super-encyclopdaedia’ (as PMM has it) in 201 volumes, 1782-1832. This

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is the mathematical and game-theoretical constituent, and would have been available as a separate entity (albeit bit by bit over the best part of a decde). The difficulties of this immense project are encapsulated in the preliminary pages of vol. iii of Mathématiques, where all sorts of explanations and excuses are made to the long-suffering subscribers: the ‘Tables des objets’ pasted onto the upper cover of the vol. is a table of contents of this apology, which of itself forms a highly interesting account of this kind of publishing enterprise.

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‘And several other Articles too numerous to be mentioned in a Title Page’ Fairfax (Thomas) The Complete Sportsman; or Country Gentleman’s Recreation. Containing The very best Instructions under the following Heads. Viz. Of Breeding and the Management of Game-Cocks. Of Cock-Fighting. Of Colts and backing Colts. Of the Breeding and Management of Race-Horses, Hunters, &c. Of HorseRacing. Of Bowling. Of Coursing. Of Hare-Hunting. Of Fox-Hunting. Of BuckHunting. Of Breeding and Ordering all Manner of Dogs, Pigeons, Rabbits, &c. Of Angling. Of Otters and Otter-Hunting. Of Pheasants. Partridges. Wood-Cocks, and all Manner of Game. Of Breeding and Managing Canary Birds, &c. &c. And several other Articles too numerous to be mentioned in a Title Page. Printed for J. Cooke, 1765, pp. [ii], 250, 12mo, contemporary sprinkled sheep, double gilt fillets on sides, double gilt rules on either side of the raised bands on spine, upper joint cracked, corners bumped, very good. ( ESTC T168413; see Schwerdt I pp.169-70 for a c. 1760 edition and 2 later ones, and Mellon Collection 53) £300 A reissue of 1764 edition which in turn is described as a reissue of Cooke’s 1758 edition, with a cancel titlepage. Nonetheless a rare version, BL only in ESTC . On p. 92 a short paragraph is repeated, and a former owner has put a pencil line through the offending duplication.

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Floravanti (F.) L’Abitatore del Sole, ovvero discorsi fisici, e morali fatti ad un curioso, in due colloquj, ne’ quali si prova, le stelle essere alcune soli, ed altre Terre, abitate da differenti Creature; e nel descrivere la loro vita, e costumi, si presenta un modello all’uomo, come doveria vivere, per divenire felice. A Sua Eccellenza Carlo Sackville Conte di Middlesex. ‘Londra: Per J. Chrichley’, 1743, FIRST EDITION , a little foxing, minor worming at the end diminishing to a tiny hole through the rest of the volume, touching letters but without serious loss, pp. 216, 8vo, contemporary mottled calf, single gilt fillet on sides, red lettering piece on spine, a little rubbed and upper joint cracked, good ( ESTC T107792, recording 4 copies, BL and Bodley, the Universities of Michigan and Oklahoma) £3,500 Little seems to be known about the author of this curious and rare work. His first name is not known, nor is the date of his birth, although the date of his death is given as 1767 in ESTC . No other work by, or attributed to, him is known. The ‘curioso’, or virtuoso as we might translate it, was in the habit of stargazing in his garden. One night he has a visitor in the form of an inhabitant of the sun, and they set to talking. In the first, physical, part

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arguments are brought forward for the plurality of worlds, both from the diversity of life on Earth itself (examples from America to Japan to the Cape of Good Hope), and the vastness of the universe, as well as by separating the ‘monstrous’ admixture of theology to philosophy. The second, moral, part describes in detail the lives and societies of the inhabitants of Mercury, Venus, the Moon, and then all the other planets lumped together, casting different lights on human folly and hypocrisy. The objection that life could be supported on a planet as hot as the sun is resolved this way: the matter was being discussed in the Academy, and one professor argued that the sun was indeed too hot for life, as we know from the great heat which it it transmits to us, and nothing can be transmitted which is not inherent in the transmitter. This was countered in a lively manner by another, who jumped up and boxed the first on the ears, explaining that he had transmitted pain, though he had none himself. Charles Sackville, Lord Middlesex, later the second Duke of Dorset, spent much time on Continental travel, especially in Italy, where, no doubt he became acquainted with the enigmatic Floravanti; alternatively, Floravanti may have had some connection with the Italian opera, which Sackville was attempting to re-establish in London at the time. Certainly the book is not of a type which could have been published in Italy. Provenance: Bramshill House (armorial bookplate); Anthony Cope (old signature on title). The Cope family lived at Bramshill from 1699 to 1935.

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Fox to Allen re. Davy Fox (Joseph) Autograph Letter Signed to William Allen. Canterbury: Jany. 6, 1808, 4 pp., 4to, with integral address panel, small hole in second leaf from wax seal with the loss of a couple of letters on the recto, good £750 + VAT in the EU A good and lengthy letter to Fox’s greatest friend. Joseph Fox (1775-1816), dental surgeon and philanthropist, delivered at Guy’s ‘the first series of lectures specifically on dentistry to be given in Britain, and probably in the world. On them he based his two books, The Natural History of the Human Teeth (1803) and The History and Treatment of the Diseases of the Teeth (1806), which were the first important dental works in English to have illustrations of operative dental procedures and of pathological dental conditions. Fox was also the first to give specific instructions for the correction of irregularities of the teeth. There were three English editions of his works, two American editions, and a French translation by Lemaire. These works were the first true textbooks on dentistry for students and practitioners, and for the next fifty years they were the most quoted ones in the English-speaking world’ ( ODNB ). Fox was in Canterbury recovering from an illness and proffers some religious reflections to his Quaker friend. He refers to Humphry Davy – a close friend of Allen’s, but an acquaintance only of Fox’s – who was also ill, Fox hoping that the experience would guide him towards religion. He then refers to his ‘Lectures on the Teeth’, it being his intention to resume them, and asking Allen to include them in the advertisements of the Spring course.

18.

Quos, quibus, & quando Galen. Libellus, cui titulum fecit, Quos, quibus, & quando purgare oporteat: a Sebastiano Coquillato Scipione in linguam Latinam conversus, ejusdemque commentariis illustratus: cui accessit materia & forma medicamentorum, tam

SCIENCES

eorum, quae intro assumuntur, quam quae foris adhibentur: eodem autore. Lyons: Guillaume Rouillé, 1553, with woodcut printer’s device on title, 3 woodcut headpieces and initials, text in Italic, commentary in Roman type, a curious impression at the foot of the last page of text (see below), some minor damp-staining, one or two rust spots, one leaf dogeared since binding (when folded out extending beyond the other margins), pp. 250, [1] plus 2 blanks, 16mo, contemporary speckled calf, double blind fillets on sides, slightly scuffed, old infill repair to upper joint, a few pages with contemporary underlining, ownership inscription of flyleaf opposite title, Fleury 1774, good (Baudrier IX p. 203; Durling 1982) £1,800 First Latin edition, an attractive little pocket book, and rare. There were several later editions. A formulary follows the text and commentary. In the commentary Coquillat Scipion, a Montpellier doctor, makes reference to the Classical authors, to Mesue, and to moderns including Gesner, Fuchs, Sylvius and Musa (Brasavola). Only one other work by Coquillat is known, a Latin translation of Demosthenes, published a few years before. Not in Wellcome (BL only in COPAC ); WorldCat locates copies in Chicago, Yale and Harvard (add NLM ), and Lyons (not in BNF ). At the foot of the last page of text there is a pale impression of 7 lines of random capital letters, presumably used as leading.

19.

Geissler (Johann Gottfried) Ueber die Bemühungen der Gelehrten und Künstler, mathematische und astronomische Instrumente einzutheilen. Dresden: In der Waltherischen Hofbuchhandlung, 1792, FIRST EDITION , with 7 folding engraved plates, a little spotting and the plates slightly browned, pp. 134, [2], 8vo, uncut in modern boards, signature of C. Wilde on title, sound £1,500 A survey of scientific instruments and makers from Tycho to Ramsden. Rare: WorldCat locates 2 copies only, both in the Netherlands

20.

[Gols (Gerard de)] A Theologico-Philosophical Dissertation concerning Worms in all parts of human bodies: Containing several most curious and uncommon observations of natural productions. In a letter to a friend. Printed for A. Bettesworth at the Red Lion, J. Osborn and T. Longman at the Ship in Paternoster-Row; and J. Silver bookseller in Sandwich, 1727, FIRST EDITION , title-page slightly soiled, a theme repeated to greater or lesser degree throughout, library stamp on title-page and inscription at head partially erased, pp. 125, [3, ads], 8vo, contemporary panelled sheep, rebacked (rather crudely), corners worn, sound ( ESTC N46964 ) £750 ESTC attributes this work to William Ramesey, but in fact it bears no relation to that author’s Helmynthologia , 1664. The last section, ‘The Use of this Discourse’, is signed G. de Gols, from Sandwich. De Gols was minister to the Dutch congregation at Sandwich, and published a number of works of more or less alarming theology: the present work, full of reference to medical writers, is not pleasant reading. Scarce: 8 copies in ESTC , not in the BL.

