Incunabula, editio princeps and first editions of major works from 15th to 18th century

True first edition, including on the verso of the title page the announcement of the work The Memoirs of Montgaillard on the Conspiracy of Pichegru, which would become, by order of the newly crowned Emperor: Memoirs Concerning the Treason of Pichegru. The publisher would be forced to withdraw the announcement of these works and thus to reprint the title page of Méhée de la Touche.
Original pamphlet, in gray paper wrappers. Unlettered spine. Lack at head and upper joint open for 5 cm. Corners and edges folded. Tear with small damage to text on leaf N¹. Uncut copy, with conjugate leaves (except the first 15 pages).

First edition.
Full marbled blonde calf binding. Smooth spine decorated with 4 acorn tools in compartments. One corner slightly bumped. Lacks at head of upper joint due to worming, same at foot, but over 4cm. Traces of rubbing. Good copy.
In the form of conversations, Mably details the necessary milestones for writing history and the goals it must set; The author posing the reader's interest as fundamental data for any successful historical work.

First edition, rare, illustrated with three folding plates showing the interior of a tomb discovered in 1685.
Modern full parchment binding with flaps, beautiful pastiche of a contemporary Dutch binding in perfect condition. Red morocco title label. Paper yellowed. Pp. 330 and 331 with stains and soiling. Restoration to leaves 49 and 51 with a paper strip at the center of the work.
Composed of two parts, the narrated history itself and Les Actes et preuves, The work extends from the origins of the County of Evreux until 1682. The organization and style are clear and concise, and the whole abounds with erudition, particularly regarding antiquities. One will consult with appetite...

First French edition translated by Arnaud de la Chapelle. Title page in red and black.

Later 19th-century full red morocco binding with straight grain (Russia leather) signed by Thouvenin at tail. Spine with raised bands decorated with compartments framed by gilt fillets. Title and date in gilt. Gilt fillets framing the boards with trefoils in the corners. Inner gilt fillet. All edges gilt. Spine slightly faded. Rubbing to headcaps, joints and corners. Upper joint narrowly split at tail for 3 cm. One tear on p. 274, another on p. 302, both in the middle of the page. Despite some defects, a handsome copy.

    
20th-century engraved bookplate of E. Crawshaw...

First edition, rare.
Half blond sheep bindings. Smooth spines decorated in the grotesque style. Red morocco title labels and beige morocco volume labels. Library labels at foot. Two small wormholes along the lower joint of volume I. A split with loss at the lower joint of volume II. A good, decorative copy.

First collected edition.
Contemporary full blonde sprinkled sheep binding. Smooth spine decorated with two tools and two compartments with grotesque designs, rouletted. Title and volume labels in red morocco. One wormhole to head of the first three volumes. Spines slightly faded. Fine copy, very fresh.

Most of the comedies given by the author quickly met with success, and even under the Revolution and the Terror, the author was not troubled, donning the uniform of commander of the national guard and providing verses for civic festivals. His works bring together 11 plays carried by a lively and alert style, precise, but with weak and loose plots. The fugitive poems...

First edition. Half-titles and title pages in red and black.

Contemporary binding in full marbled blonde sheep. Smooth spine decorated with four compartmentalized fleurons. Red morocco title-label. Triple fillet frame on boards. Red edges. A lack to the lower joint extending onto the spine. Rubbing to headcaps, joints and corners.
Armorial copy with unidentified arms at tail, argent, a chevron gules accompanied by three stars.
Good copy.

Pastiche of a Greek novel attributed by the author to Philidor, philosopher, who supposedly wrote it during his journey to Egypt. Story of the thwarted pastoral loves of Alzidor and Charizée who were raised together, the...

First edition. One title-frontispiece.
Contemporary full red morocco binding à la Du Seuil. Spine with raised bands richly decorated. Gilt title. Covers decorated with a central frame of three fillets and a dotted fillet, with corner tools; second frame similar to the first with small angular tools. Lacking the two endpapers pasted down on the first and last leaves. Very handsome copy.
Antoine Godeau (1605-1672), Bishop of Grasse, poet and exegete, from the moment he became a priest (March 16, 1636) then bishop appointed by Richelieu, Godeau abandoned literature and turned to religious writings. He is the author of several paraphrases, notably on the famous psalms of David, the...

