Pierre-Louis Moreau de MAUPERTUIS

First edition, illustrated with three wood-engraved astronomical diagrams in the text (cf. Houzeau & Lancaster 10737; Lalande, Biblio. astronomique, 419-420; Polak 6542 for the second edition).

Full marbled blond calf binding, smooth spine gilt-tooled with floral motifs (some faded), gilt title in long, some rubbing to spine and boards, triple gilt fillet framing the covers, marbled endpapers and pastedowns, gilt roll border on pastedowns, gilt fillet on board edges, bumped corners, all edges gilt, contemporary binding.

"This work contains analytical formulas for determining latitude, declination, the time of day, sunrise and sunset, the equation of altitudes, refractions... etc." (cf. Lalande).

Some light foxing, collector’s inkstamp on a blank endleaf, and a full page of pencil annotations facing the title page.

First collected edition of the author's works (see Quérard, V, 642; DSB, IX, 186–189; Poggendorff I, 85).

Printed in Dresden by George Conrad Walther ["Printed in Leipsic by Jean Gottlob Immanuel Breitkopf"]

Full mottled fawn calf, spine with five raised bands richly gilt in compartments with floral tools, red morocco label, joints restored, marbled endpapers and pastedowns, red edges; contemporary binding.

Some occasional foxing; restorations to the joints, edges and corners of the boards.

First edition of the "Works" of Maupertuis. Pages 95 to 142 contain the "Mesure de la terre au Cercle Polaire"; pages 311 to 326 feature the "Relation d'un Voyage fait dans la Lapponie septentrionale pour trouver un ancien monument".

On Maupertuis, see the extensive entry by Bentley Glass in the DSB: "A philosopher as well as a scientist, Maupertuis proved himself a powerful and original thinker in Essai de Cosmologie (1750). According to A.O. Lovejoy, he anticipated Beccaria and Bentham and, along with Helvétius, represents 'the headwaters of the important stream of utilitarian influence which became so broad and sweeping a current through the work of the Benthamites' (…) He rejected the favorite eighteenth-century argument in favor of God - the argument from design - and instead, like Hume, he formulated a view of adaptation based on the elimination of the unfit. He recognized that Newton's laws are insufficient to explain chemestry, and even more so life, and turned to Leinbiz for ideas about the properties of consciousness".

Contemporary manuscript ex-libris on the front flyleaf: "Claude Wendell Horton".

The most complete collective edition ever published, expanded, reorganized and corrected by the author himself as he explains in the Notice on this new edition. This edition therefore contains works not yet published. Maupertuis specifies that it is a selection of his best works. Title pages in red and black. This edition would be reprinted in 1768 by the same publisher. A frontispiece portrait painted by Tournière and engraved by Dallé representing the author in his travel attire for Lapland. A map of the meridian arc in volume II. Numerous mathematical diagrams in volume IV.

Contemporary full marbled brown sheep bindings. Raised band spines with ornament. Red morocco title labels and volume labels. Headcaps worn, very worn at head. Title label of volume I partly lacking. Joints of volume II partly narrowly cracked. 10 corners bumped. Bookplates scraped from pastedowns.

Details of the works: Volume I: Essay on cosmology. Discourse on the different figures of the stars. Essay on moral philosophy. Philosophical reflections on the origin of languages. Volume II: Physical Venus. System of nature. Letters. Letter on the progress of sciences. Volume III: Elements of geography. Account of the voyage made to the polar circle. Account of a voyage to the depths of Lapland. Letter on the comet of 1742. Academic discourses. Dissertation on the different means men have used to express their ideas. Volume IV: Harmony of the different laws of nature. Nautical astronomy. Discourse on the parallax of the moon. Operations to determine the figure of the earth...

An illustrious scientist of the French Enlightenment, and a divergent mind compared to the prevailing discourse of French science, Maupertuis's sagacity was exercised in several scientific fields: natural sciences (his hypotheses are very close to natural selection and transformism), biology and genetics of which he was a shrewd precursor, astronomy, with the adoption of Newtonian principles including universal attraction against Descartes's theory of vortices prevalent in France, mathematics, with the principle of least action of which he was one of the first discoverers, cosmology where his voyage to Lapland and the pole proved him right against Cassini (the earth being indeed flatter at the poles)...