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21.

[Grose (Francis)] A Guide to Health, Beauty, Riches, and Honour. Printed for S. Hooper, 1783, FIRST EDITION , scattered foxing, pp. [i], viii, 64, 8vo, [bound with:] Paul (Sir George Onesiphorus) Thoughts on the alarming progress of the Gaol Fever; with rules for the treatment of the diseased, and means to prevent its further communication. Gloucester: Printed by R. Raikes, 1784, a little foxed at end , pp. 40, late nineteenth-century calf (by Jefferies & Son of Bristol), double gilt fillets on sides, with an inner roll tooled frame in blind, red lettering piece on spine, spine slightly faded, engraved bookplate (featuring St. Peter’s Hospital, Bristol) of Edward Greenfield and Hugh Greenfield Doggett inside front cover, and their catalogue stamp on the front free endpaper, title-page with remains of a presentation inscription (‘Capt. Grose’ and the bottom quarter of a ‘from’, but only the barest traces of the recipient’s name), good ( ESTC T13166) £2,000 A collection of advertisements from London newspapers – some given chapter and verse, others not, and the latter possibly spurious – with an ironical preface by Grose. Quackery and all other means of duping the public (especially as regards advantageous matches) are the subject matter. Prominent are James Graham and his Temple of Health, and various retailers of condoms, or ‘instruments of safety.’ One particularly rich one is in French, from le Sieur Diderot, a surgeon and dentist, who, adapting techniques from dentistry, is able to renew maidenheads (‘pucelages’), and moreover in varieties of different national temperaments. This is a scarce book, with but 9 copies recorded in ESTC , 4 in the British Isles (not in Wellcome, or Bodley), 4 in the US, and 1 in NZ. The ESTC collation calls for a plate, but not all the recorded copies have it, nor it is called for in later editions, and it may therefore be a nonce addition in copies which do have it. Sir G.O. Paul’s tract on Gaol Fever is one of several he published on prison reform. It is rare: BL, Manchester Central, and Huntington only recorded in ESTC . Edward Greenfield and Hugh Greenfield Doggett were father and son, both prominent Bristolians. Their instructions to their binder (who is identified in an inscription on the fly-leaf) are legible in pencil on the title-page: ‘Bind in calf – let the edges remain precisely as they are.’ The two pieces have no obvious relation to one another, but they form a curious combination of the scurrilous and the worthy.

22.

Harvey (William) Exercitationes anatomicæ, De motu Cordis & Sanguinis Circulatione. Cum duplici Indice Capitum & Rerum. Accessit Dissertatio de Corde Doct. Jacobi de Back. Rotterdam: Arnold Leers, 1660 [1661], with additional engraved title-page (included in the pagination), and 2 full-page engravings in the text, minute worm-hole in top outer corner through half of the volume (not affecting text,), small faint stain in fore-margin of first few leaves, pp. [xxxii], 252, [24], 12mo, contemporary vellum over boards, yapp edges, soiled, attractive & very nearly contemporary ownership inscription on fly-leaf (see below), good (Keynes 9; see PMM 127 for the first edition of 1628) £1,850

SCIENCES

The ninth, first posthumous, edition of De motu cordis, which Keynes places before the London edition with the same dates, the latter being the first edition published in England. ‘Harvey’s treatise is, in fact, more important as a demonstration of scientific method in biological research than as an annunciation of the fact of the circulation of the blood. From this beginning has flowed all subsequent biological knowledge in an ever widening stream. Harvey’s De motu cordis is therefore justly considered to be one of the most fruitfull and important books ever published’ (Keynes). The volume is inscribed calligraphically on the second fly-leaf: ‘Ex libris Edmondston, [ ] Edmondston, 3 mai anno 1670 1-2-11 [the price]. Dono sagari robur. Stet liber hic donec flucto formica marinos ebibit; at totam testudo perambulet orbem.’ The hand is a little difficult, and we are unsure of the Christian name. The Latin couplet is a quotation that goes back at least as far as the colophon of a 1507 printing of the Pragmatic Sanction; the sense is ‘May this book stand until an ant has drank the oceans, and a tortoise walked around the globe’.

23.

Hero of Alexandria. De gli automati, ouero machine se mouenti, libri due, tradotti dal greco da Bernardino Baldi. Venice: Girolamo Porro, 1589, engraved title within architectural border, engraved and woodcut illustrations in the text, 6 of the engravings full-page, a few leaves with a small damp-stain in the lower outer corner, final blank discarded, ff. 47, [bound after:] Grischow (Augustin) Descriptio hyetometri ... Berlin: J. Grynaeus, [1734], with a large folding engraved plate (loose), some signatures cropped at foot , pp. 28, [and:] Castelli (Benedetto) Della misura dell’acque correnti ... [Rome: F. Cavalli, 1639], with a full-page engraving on verso of title, partly browned, pp. [iv], 72, small 4to, eighteenth-century English half calf for the Earl of Macclesfield, blind stamp on title of the Grischow, bookplate, contents in manuscript on fly-leaf, good (1. CNCE 22645; Riccardi i, 67 (‘bella e rara edizione’): 2. Riccardi i, 209) £6,000 Three works bound together. First edition of this translation of Hero, second edition of the Castelli (first 1628), while the Grischow is an offprint from Miscellanea Berolinensia . Bernardino Baldini, the translator of Hero, was a pupil of Commandino’s, but is better known as a poet than a scientist (though one of his poems, ‘L’Artiglieria & la Nautica’, is technical enough). Nothing is known of Hero of Alexandria, under whose name several work have come down to us, the most important being the Pneumatics. ‘The Automata , or Automatic Theatre, describes two sorts of puppet shows, one moving and the other stationary; both being performed without being touched by human hands ... a marvel of ingenuity with very scant mechanical means’ ( DSB ). This is the second of Hero’s works to appear in print, preceded by Commandino’s translation of Spiritalium liber, Urbino, 1575. WorldCat records 6 copies of De gli automati in the US, though none on the east coast. There was a second edition in 1601.

blackwell’S rare books

Castelli was one of Galileo’s most important associates, and his work Della misura dell’acque correnti established the science of hydraulics. Girschow’s work describes a rain gauge of his invention.

24.

[Hildrop (John)] Free Thoughts upon the Brute Creation: or, an examination of Father Bougeant’s Philosophical Amusement, &c. In two letters to a lady. Printed for R. Minors. 1742-43, FIRST EDITION , 2 parts in 1 vol., with an engraved frontispiece to first part, piece torn from fore-margin of H2 in first part with the loss of 8 letters on the recto and 2 on the verso (sense recoverable), some spots and stains, outside pages browned, pp. [iv], 64; [ii, ?lacking half-title], 88, 8vo, calf backed boards of c. 1950, red lettering piece, sound ( ESTC T82058) £750 ‘Hildrop published various fugitive essays of a satirical and polemical character, chiefly directed against deists, either anonymously [as here] or under the pseudonyms of Phileleutherus Britannicus and Timothy Hooker. Though of slight intrinsic value, they are written in an unusually nervous, yet easy and entertaining style. These include An Essay for the Better Regulation and Improvement of Free-Thinking (1739) and The Contempt of the Clergy Considered (1739); the latter argued for the liberation of the church from state control. His Letter to a member of parliament containing a proposal … to revise, amend, or repeal … the Ten Commandments is an amusing jeu d’esprit. On its first appearance in 1738 it was attributed to Swift, but it appears in Hildrop’s Miscellaneous Works (1754), along with A Modest Apology for the Ancient and Honourable Family of the Wrongheads and Some Memoirs of the Life of Simon Sallow. In 1740 Hildrop became a regular contributor to the Weekly Miscellany. In 1741 his An Essay on Honour appeared and in 1742 he printed a work attempting to prove that animals’ souls are degraded because of the fall of man, based on Guillaume Hyacinthe Bougeant’s Philosophical Amusement’ ( ODNB ). With the exception of Wrongheads, the other works mentioned above are listed as ‘lately printed for R. Minors’, on the verso of the half-title to part one here.

25.

(Hospitals. Leicester.) THE STATUTES AND RULES for the Government of the Leicester-Infirmary : Open to the sick and poor of any county. Leicester: Printed by John Gregory, 1771, pp. 59 (recte 60), 8vo, disbound, good ( ESTC T196686) £600 Rare: Bodleian only in ESTC . The Statutes concern the governance, subscriptions, &c. The Rules are: For the Admission and Discharge of Patients. For the Physicians. For the Surgeons. For the Apothecary. For the Matron. For the Secretary. For the Porter. For the Messenger and Laboratory Man. For the Nurses and Servants. For the In-Patients. For the out-Patients. Ends with Diets: Common, Low, Milk, Dry. These are all pretty frugal, but at least the last has: ‘Beer half a pint every day.’

26.