First edition.
Full aubergine morocco binding, late 19th century, signed by Chambrolle-Duru. Jansenist spine with raised bands. Rich decorative gilt board-edges. All edges gilt. Spine uniformly faded to dark green. A handsome copy, nevertheless.
Sermons by one who was considered the greatest preacher of his time. The sermons went through many editions and were widely read in the 19th century.

First edition, rare.
Contemporary full mottled brown calf. Spine with raised bands, gilt tooling. Gilt title. Loss at the head of the upper joint. Rubbing to joints, head of spine, and corners.

First edition of this treatise, published following the four volumes whose editorial dates run from 1782 for the first volume to 1788 for the last, namely the Traité de l'aimant, which is therefore often missing from the series.

Contemporary full red morocco binding. Spine with raised bands richly decorated. Title and volume labels in black morocco. Triple fillet frame on covers. Roulette on leading edges and board-edges. Gilt edges. Domino paper with gilt stars. Corners rubbed.

Very handsome copy, perfectly bound in a master binding, very fresh.

The Traité de l'aimant is the last work published...

The rare French first edition, illustrated with 9 folding plates containing 22 figures. The first edition, in Italian, dates from 1765. Two manuscript leaves in fine handwriting are bound at the rear on the properties of gunpowder, with a comparative table of tests for sulphur, saltpetre and charcoal.

Later binding, ca. 1830, in full glazed navy calf. Spine with raised bands handsomely decorated with central tool and corner tools in each compartment, roulette at head and foot, geometric roulette on bands, repeated as interior border. Green calf title-label. Framing border on boards. Edges gilt. Rubbing to boards, particularly the upper board, with scratches.

First French edition and the first translation into the vernacular, following the original Latin text published in the Elementa physiologica in eight volumes between 1757 and 1766. Copy with unidentified arms, bearing angular ermine spots on the covers. The Rohan or Rohan Chabot families affixed only the emblems or charges of their heraldry to their books, but we have been unable to identify a family behind the use of ermine spots, as these occur in too many coats of arms.

Contemporary full mottled calf bindings. Spines gilt in compartments with thistle tools. Red morocco title- and volume-labels, gilt-tooled. Gilt roll at foot. Triple gilt fillet border on covers with...

First edition.
Full blonde calf binding from the late 19th century signed Bauzonnet. Smooth spine decorated with two mirrored fleurons, fillets on the headcaps. Blind-stamped title. Triple fillet frame on the boards. Rich interior border. Very handsome copy.
Father Arthuys, a Jesuit, dramatized one of the most famous and touching stories from the Bible: Joseph was sold by his brothers as a slave in Egypt and became, by saving the pharaoh, master of Egypt as tax farmer. Benjamin is one of Jacob's sons, Joseph's brother by the same mother, Rachel. Before all his brothers, Joseph reveals himself. The tragedy was titled Christian although it is set before Christianity, in order to...

Copy in original wrappers without cream interim covers. Manuscript annotation on first endpaper.
Some marginal tears to endpapers which serve as covers.
Presumed author: Henri de Goyon de la Plombanie. In the journal des savans of 1752, article titled: Mémoire sur la manière d'élever les vers à soye.
The first part is a series of advice for successful silkworm breeding; the second consists of observations on the management of silkworms; the last relates a method for harvesting silkworm eggs. Following, a detailed table of the work's contents.
Rare.

First edition. Title page in red and black.

Contemporary full glazed blonde calf binding. Smooth spine decorated with foliage, stamps and fillets. Red morocco title-label. Monogram B.P. at foot. Small lack at head. Joints cracked at foot for 1cm. Corners rubbed. Leaf 53 repeated, same for leaf 73.

Handsome copy.

First edition published anonymously in Lyon and not in Amsterdam as stated on the title page. The second edition published on the same date by the same publisher has different pagination and a smaller format (12mo); it should not be confused with the true first edition (64 pp. for ours versus 96 pp. for the other).

Binding in full vellum. Endpapers replaced.

This is a pamphlet in which the author attacks and ridicules the principal physicians of the period, and expounds the main features of his materialist doctrine. The book was condemned to be torn and burned by order of Parliament on July 9, 1746. Too often forgotten is that La Mettrie was himself a...