Jardine (William) The Naturalist’s Library. Vol. VI [-VII]. Ornithology. Humming Birds. Edinburgh: W.H. Lizars, [c. 1840,] engraved frontispiece and hand-coloured engraved title-page in each volume, plus a total of 64 hand-coloured plates, some light toning and offsetting, pp. [viii], xxxi, [1], [25]-191, [1]; [viii], 192, small 8vo, contemporary half dark blue calf, marbled boards, spines in six compartments with raised bands, red morocco lettering pieces, a little bit rubbed, good £300 First published in 1833 as the first two volumes in the Naturalist’s Library – although assigned a position as volumes 6 and 7) – and complete on their own.

SCIENCES

Item 26

27.

Item 28

The mathematics of Cubism Jouffret (Esprit Pascal) Mélanges de géométrie à quatre dimensions [together with:] Traité élémentaire de géométrie à quatre dimensions et introduction à la géométrie à n dimensions. Paris: Gauthier-Villars 1903-06, 2 vols., diagrams in the text, Traité a trifle browned, pp. xi, 227, [1] (Mélanges); xxx, 215, [1] (Traité), 8vo, Traité in contemporary black cloth, rubbed at extremities, bookplate inside front cover and owner’s initials stamped on front free end-paper, Mélanges uncut in original printed wrappers, good £200 ‘Esprit Jouffret’s Mélanges de géométrie à quatre dimensions, and especially his Traité élémentaire de géométrie à quatre dimensions et introduction à la géométrie à n dimensions, are important developments in the history of the visualization of fourdimensional geometry’ (Robbin, Shadows of Reality: The Fourth Dimension in Relativity, Cubism, and Modern Thought , Yale, 2006, p. 18). Their illustrations of the hypercube and other four-dimensional polyhedra, projected onto the two-dimensional page, profoundly influenced the development of cubism. Maurice Princet, the ‘mathematician of cubism,’ introduced Jouffret’s work to Picasso and the influence of Jouffret can be seen clearly in the sketches for Picasso’s ‘Les Demoiselles d’ Avignon’ (1907), a seminal work of cubism, and in his portraits from 1910 onwards. This is particularly apparent in Picasso’s ‘Portrait of Henry Kahnweiler’, which is composed of multiple transparent, interpenetrating cubes reminiscent of Jouffret’s illustration in the Traité of the parallel projection of the four-dimensional hypercube with the faces of some of its octahedral cells exploded out. Robbin also argues that Jouffret’s work on four-dimensional geometry may have influenced Minkowski’s space-time approach to special relativity. Both works are scarce: COPAC lists five copies of the Traité and only one of the Mélanges.

28.

Keys (John) The Practical Bee-Master: in which will be shewn how to manage bees either in straw hives or in boxes, Without Destroying Them, And With More Ease, Safety, And Profit, Than By Any Method Hitherto Made Public ... Together With Such Full And Plain Directions That the meanest Cottager may attain this profitable Art Without Difficulty, and at a small Expence; interspersed with occasional strictures on Mr. Thomas Wildman’s Treatise on bees: With Several New Discoveries And

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Improvements, The Result Of A Long Experience, And Deduced From Actual Experiments. Printed for the author, and sold by him at his house in Cheshunt-Street, Hertfordshire; J. Johnson, No. 72, St. Paul’s Church-Yard; Mr. Vallance, Cheapside [London]; and by the principal booksellers in town and country, [1780,] FIRST EDITION , with a folding engraved plate, pp. xii (pp. xi-xii, Contents, bound after title), 390, [2], uncut in the original wrappers, spine hand lettered in ink, spine partly defective, preserved in a cloth folding box, very good ( BBB 135; ESTC T133239) £950 A revised edition appeared in 1796 entitled The Ancient Bee-Master’s farewell, this time giving the author’s address as Bee Hall, Pembroke. The contents, as set out on the title-page, are: I. To manage Bees in Straw Hives, with new constructed Tops, at a small expence, as profitably and easily as with Boxes. II. In Boxes of an improved and cheap Construction, easily to be managed, and with so little Disturbance to the Bees, that all the necessary operations may be performed without any Danger. III. To catch and secure the Queen, or to fix her and a Swarm to any place you please. IV. To cause Bees to quit a Hive, and to be so tractable as to suffer themselves to be handled without Stinging. V. Several Methods of Swarming Bees Artificially. VI. To cause a Swarm to work in separated Glasses, without any Hive; or in globular or other glasses, so that pure Virgin Honey may be taken when in its utmost Perfection. VII. To prevent or cause Bees to swarm. VIII. To take the Honey and yet preserve the Bees, with common Hives only. IX. To unite Casts, Swarms, and Stocks. X. A Catalogue of, and Observations on, the most proper Flowers or Pasturage for Bees. XI. An easy and certain Method of preserving Stocks in Winter and cold Springs. XII. Several new and improved Methods of extracting the Wax from the Combs, two of them without either Straining or Pressing; and each by a single Operation: but more perfectly, and with far less Trouble and Expence of Fuel than hitherto practiced.’

29.

La Chambre (Marin Cureau de) The Characters of the Passions. Written in French ... Translated into English. Printed by Tho. Newcomb, for John Holden, 1650, titlepage printed in red and black and browned and slightly frayed in the fore-margin, some darkening around the edges and some damp-staining at the beginning, a single worm hole in the inner margin of the first 20 leaves, negligibly affecting text, without the initial blank, pp. [xxiv], 339, [2, ‘The Stationer to the Reader’ usually bound with the preliminaries], 8vo, contemporary sheep, blind double fillet borders on sides, a double rule in blind towards the spine, rebacked preserving most of the original spine and red lettering piece, sound ( ESTC R226125) £2,000 First edition in English, an anonymous translation of the first volume of La Chambre’s Les charactères des passions, 1640. The work in French eventually extended to 5 volumes, the last published in 1662. As the Biographie Universelle has it: ‘cet ouvrage est encore estimé et regardé comme un de nos bons livres de physiologie.’ The passions considered here are Love (roughly half the volume), Joy, Laughter, Desire, and Hope. The Stationer, i.e. John Holden, dedicates the volume to the Ladies, ‘acknowledging them the onely Admirals of these Seas [i.e. the Passions]; to whom, whether they come safe, or are shipwrack’d, they of right belong, since none do more powerfully cause, or more sensibly suffer them...’ La Chambre emerged from somewhat obscure origins to become, in 1635, the holder of a new office, that of physician to the staff of the Chancellery, and in later life he was one of the founder members of the Académie des Sciences. (see D. J. Sturdy, Science and Social Status: The Members of the ‘Académie Des Sciences’, 1995, pp. 89-95). Scarce: ESTC locates 9 copies in the UK, 3 of them in Oxford, and not the BL; 6 copies in the US.

SCIENCES

30.

Lagrange (Joseph-Louis) Théorie des fonctions analytiques, contenant les principes du calcul différentiel, dégagés de toute considération d’infiniment petit ou d’évanouissans, de limites ou de fluxions, et réduits a l’analyse algébrique des quantités finies. Paris: L’Imprimerie de la République, Prairal an V, i.e. June, 1797, FIRST EDITION , complete with half-title and final blank, small green stamp partially erased from title, some foxing or browning here and there, pp. [iv], viii, 277, [1], plus final blank, 4to, uncut and unopened in the original marbled wrappers, manuscript paper label on spine, slight wear to wrappers, good (Riccardi I (2), 3; Norman 1258) £1,200 ‘In this book, Lagrange intended to show that power series expansions are sufficient to provide differential calculus with a solid foundation. Today mathematicians are partially returning to this conception in treating the formal calculus of series. As early as 1812, however J.M.H. Wronski objected to Lagrange’s claims. The subsequent opposition of Cauchy was more effective. Nevertheless, Lagrange’s point of view could not be totally neglected. Completed by convergence considerations, it dominated the study of the functions of a complex variable throughout the nineteenth century’ ( DSB ).

31.

Leybourn (William) The Art of Dialling: performed geometrically, by scale and compasses: arithmetically, by the canons of sines and tangents: instrumentally, by a trigonal instrument, accommodated with lines for that purpose: the geometrical part whereof is performed by projecting of the sphere in plano, upon the plain it self, whereby not onely the making, but the reason also of dials is discovered. Printed by S[arah]. G[riffin]. and B[ennet]. G[riffin]. for Benjamin Tooke and Thomas Sawbridge, [1669], FIRST EDITION , FIRST (undated) ISSUE , with engraved portrait frontispiece, 1 folding engraved plate, and woodcut diagrams in the text, a few spots and a little minor staining, tiny worm track at lower inner corner of first few leaves, pp. [vii], 175, small 4to, contemporary calf, double blind fillets on sides, spine divided into compartments in the same way, blind roll tooled decoration to board edges, headcaps defective, one corner worn, the Kenney copy with his small red-printed label inside front cover, stamp of Christopher St. J.H. Daniel also there as well as on the fly-leaf, older, possibly contemporary, initials R.T. or rear fly-leaf and ‘pr. 2:6’ on title, good ( ESTC R17714, BL only) £2,000 The extremely rare first issue of the first of Leybourn’s books on the subject. The longlived Leybourn (1626-1716), originally a printer, turned to mathematics and especially surveying. He enjoyed a fine reputation in his day, both as a fellow (described by John Gadbury as of ‘a facetious, pleasant and cheerful disposition’), and as a mathematician, ranked by William Derham with Oughtred and Jonas Moore, and some of his textbooks had a life of over a century. The second issue has an engraving beside the Advertisement on the verso of the last leaf of the preliminaries, absent here. ESTC records only the BL copy; WorldCat adds Bayerische Staatsbibliothek. Christopher St. J.H. Daniel is the author of the Shire Publications book on sundials.

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32.

Leybourn (William) Arithmetical Recreations: or, Enchiridion of arithmetical questions both delightful and profitable: all of them performed without algebra: with several arithmetical problems and their answers: also, divers subtile contracts or agreements, a discourse concerning the harmony of numbers, and variety of compendiums in the several rules of arithmetick. The third edition, corrected, and very much enlarged by the author. Printed for Ch. Brome, 1699, browned at the beginning and occasionally to a lesser degree elsewhere, a weakness in the paper of the title-page caused or exacerbated by the blindstamp, just touching one letter, a few fore-edges uncut, the final 4 advertisement leaves excised, pp. [viii], 163, 12mo, contemporary sprinkled sheep, gilt spine, rebacked, preserving original spine, which however is a little pitted causing the loss of most of the vertical direct lettering, the Macclesfield copy with bookplate and blindstamps, sound ( ESTC R221719 ) £2,000 Leybourn’s rarest book, very cheaply produced (with, as it were, built-in obsolescence), and only likely to survive by chance in a library such as that formerly in Shirburn Castle. It was first published in 1667 ( ESTC records 2 copies in Cambridge libraries), again in 1676 (4 copies in ESTC , only one in the US, at the Clarke), and the present edition, for which ESTC lists 5 locations: Columbia and BL plus three in Oxford, Bodleian, Balliol, and Radcliffe Science Library. SOLO, however, locates only the first two, with the Bodleian copy described as ‘previously’ the Radcliffe copy, and a third listing for a digital facsimile ‘reproducing the original in the Bodleian’. But the reproduction includes the advertisement leaves, apparently also not present, as here, in the (former) Radcliffe copy. In the Macclesfield sale catalogue this copy is described as having a final blank, but in our opinion the final blank is of a different paper stock, and the binder’s insertion. ‘Recreations’ in the title is apposite, for the examples are for the most part rather homely.

33.

Lull (Ramón) Libelli aliquot Chemici: nunc primum, excepto Vade mecum, in lucem opera doctoris Toxitæ editi. Basle: Peter Perna, 1572, FIRST EDITION OF THIS COLLECTION , full-page woodcut ‘arbor operationis’ on p. 192, and small woodcut on p. 224, paper page tabs marking the divisions of the volume (the last, right at the foot of the page pulled a little, with a resultant short tear, the length of the tab, no more), a little bit of browning, mainly confined to the terminal gatherings, poor impression of the running title on p. 375, pp. [xvi], 480, [31], 8vo, eighteenth-century vellum, tan wash label on spine bounded by double gilt fillets, lettered in gilt in Italian, very good (Rogent and Durán 116; VD 16 R150; Duveen p. 370 (no copy in the Young collection); Neville Historical Chemical Library Vol. 2, pp.100-101) £4,500 An important and rare edition of the pseudo-Lullian alchemical corpus, containing eight treatises, most published for the first time. There was another edition in 1600. The label on the spine reads ‘ DIZIO / FISIC /TO I’ indicating a one-time Italian provenance and that this was once part of a set considered to be definitive, but the volume is of course complete in itself.

SCIENCES

34.

Lyell (Sir Charles) The Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man with Remarks on the Theories of the Origin of Species by Variation. Illustrated by woodcuts. John Murray, 1863, FIRST EDITION , with a woodcut frontispiece and numerous illsutrations in the text, half-title slightly foxed, a trifle browned around the edges, text block a little strained in places, pp. xii, 520, 32 (ads, dated January 1863), 8vo, original cloth gilt and blind stamped, spine slightly darkened, front inner hinge weak, sound £500 Lyell’s last major work. ‘Research by other geologists [had] finally established that early human beings had lived alongside the mammoths and other extinct mammals of the glacial period, known by this time by Lyell’s name, “Pleistocene” (formerly his ‘Newer’ Pliocene). This locked the human species firmly into earth history, by extending human history far beyond the reach of textual records into a prehistory recorded only in fossil bones and stone artefacts’ ( ODNB ). The work gave Darwin powerful support in the controversy following the publication of Origin of Species, although Darwin himself was disappointed that there was not a more ringing endorsement.

35.

Magens (Nicolas) The Universal Merchant: Containing the Rationale of Commerce, in Theory and Practice; an Enquiry into the Nature and Genius of Banks, their Power, Use, Influence, and Efficacy; the Establishment and operative Transactions of the Banks of London and Amsterdam, their Capacity and Credit calculated and compared; an Account of the Banks of Hamburgh, Nuremberg, Venice, and Genoa, their Credit and Course of Business; the Doctrine of Bullion and Coins amply discussed; and therefrom the Course and Par of Exchange regularly deduced ... Adapted equally to the Use and Information of Gentlemen who propose to make a Figure in Public Affairs, as to the Merchant, Factor, Broker, and Remitter. [Translated by William Horsley Printed by C. Say, for W. Owen, 1753, foxed in places, leaves at either end stained from turn-ins, pp. [vi], xxii, 131, [4], 4to, contemporary calf, double gilt fillets on sides, spine gilt, red lettering piece, rebacked preserving most of the original spine, corners worn but consolidated, good ( ESTC T92967; Wallis (Newton) 350.3) £3,000 First edition in English of a remarkable and scarce book on trade and banking and an important source for Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations , particular in regard to exchange mechanisms and coin systems. Nicolaus Magens or Magen, called by Adam Smith Meggens, by Steuart, Megens, and in the Dictionnaire de l’économie politique, Magends, was a German merchant who lived for many years in England and gained a great reputation in commercial matters. In the Universal Merchant , to which he added a postscript in 1756, he showed a deep insight into trade mechanisms, as highly appreciated by Smith: ‘The author, after a general treatise on trade and on wealth, by which is meant not merely gold and silver, the common medium of trade, but a preeminence of industry, manufactures, and commerce, enters into an enquiry concerning bullion, after which he considers the nature, operation, and effects of banks in general and in particular. The treatise concludes with a further illustration of the business of exchange from the tables of Sir Isaac Newton, with remarks and additions’ (Palgrave). The Wealth of Nations contains six substantial direct and indirect references to the Universal Merchant . A further interesting reference is to be found in Smith’s Lectures on Jurisprudence.

blackwell’S rare books

36.

(Medical Lecture Notes. University College London.) PRICE (John Llewellyn) Practice of Medicine. [and:] Chemistry. Botany. Toxicology. Materia Medica. 1840, manuscript in ink (mainly turquoise, some brown) on paper, written from opposing ends of a notebook, pp. 144, and 210 (approx., some gaps and mistakes in the pagination), 8vo, half green leather, from W.T. & J. Mabley, Strand, marbled pastedowns and end-leaves, which the writer has filled in in a curious manner, worn, sound £700 ‘That Godless institution in Gower Street’ opened its doors in 1826, and the teaching of medicine began in 1828, when the University Dispensary was founded; in 1834, the University opened North London Hospital, now (part of) UCLH . These lecture notes therefore date from an early period in the history of what has become one of the foremost teaching and research institutes in the world. The notes are dense, and were revised. The first topic is Delirium Tremens, for which the treatment is the administration of opium ‘to command sleep.’ The topics are treated briefly, and apparently in a random order, although those relating to obstetrics are all grouped together.

37.

(Medicine. Surgeon’s Bill.) BROUN (James) Alexander Johnston of Elshisheels his accompt to James Broun Cirurg. & apothec. in Edr. Edinburgh: 1700-02, manuscript in ink on paper, written on recto only bar address on verso, single folio sheet (396 x 153mm), formerly folded several times, good £600 + VAT in the EU The Bill was begun on December 12 1700 and comprises 27 items down to February 8, 1702, a fairly long time not to pay your medical man, but no doubt not unusual. The grand total is £58/3/6. Items include a carminative emollient and purging clyster, a cordial stomachiq and aperative draught, a large box of aperative and cephaliq pills, 18 doses of hysteriq pills, a cordial julep against wind in a glass.’ Those ‘18 doses of hysteriq pills’ were the costliest item, at £4/15/0, and half as many again were supplied in the same month of January 1701. Elshieshields, about 7 miles north of Lochmaben in Dumfries and Galloway, was the seat of the Johnston family. Alexander Johnston was one of the Commissioners for Dumfriesshire in the Scottish Parliament. From this attractive document we get a notion of the state of his health, and that of his household.