Rare first edition, comprising 9 plates, including 3 folding plates.
Contemporary full mottled brown calf bindings. Spines with raised bands, gilt decoration. Title and volume labels in brown morocco. Blue mottled edges. A handsome copy.

First French edition, after the original German published in 1732 under the title: Psychologia empirica.

Contemporary full brown sheep binding. Decorated spine with raised bands. Red morocco title-label. One lack at head, similar lacks at foot. Joints cracked at head and foot. Corners slightly bumped. Title page with browning to margins.

Wolf sought to redefine philosophy as a whole based on a stable principle of knowledge founded on deduction and the model of geometry; a rationalist, he was a disciple of Leibniz from whom he borrowed many concepts. And yet for the first time in the history of philosophy, Wolf conferred an autonomy on...

First collected edition, bringing together Opuscules de physique animale et végétale and Expériences pour servir à l'histoire de la génération des animaux et des plantes; avec une ébauche de l'histoire des êtres organisés avant leur fécondation par Jean Sennebier. Translation by Jean Sennebier. The third volume: Expériences, etc, bears the imprint of Barthélémy Chirol in Geneva with the same date of 1787 (same imprint as for the original published in 1785). Edition illustrated with 9 folding plates at the end, 3 in the first volume and 6 in the third.

Contemporary full speckled calf bindings. Smooth spines decorated with...

Second edition partly in first edition, rare. The original was published in Paris in 1723, the author being unsatisfied with his work proposed this second edition revised and expanded with a second part, Suplémant au projet de taille tarifée, in which he responds to the objections of his detractors.

Contemporary full speckled brown sheep binding. Spine with five raised bands richly decorated with gilt compartments and fleurons, blonde morocco title label. Gilt rolls on the leading edges and headcaps. All edges speckled red. Head slightly worn, first band very slightly visible at the joint, a small amount of bookworm damage affecting the last compartment as well as the tail...

The rare first edition. Printed in two columns. Vignette of a sphere on the title page. 14 in-text figures and diagrams and numerous tables, notably a calendar of the position of the stars and zodiac figures, tables of latitudes and longitudes.

Contemporary limp vellum binding with flaps. Smooth spine unlettered. Traces of ties. Split to upper joint at head over two centimeters. Various stains. Lacking the first endleaf before the title. Lower right corner of title page missing. Brown stain to lower right corner from leaf 14 to leaf 32.

Commentary by Georg Henisch on the treatise of the sphere by Proclus, the celebrated Neo-Platonic philosopher of the...

First edition, illustrated with 2 folding plates on strong paper. The separately paginated section, Précis de journaux, bears the date 1786 in its colophon.

Full marbled and glazed brown calf binding. Decorated raised spine. Red morocco title label. 2 corners slightly bumped. From page 96 to the end, pale yellow dampstains to margins and on the first pages of the separately paginated section, affecting the entire page, but without real consequence. Good copy.

This surprising memoir traces all the curative applications of electricity on man: rheumatism, deafness, toothache, ophthalmia, paralysis, epilepsy. Case descriptions and...

First collected edition of these two works, originally published at Oxford in 1701 (Physica) and 1718 (Astronomia) respectively, illustrated with a title vignette, 12 folding plates for physics (experiments, diagrams, geometry), 29 for astronomy, and 6 for trigonometry, numbered I to XLVII.

Contemporary marbled brown sheep binding. Spine with raised bands richly decorated. Red morocco title label. Worn binding. Headcaps torn away. Joints split at head and foot, along two compartments for the upper joint. Corners heavily bumped. Paper more or less browned.

Treatise and manual of astronomy and physics with various short treatises, including one...

The rare first edition of the two volumes published respectively in 1724 and 1726. It is illustrated with 2 head-piece vignettes, 8 pages of musical scores, a cabalistic tree printed separately, the Samaritan Alphabet, 2 plates of coins and 2 figures also printed separately.

Copy with arms stamped on the covers and within each compartment from the library of the Abbey of Saint-Victor. The Abbey of Saint-Victor was one of the oldest abbeys in Paris (on the site of the University of Jussieu and the Jardin des Plantes) and one of the great intellectual centers of the medieval West; its rich library was opened to the public in the 18th century with the addition of new buildings...