38.

Nemesius. The Nature of Man. A learned and usefull tract written in Greek by Nemesius, surnamed the philosopher; sometime Bishop of a city in Phoenicia, and one of the most ancient Fathers of the Church. Englished, and divided into sections, with briefs of their principall contents by Geo: Wither. Printed by M[yles] F[lesher] for Henry Taunton, 1636, title printed in red and black, without the initial blank, pp. [xlii], 661, 12mo, contemporary calf, sometime (?ninteenth century) rebacked, black lettering piece, spine cracked down centre, upper joint cracked but binding firm, good (ESTC S113134; Pforzheimer 1085) £950

SCIENCES

First edition, first issue, of the poet George Wither’s translsation, the first translation into English. Wither dedicated the translation to John Selden. The Nature of Man is primarily a theological work (and it is this which interested Wither), but also, importantly, is concerned with the ‘interpretation of Greek scientific knowledge of the human body from the standpoint of Christian doctrine ... According to Nemesius’ doctrine, all sensory perceptions were received in the anterior – now called lateral – ventricles of the brain ... The middle or, as it is now called, third ventricle was the region of the faculty of intellect. This is the area that was responsible for controlling the “judging, approving, refuting, and assaying” of the sensory perceptions which are gathered in the lateral ventricles. The third faculty was that of memory, the storehouse of all sensory perceptions after they had been judged by the faculty of intellect ... The idea of ventricular localisation of the mental faculties in the form presented by Nemesius was first attacked in 1521 by Berengario da Carpi ... Vesalius delivered the coup de grace to the entire theory in 1543’ ( DSB ).

39.

Neri (Antonio) L’arte vetraria distinta in libri sette ... ne’qvali si scoprino effetti maravigliosi e s’insegnano segreti bellissimi del vetro nel fuoco, & altre cose curiose, impressione seconda, ricorretta ed espurgata de varj errori. Florence: Marco Rabbuiati, 1661, woodcut printer’s device on title, some browning and spotting in places, a little damp-staining, perforated stamp of the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh on title, accession number stamped at foot of dedication, withdrawn stamp on front fly-leaf, pp. [xiv, including half-title], 192, small 8vo, contemporary vellum, small patch to upper cover, head of spine defective, lower corners and lower part of foreedge of lower cover worn, good (Neville, vol. 2, p.217) £2,500 The very scarce second edition of Neri’s classic work on glass-making (first, 1612). The text is much improved in this edition, and the original dedication is substituted by one from the printer to the artist Silvio degli Alli. Neri’s book created a revolution – the elements required for high level glass-making became widely known, and the industry spread rapidly throughout Europe, where most previous glass manufacturing undertakings had failed to approach to the quality of Venetian glasses. Neri’s book hastened the decline of Venice as the world’s glass capital, although Venetian domination of the industry was already threatened by the immigration of glassmakers who took their secretes with them. In 1622, for example, an English company sent six Italian glassmaking artisans to the Jamestown colony in the New World.

40.

Newton (Sir Isaac) Philosophiæ naturalis principia mathematica. Perpetuis commentariis illustrata, communi studio PP. Thomæ le Seur et Francisci Jacquier ... Editio nova, summa cura recensita. Vol. I [-II]. Glasgow: George Brookman for T.T. and J. Tegg, London, and R. Griffin, Glasgow, 1833, 2 vols., diagrams in text, minor foxing, pp. xxx, [ii], 752; xxxvi, 204, [1], Royal 8vo, uncut in the original cloth backed boards, printed paper labels on spines, labels browned and a little chipped, spines slightly faded, minor wear to extremities, stamp of Charles Barker on the labels, blind stamp of a Dublin bookseller on titles, good (Babson 33; Wallis 18) £1,500 ‘This second and last of the Glasgow editions was the last and best of the so-called Jesuits’ edition. It was edited by John M.F. Wright of Trinity College, Cambridge ... It redounds to the credit of Glasgow University to have needed a complete edition of the Principia, when Cambridge was satisfied with reprints of the first three sections of the first book’ (Babson). Scarce. 21

blackwell’S rare books

41.

Peachey (Thomas) Manuscript cookery volume, mainly devoted to sauces. London: 1795-1824, manuscript in ink on paper, with a number of inserts both tipped in and loose, some 100 pages including blanks, some leaves excised, 8vo, original vellum, remains of brass clasp, good £1,100 Thomas Peachy was evidently engaged in the wholesale manufacture of sauces and pickles, an unusual and fascinating volume. The manuscript consists of recipes for many, in large quantities, and for bottling, and supplying such customers as the Duke of Buccleugh. There are various staples which go into most of the sauces: various vinegars (sometimes ‘best vinegar’), catsups, corach, Indian soy, Hervey’s sauce. There is much use of coriander seeds, chilli, and allspice. The recipes take up about half of the manuscript, the rest being accounts and various matters relating to the business, including the rent of 19 Queen Hythe (London) at £35 a year, ‘for this to have the use of the Warehouse back of House, Coppers, &c.’ At the beginning of the manuscript Peachey gives his address as 16 White Lion Street, Spital Square. In the eighteenth century there were breweries in White Lion Street, so a sauce bottler was a likely adjunct.

42.

Pinel (Philippe) Nosographie philosophique, ou le méthode de l’analyse appliquée a la médecine. Tome premier [- Second]. Paris: Crapelet, An VI, [1798], FIRST EDITION , 2 vols., pp. xxxvi, 252; viii, 319, 8vo, contemporary calf backed boards, spines slightly faded, corners slightly worn, very good £750 ‘Although he is properly considered one of the founders of psychiatry, Pinel’s contemporaries regarded him as a master of internal medicine, a reputation based upon the authoritative classification of diseases he set out in his Nosographie philosophique, published in 1798. . . . Pinel was aware of the difficulties that his predecessors had faced, but he approached his task cheerfully, secure in his belief that a disease was “an indivisible whole from its commencement to its conclusion, a regular ensemble of characteristic symptoms.” Since these symptoms could be observed and analyzed, a classification of disease was possible. Pinel thus divided diseases into five classes – fevers, phlegmasias, hemorrhages, neuroses, and diseases caused by organic lesions’ ( DSB ).

43.

Poincaré (Herri) Leçons de mécanique céleste professées a la Sorbonne. Tome I [-III]. Paris: Gauthier-Villars, 1905-10, FIRST EDITION , 3 vols., vol. ii in 2 parts, 2 folding plates at the end of vol. iii, some leaves in that vol. creased (for no apparent reason), one or two spots, pp. vi, 365, [2]’; [iv], 165, [2], [iv], 136, [2], 2; [iv], 472, 8vo, contemporary uniform (as far as can be over a 5-year period) half dark blue calf by, or for, Maclehose, Glasgow (vol. iii not signed, but clearly from the same shop) red lettering pieces, small labels apparently removed from penultimate compartment of spines, spine of vol. i a little pitted, and short crack in lower joint, good £600

SCIENCES

Poincaré was the ‘mathematician who after Newton did the most remarkable work in celestial mechanics’ ( DSB ). The 4 parts are: Théorie générale des perturbations planétaires; Développement de la fonction perturbatrice; Théorie de la lune; Théorie des marées. Interesting to find the book bound to order in Glagow at the time (although the binding may be French, Maclehose simply being the bookseller). Scarce.

44.

Redouté (Pierre Joseph) Album de Redouté. With Twenty-Five Facsimile Colour Plates from the edition of 1824 and a new Redouté bibliography. [Edited by] Sacheverell Sitwell and Roger Madol. Collins, 1954, 6/25 SUBSCRIBER’S COPIES (of an edition of 2250 copies) signed by the editors and specially bound, with an original hand-coloured Redouté plate (Phalangium Liliastrum) mounted at the front, 25 photo-litho offset colour facsimile plates, facsimile of the original wrapper printed on green paper, pp. 20 [plus plates], folio, original half vellum by Hiscox, patterned boards, spine lettered in gilt, a little soiling to ends of spine, glassine wrapper, original board slipcase (soiled) with morocco lettering piece, glue residue to front endpaper from bookplate (now loosely inserted) of Richard Blackett Beaumont, very good £2,000 ‘The Rainbird books to which [Sacheverell Sitwell] contributed must be among the most superb colour plate folios to appear in the United Kingdom over the last fifty years, the special copies being quite outstanding. My favourite is I think... Old Garden Roses, Part I (1955)... but Fine Bird Books (1953), Great Flower Books (1955), Album de Redouté (1954)... all run it very close’ (Ritchie, ‘Collecting Sitwelliana’, The Private Library, 4th Series 2:4, p. 183).

45.

Rivière (Lazare), Nicholas Culpeper, Abdiah Cole, et al. The Practice of Physick, wherein is plainly set forth, the nature, cause, differences, and several sorts of signs: together with the cure of all diseases in the body of man. With many additions in several places never printed before. In twenty and four books. Viz. 1. Of the diseases of the head [&c, &c] ... Written in Latin, and in English. By Lazarus Riverius, counsellor and physitian to the King, &c. Nicholas Culpeper, physitian and astrologer. Abdiah Cole, doctor of physick. And W.R. ... For such as desire it, there is now added an alphabetical table of diseases. Also the idea of practical physick in twelve books. And four other books; 1. Of natural phylosophy. 2. Of chyrurgery in six parts. 3. Of the whores pox. 4. Of the gout. All in two volumes. By Daniel Sennertus, John Johnston, and Abdiah Cole. Doctors of Physick. Printed by Peter Cole and Edward Cole, 1661, 2 parts in 1 vol., the longitudinal half-title partly excised (see below), 3 leaves with burn holes with the loss of a letter of two one either side, 1 leaf with a tear at the top with the loss of a word of the headline on either side, 1 leaf with a tear repaired on the verso of which a few letters from the opposite page adhering (sense recoverable), a few signatures and catchwords trimmed, some

blackwell’S rare books

browning, staining, rust holes, pp. [xii], 184, 245-594, 611-45, [xvi, including longitudinal half-title (see below)], 463, [32], [bound after:] The Rationall Physitian’s Library. Containing these most excellent books following; in that order they ought to be read and studied ... [&c, &c]. Printed by Peter Cole and Edward Cole, 1661, printed on the recto only, inner margin reinforced on recto, small hole in margin, slightly soiled, single sheet, folio, the two bound together in modern calf backed boards, leaf before advertisement leaf stamped, in large letters, ‘R. Birch/Novem. 26/1768’, sound ( ESTC R218027 (Rivière) and R182371) £2,000 The Rationall Physitian’s Library seems to be an advertisement for a work that was never published (at least not with that title): it does however bear some relation to The Practice of Physick . The leaf is recorded in a single copy only in ESTC (BL). The Practice of Physick is complicated bibliographically, as copies (there are 10 of them recorded in ESTC , 3 of them in America) vary in their make-up, and the second part, ‘Four books of that learned, and renowned doctor, Lazarus Riverius ... by Nocholas Culpeper,’ has a separate titlepage dated 1658, and is itself, in part, reissued from the 1658 edition of The practice of physick . Practice was first printed by the Cole brothers in 1655, the year after Culpeper’s death. ‘New works, mainly translations, continued to pour forth posthumously, mostly issued by Culpeper’s usual printer, Peter Cole, and with the blessing of his widow. New books were Health for Rich and Poor, by Diet, without Physick (1656) and Two Treatises (1663), and the translations included works by Bartholinus, Riolani, Praevotius, Rivierius, Sennertus, Platerus the elder, Fernellus, and Partlicius’ ( ODNB ). Our copy is complete, but bound up differently to others: notably, ‘A Physical Dictionary’ appears at the end (before ‘An alphabetical Table of Diseases’), where, in fact, the signatures determine it should be. The longitudinal half-title is half of the page only, lacking the words ‘Culpepers Large anatomy fitted for physick’ (which seem to refer to another work). The ‘Idea of practical physick’ and ‘four other books’ mentioned on title page were never actually printed as part of this edition.

46.

Romayne (Nicolaus) De puris generatione. Edinburgh: Balfour and Smellie, 1780, some leaves spotted, pp. 48 (including half-title), 8vo, contemporary tree calf, roll tooled borders on sides with a rosette in each corner, spine gilt, lacking label and slightly defective at top and tail, joints split, upper cover held by a single cord, corners worn, sound ( ESTC T6218) £600 The Doctoral Dissertation of the first president of the College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York City, who has been dubbed the ‘stormy petrel of American medical education.’ The printed dedication is to Samuel Bard, George Washington’s personal physician, among others. On the verso of the title-page is a hand-written dedication to Richard Auchmuty signed by Romayne. Armorial bookplate inside front cover of Robert N. Auchmuty.

47.

Romme (Nicolas Charles) La science de l’homme de mer, ou, Principes d’arithmétique, de géométrie, d’astronomie & de méchanique dont l’application est nécessaire et utile à l’art de la marine. Imprimé chez P.L. Chauvet, à la Rochelle; et se vend à Paris, chez Barrois l’ainé, [An] 8, [1799/1800,] FIRST EDITION , with 3 folding engraved plates, small woodcut Liberty cap at end of text, paperflaw in lower margin

SCIENCES

of 1 leaf with an old repair, in another causing a few letters to be blurred, pp. [ii], xiv, 611, [3], 8vo, modern dark red morocco-backed marbled boards, good £1,500 Romme (1744-1805) was, according to NBG , one of the scientists who contributed most to the progress of navigation in the eighteenth century. He studied in Paris, where he became friendly with Lalande, who procured for him the professorship of mathematics and navigation at Rochefort. He produced a steady stream of textbooks, of which this is one – and a rare one, with only 2 copies located in WorldCat, Cambridge and BNF. Bound before the text here are 2 catalogues of the bookseller Barrois: the first, of 20 pages, is of scientific books, the second of 16 pages, is general. The catalogues have a few tears, &c.

48.

Saunderson (Nicholas) The Elements of Algebra, in ten books. Volume the first [- the second]. To which are prefixed I. The Life and Character of the Author. II. His Palpable Arithmetic Decyphered. Cambridge: Printed at the University Press, [and sold by Mrs. Saunderson, at Cambridge, by John Whiston bookseller at Boyle’s Head in Fleetstreet London, and Thomas Hammond bookseller in York], 1741, FIRST EDITION , 2 vols., with engraved portrait frontispiece and 1 plate in vol. i, 2 title-pages in vol. i (one dated 1740 with Mrs. Saunderson in the imprint, the other – bound first – without Mrs. Saunderson and dated 1741), 8 folding engraved plates in vol. ii, plates in vol. ii unevenly browned, pp. [xiv], [iv, Subscribers], [ii, Errata and Licence], xvi, [iv, Second Advertisement], 360; [361-] 748, [32, Contents], 4to, contemporary faintly diced Russia, gilt roll tooled border on sides, spine richly gilt in compartments with a curled dolphin within a crowned circle, contrasting lettering pieces, corners worn, crack at head of 2 joints, 3 ownership inscriptions of Christopher Capel, dated between 1797 and 1802, the latter (which is oxidized) with the addition of ‘Univ. Coll. Oxford’, good ( ESTC T151645/N46003) £700 An unusually nice copy. Saunderson prepared the work ‘during the last six years of his life, [and it] was published by subscription in 1740 by his widow and children with the help of John Colson, his successor as Lucasian professor. The treatise is a model of careful exposition and it was used as a text at the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich’ ( ODNB ). P. [361] is the title-page to vol. ii, dated 1740.

49.

‘lustigen Sachen’ Schreger (Odilo) Der vorsichtige Speiß-Meister, oder Nützlicher Unterricht Von Essen und Trincken, Was, und wie man nämlich zu Erhaltung und zu Verlängerung seiner Gesundheit Essen und Trincken solle. Nebst vielen Haußmitteln, und andern lustigen Sachen. Augsburg: Matthäus Riegers sel. Söhnen, 1776, small woodcut vignette on title, woodcut head- and tail-pieces, some browning and spotting in places (as to be expected), cut a little close at the foot, just shaving the date

blackwell’S rare books

on the title-page and a few catchwords, pp. [xvi], 454 plus terminal blank, 8vo, contemporary pale blue boards, a bit rubbed, extremities worn, spine faded and with patches of surface loss on the joints, contemporary name-stamp of Aloys-Robert Balthasar on flyleaf, good (see Cagle 513) £2,500 An unrecorded edition of an otherwise extremely rare German cook book, known in the first edition published in Munich in 1766, and in what has hitherto been regarded as the second edition, the same publisher as the present edition, 1778. Schreger was a Benedictine prior, and a prolific author of books for popular consumption, all laced with sprightly humour: the present work is no exception. We can locate only 3 copies of the 1766 edition (all in Germany), 3 copies of the 1778 edition in German libraries and 3 in the US – NYAM , LoC, and the Lilly Library (described as ‘First Edition’ by Cagle, and ‘no other copy located’). The collation of this edition corresponds to that of the 1766 edition: the 1778 edition is enlarged, extending to 484 pages with a further 13 unnumbered, and a frontispiece. The work is divided into 8 books: the first on the ordering of the table, next on meats (36), then fish, next miscellaneous (bread, vegetables), then herbs and spices, then drinks, and finally a monthly guide to preserving health. Aloys-Robert Balthasar, a publisher in Augsburg, seems to have been responsible for just one book: Missae in agenda defunctorum, 1734.

50.

Smyth (Charles Piazzi) Teneriffe, an Astronomer’s Experiment: or, Specialities of a Residence above the Clouds. Illustrated with Photo-Stereographs. Lovell Reeve, 1858, FIRST EDITION , with an engraved map, and 20 mounted photostereographs, pp. xvi, 451, [1], plus advertisement (see below), 8vo, original wavy-grained purple cloth, vignette blocked in gilt at the centre of the upper cover, spine lettered in gilt, top edges gilt, spine slightly darkened and a little worn at either end, top corners bumped, the lower ones a trifle worn, good (Gernsheim Incunabula 79) £750 ‘The brilliance of the night sky above the mountains of southern Africa had convinced Piazzi Smyth that the future of astronomy lay in seeking out Isaac Newton’s “serene air above the grosser clouds”. He obtained a grant of £500 from the Admiralty and sailed with his wife in a yacht provided by Robert Stephenson to Tenerife to make the first ever systematic examination of a potential astronomical site. After ascending the peak he

SCIENCES

made thorough measurements of sky transparency, star-image quality, and intensity of solar radiation at altitudes up to 3200 metres. His results, bearing out his expectations, were published in an official report to the Admiralty (1859) and in a popular account, Teneriffe, an Astronomer’s Experiment (1858), illustrated by a selection of Piazzi Smyth’s own stereo-photographs and believed to be the first book ever illustrated in this way’ ( ODNB ). Gernsheim states categorically that this is the first book illustrated in this way, and Piazzi Smyth remarks of the process that it ‘had never been attempted before.’ The advertisements at the end comprise: a single sheet for The Literary Gazette ; a 24page List of Reeve’s publications, dated January 1858, the last (un-numbered page) being an advertisement for the present book; a 16-page descriptive catalogue of Negretti & Zambra’s Stereoscopic views of the Nile (the last being Gernsheim Incunabula 803).

51.

[Tull (Jethro)] The Horse-Hoing Husbandry: or, an Essay on the Principles of Tillage and Vegetation. Wherein is shewn a Method of introducing a Sort of VineyardCulture into the Corn-Fields, in order to Increase their Product, and diminish the common Expence, by the Use of the Instruments described in the Cuts. [bound with: A Supplement to the Essay on Horse-Hoing Husbandry... Printed for the Author, and Sold by G. Strahan [and others]; [Supplement] Printed for and Sold by the Author, 1733-35, FIRST EDITION of both parts, 2 parts in 1 vol., with 6 folding engraved plates in the Essay and 1 plate in the Supplement, ex-Salisbury Public Library with their stamp at the foot of the title, another on verso, and perforated stamp, ownership inscription inked out at head of title, a little browning and spotting, pp. [iv], x, 200, [2]; [203-] 274, [4], folio, entirely uncut in twentieth-century half calf, good ( ESTC T117019 and N24607) £1,500 A good copy of this epoch-making book (see PMM 188 for the short precursor), with the scarce Supplement. ‘It was not until the last decade of his career that at the request of many distinguished visitors to his farm Tull published a ‘specimen’ of his HorseHoeing Husbandry (1731), which was at once pirated in Dublin. Hearing of this Tull determined to print no more, but he was dissuaded by his admirers, and accordingly The Horse-Hoeing Husbandry, or, An Essay on the Principles of Tillage and Vegetation, by J. T., appeared in 1733. It was at once attacked by the Private Society of Husbandmen and Planters, headed by Stephen Switzer, in its monthly publication, The Practical Husbandman and Planter. Tull was accused of having plagiarized from Fitzherbert, Sir Hugh Plat, Gabriel Plattes (who is confused with Sir Hugh), and John Worlidge, and several of his theories about the value of manure and the practice of pulverizing the earth were contested. The credit undoubtedly due to his forerunners need not detract from Tull, for there is no reason to think that Worlidge’s drill materially aided Tull in the conception of his device, and it is unlikely that Tull had ever read Sir Hugh Plat’s ‘New and admirable Arte of setting of Corn’. Tull was morbidly sensitive to these attacks, and he defended himself in various subsequent writings, mostly taking the form of notes on his longer work. His troubles were increased by the hostility of his labourers towards his methods. He was also harassed by the speculations of his spendthrift son, John. Tull published A Supplement to the Essay on Horse-Hoeing Husbandry in 1735, Addenda to the Essay in 1738, and his Conclusion in 1739’ ( ODNB ). The reference to ‘Addenda’ and ‘Conclusion’ is puzzling: neither publication is recorded in ESTC . However Fussell (More, p. 4) refers to ‘another edition in the Royal Agricultural Society’s Catalogue having the title The HorseHoing Husbandry, compleat in 4 parts, a London folio dated 1740’, which may account for them. 27

blackwell’S rare books

52.

Turner (Richard) The Young Gauger’s Best Instructor: being a new and complete system of gauging in all its varieties, both theory and practice. Exhibiting, I. Decimal arithmetick. II. The extraction of the square and cube roots. III. The calculations of all kinds of multipliers, divisors, and gauge-points. IV. The methods of finding the areas and contents, of all sorts of superficies and solids, in ale, beer, wine, cyder, perry, starch, tallow, soap, &c. V. Rules for gauging, inching, and ullaging, of all manner of tuns, tubs, cisterns, coolers, coppers, stills, and casks. VI. The methods of computing the excise of any number of hogsheads, barrels, and bushels, of ale, beer, cyder, malt, &c. VII. The description and use of the gauging-rule and gauging-rod. VIII. The scheme of a division and dimension-book; and specimens of vouchers, and abstracts. With many other useful and necessary improvements, in a much more easy, familiar, and expeditious method, than any yet published. The whole being so calculated, as to render it not only serviceable to experinced [sic] officers; but likewise of the greatest use to all, whose business it is to instruct others, or who intend to qualify themselves for employmets [sic] in the revenues of excise. Printed for B. Law and Co., 1761, FIRST EDITION , title-page printed in red and black, woodcut diagrams and illustrations in the text, pp. 249-253 are folded and paginated on recto only, a little browned or soiled in places, one page with a small hole, not affecting text, pp. xv, [1], 248, ff. 249-253, pp. 254-256, 8vo, contemporary calf, rebacked, corners worn, neat inscription on title-page ‘Wm. Eggleston[‘s] Book, Philomath, 1802’, sound ( ESTC T492716) £1,500 A very thorough text book, and extremely rare – BL only in ESTC . The author is described on the title-page as ‘late of Magdalen-Hall, Oxford. Now teacher of geometry, astronomy, and philosophy at Worcester.’ Turner published other textbooks – book-keeping, trigonometry, geography, &c. – presumably for use in his own establishment. On one of the title-pages of these he is further identified as Rector of Comberton, Vicar of Elmley, and chaplain to the Right Honourable the Countess Dowager of Wigton.

53.

Veglia (Piero Dionigio) Geometria practica. Perugia: Annibale Alvigi, 1626, FIRST

EDITION , woodcut arms on title, numerous diagrams in the text, last leaf (Register)

cut away, corner torn from one leaf, not affecting text, pp. [xvi], 618, small 8vo, eighteenth-century vellum backed boards, the Macclesfield copy with bookplate and blind stamps, good (Riccardi ii, 586) £850 A rare little geometry by a follower of Clavius. The first book treats of the instruments required for the study of geometry.

54.

Walker (J[ohn] & C[harles], publishers) [and James Alexander Knipe]. A Geological Map of England and Wales, showing also the Inland Navigation by means of Rivers and Canals, with their Elevation in feet above the Sea. Together with the Rail Roads and Principal Roads. Published according to Act of Parliament by J. &

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C. Walker September 18th 1835, FIRST EDITION , second state, dissected and mounted on linen as issued, the linen somewhat spotted and this coming through to the map moderately, small yellow printed label of Mr. Jas Bromilow on verso, in its original dark green moiré silk slip-in case with a black morocco lettering piece on one side, a touch worn at foot, good £2,500 The second state of the first edition is distinguished by the publishers’ address engraved below the title, and Knipe’s name scraped off. In this variant the completed Rail Roads and those under construction are in red, and those proposed are in blue. At the foot of the map is a ‘Section from the Land’s End to the German Ocean’, which passes through Oxford. Below this, the imprint is intact. ‘This series of maps illustrates the rapid evolution of separately-published geological maps during the 1830s and how that evolution was driven by competing publishers exploiting a new and large market for geological maps. It also highlights the role played by publishers in popularising geology and geological maps ... With the exception of the Geological Survey, Knipe was perhaps the most prolific geological map publisher of mid-nineteenth century Britain. Although he lacked money, social status and influence, he was an active practitioner of geology who undertook consulting projects for clients such as Liverpool Corporation and the Duke of Rutland. Although he made no major scientific breakthroughs, Knipe played a key role as a populariser of geology. His life and works remain largely undocumented [and the exclusion of his name from this state is unaccounted for]’ (The eye of a collector: how map collecting illuminates history, Christopher Toland at HOGG Conference on Geological Collectors and Collecting 4-5 April 2011, Flett Theatre, Natural History Museum, London). We are grateful to Christopher Toland for the identification of the various states of this map.

55.

Inscribed to Alan Turing Wardlaw (Claude Wilson) Morphogenesis in plants. With 4 plates and 42 text illustrations. Methuen & Co., Ltd, [and] New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., [1952], FIRST EDITION , PRESENTATION COPY, INSCRIBED TO ALAN TURING , illustrations as per titlepage, pp. x, [i], 176, 8vo, original cloth and dustjacket, spine of jacket sunned, with slight transfer to cloth, a little chipping to jacket, front free end-paper inscribed ‘A.M. Turing with the author’s compliments. C.W. Wardlaw, 14.10. 52’, good £1,000 In the early 1950s Turing became interested in the application of mathematics to morphogenesis, the development of patterns and forms in living organisms. In his only published paper on the subject, ‘The chemical basis of morphogenesis’ ( Philosophical Transactions, 1952), he showed that small variations in the initial conditions of the differential equations that described the growth of an organism could result in significant variations in the organism’s long-term development, and that this phenomenon could account for the development of stripes and spots in animals’ hides. ‘Long overlooked, it was a founding paper of modern non-linear dynamical theory’ ( ODNB ). In the same year Turing discussed his theory with his Manchester colleague the botanist C. W. Wardlaw, and together they wrote ‘A diffusion-reaction theory

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of morphogenesis in plants.’ This paper remained unpublished until the appearance of Turing’s Collected Works in 1992, although Wardlaw himself published several papers and books on plant morphogenesis over the next two decades, including the present work, published in the series ‘Methuen’s monographs on biological subjects.’ Turing had been interested in morphogenesis, particularly the phenomenon of phyllotaxis, since before the War when he had read D’Arcy Thomson’s book. One might conjecture that he realised that the advent of computers might make it possible to solve the complicated differential equations that he used to attempt to explain the phenomenon. In fact, one of the first applications of the Ferranti Mark I was to solve these equations. In February 1951 Turing wrote to his old colleague Mike Woodger at the National Physical Laboratory: ‘Our new machine is to start arriving on Monday. I am hoping as one of its first jobs to do something about “chemical embryology”. In particular I think one can account for the appearance of Fibonacci numbers in connection with fir-cones’.

56.

The principle of natural selection first indicated Wells (William Charles) Two Essays: One upon Single Vision with Two Eyes; the other On Dew. A Letter to the Right Hon. Lloyd, Lord Kenyon and An Account of a Female of the White Race of Mankind, part of whose skin resembles that of a negro; with some observations on the causes of the differences in colour and form between the white and negro races of men. With a Memoir of his [the author’s] Life, written by himself. Printed for Archibald Constable and Co. Edinburgh, Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, and Hurst, Robinson, and Co London, 1818, FIRST EDITION of An Account, a little foxing at either end, pp. lxxiv, [i], 439, [1], 8vo, contemporary speckled calf, single gilt fillet border on sides, flat spine gilt in ruled compartments, dark olive green lettering piece, slight wear to extremities, good (Garrison Morton 216.2; Norman 2200) £850 The most important component part in this volume is An Account of a Female of the White Race of Mankind. Unaware of it until around 1861, Darwin acknowledged in the fourth edition of the Origin that Wells ‘distinctly recognises the principle of natural selection, and this is the first recognition which has been indicated.’ The Two Essays of the title are both important in their own right, but had been published before, in 1792 and 1814 respectively. The present volume was published posthumously, and the Memoir was composed as Wells anticipated his death from hydrothorax, a condition recognised by himself and his medical friends (e.g. Matthew Baillie, two whom the book is dedicated). It is a very interesting Memoir, exceedingly frank. It contains a Darwin reference, Erasmus, that is, who, in Zoonomia , attacked what Wells had said upon giddiness in his Essay on Single Vision.

57.

Werner (Johannes) Canones sicut brevissimi, ita etiam doctissimi, complectentes praecepta & observationes de mutatione aurae. Nuremberg: J. Montanus & U. Neuber, 1546, FIRST EDITION , with one small and one large woodcut initial (the larger depicting an astronomer at a reading desk, consulting an armillary sphere), without the final blank, washed, short marginal tear in last leaf repaired, pp. [38], small 4to (185 x 125mm), modern half calf over marbled boards, sound (Hellmann, G. Repertorium der deutschen Meteorologie, col. 526; VD16 W2036) £3,000

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‘In meteorology Werner paved the way for a scientific interpretation. Meteorology and astrology were connected, but he nevertheless attempted to explain this science rationally. . . . The “guidelines that explain the principles and observations of the changes in the atmosphere,” published [posthumously] in 1546 by Johann Schöner, contain meteorological notes for 1513-1520. The weather observations are based mainly on stellar constellations, and hence the course of the moon is of less importance. Although Werner did not collect the data systematically, as Tycho Brahe did, he attempted to incorporate meteorology into physics and to take into consideration the geographical situation of the observational site. Thus he can be regarded as a pioneer of modern meteorology and weather forecasting’ ( DSB ). A rare work: COPAC records four copies, BL, UCL , and Oxford (2 copies, one of them the Selden-Ashmole copy); WorldCat records copies in the US at UC San Diego, Michigan, Yale and Harvard. Rare too on the market, only the Honeyman and one other copy at auction since 1975.

58.

Association copy Whitehead (Alfred North) and Bertrand Russell Principia mathematica. Volume I. Cambridge: at the University Press, 1910, FIRST EDITION , vol. i only, fly-leaves lightly foxed, half-title a bit browned, pp. xiii, [ii], 666, royal 8vo, original cloth, rebacked, retaining most of the original spine, corners repaired, L. Susan Stebbing’s copy, signed by her on the fly-leaf, and initialled when making a present of it in 1925, £3,000 numerous marginal marks (Lizzie) Susan Stebbing’s copy, a fine association. ‘Although she was first attracted to philosophy by a metaphysician, the main influence on Susan Stebbing was, as she herself acknowledged, the analytic anti-metaphysical philosophy practised in Cambridge by G. E. Moore. Her other main interest was in mathematical or symbolic logic, which she learned from Bertrand Russell’s writings. Her own book A Modern Introduction to Logic (1930) was an extremely clear exposition of both Aristotelian and symbolic logic, an indispensable guide for undergraduates. She was agreed by all who knew her, in Cambridge and London, to be an outstanding teacher, able to pass on to her pupils her deep understanding and love of both analytic philosophy and logic’ (Mary Warnock in ODNB ). There are numerous marginal marks in the first 100 or so pages, one erratum is corrected in ink (‘allows us to infer’ for states on p. 14), and on p. 48 there is a comment in Stebbing’s minuscule and neat hand, in pencil: ‘the fnc [i.e. function] is significant if the argument is of the right-logical type.’ Beneath Stebbing’s signature on the fly-leaf is the inscription ‘E.M. Whetnall from L.S.S. April 1925’ (all in ink). Both inscriptions have throughset onto the half-title.

59.

Wolfius (Dr., i.e. Christian, Freiherr von Wolff) A Discovery of the true Cause of the wonderful Multiplication of Corn; with some general Remarks upon the Nature of Trees and Plants. Printed for J. Roberts, 1734, with an attractive engraved

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frontispice of a prodigious corn (wheat) plant, frontispiece offset onto title, some browning, pp. [viii], 50, 8vo modern calf backed boards, spine lettered in gilt, good £750 ( ESTC T131469) First edition: said to be a translation of Erläuterung der Entdeckung der wahren Ursach von der wunderbahren Vermehrung des Getredes, but we have found no trace of a German publication either in WorldCat or KVK – in the latter the book is represented in German libraries solely in microforms or electronic versions of the present title.

60.

Zeune (Johann August) Belisar. Ueber den Unterricht der Blinden. Mit Kupfern. Berlin: Johann Friedrich Weiss, 1821, 2 parts in 1 vol. with separate registers and pagination, but all called for in Contents (see below), with an engraved title with a vignette, and 3 engraved plates, 2 folding (see below), a few spots here and there, pp. ii, [3-] 72, 152, [2], 8vo, modern marbled boards, good £1,200 The second edition of this important work on the blind, and specifically on the Berlin Foundation for the Blind. The title-page seems to be that of the 1808 (first) edition with 1821 added (stamped) at the foot: but is clearly the second edition, the Foreword referring specically to the 1808 edition as the first, and another work by the author intervening between that edition and the present one. Separately paginated, but included in the Contents at the end are, in their original languages, Diderot’s ‘Lettre sur les Aveugles’, texts by Cheselden and Grant, and observations by Zeune (in Italian). The work also describes and illustrates devices for the blind for learning mathematics and geography: in these cases occur the plates. The mathematical plate is a representation of Saunderson’s counting table (this plate is slightly browned), and the geographical part is a doublehemisphere folding map of the world on 2 plates. The oceans are black, the continents grey, the mountain ranges white, and capitals, or other important, cities, are given a red dot. The work is rare in any edition. Of this edition WorldCat records 3 in Germany, the BL, and Wisconsin (vide Dan Albert’s Sourcebook of Ophthalmology).

Item 60

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