Scientific, mathematical, astronomical treatises and great discoveries of the Scientific Revolution

First edition.

Marbled paper boards, smooth spine, gilt lettered red morocco title-label lengthwise. Slightly sunned boards, some minor restorations to title page.

Extremely rare essay on a so-called “cure” for breast cancer, published during the French Revolution.

First edition. A few head-piece vignettes, ornamental bandeaux, decorated initials, and tailpieces.

Contemporary full mottled sheep, spine with five raised bands, gilt panels and fleurons between the bands, gilt-lettered tan leather label, doublures of French curl paper, red edges. Upper corners lightly bumped, a few rubbed patches and small losses, a dampstain to the first leaves, a few minor paper losses to some leaves.

Published several decades before the results of Edward Jenner's research on vaccination, this collection brings together the principal texts on inoculation, the procedure that constitutes its direct forerunner.

Third edition, revised and augmented by the author, published during his lifetime. The copy is complete with the title-frontispiece depicting a "portico of Tuscan architectural order" according to the description of the 1805 edition, whose terrace shows a man ploughing the fields, indicating the content of the book. It is likewise complete with the folding plate and the eight elaborate vignettes. The first edition of this major text was issued from the press only five years earlier, in 1600.

A complete set of the astronomical writings of Jean Sylvain Bailly, partly in first edition. This is the main work of the author,  first Mayor of Paris, elected during his lifetime to three French academies, a distinction previously achieved only by Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle.

The present set comprises the second edition of the Histoire de l'astronomie ancienne, the new edition of the Histoire de l'astronomie moderne, and the first edition of the Traité de l'astronomie indienne et...

First edition of this dictionary compiled by the Reverend Magnus Swederus, who in the first part of his life was a leading figure in the Swedish book trade, with several important works of chemistry among his publications, notably Carl Wilhelm Scheele's Chemische Abhandlung von der Luft und dem Feuer and Torbern Olof Bergman's Opuscula physica et chemica, published in 1777 and 1779 respectively. Swederus was also behind a considerable number of periodicals, as well as lending libraries.

Brown...

Rare first edition of a work by the "German Beccaria," unrecorded in French libraries according to WorldCat, composed while the author held the chair of feudal law at the University of Leipzig, a position obtained at the age of thirty, three years prior.

Contemporary full brown sheep, smooth spine gilt with fleurons, light brown morocco lettering-piece, red edges. Bookplate of Count Giacomo Manzoni, former Finance Minister of the Roman Republic, concealing an ownership inscription written in...

First French edition, illustrated with 69 statistical tables on 24 folding plates (cf. Sabin 79632. Goldsmith's 22782. Kress C 619.)

Contemporary full sprinkled calf, smooth spine decorated with gilt ornamental tooling, covers framed with gilt rolls and fillets, marbled edges, gilt edge-lines.

Spine expertly restored, particularly at the upper right corner, occasional foxing.

The first French edition of this comprehensive statistical survey of the United States, covering population, commerce, navigation, fisheries, public lands, and the revenues and expenditures of the federal government.

Adam Seybert (1773-1825), a distinguished physician, chemist, and...

Complete year for 1787, with 50 issues, of this health journal with continuous pagination (pagination error between nos. 48 and 49).

Contemporary half marbled sheep, smooth spine, bronze sheep lettering-piece, rubbing to the spine, domino-patterned paper boards, a few scuffs to the boards, corners worn and small nicks to the edges, red edges, contemporary binding. 

The journal, founded in 1773 by Jean-Jacques Gardane, doctor-regent of the Faculty of Medicine of Paris, would run for 17 years, with one volume per year, except for the years 1773-1774.

Jean-Jacques Gardane distinguished himself in the establishment in Paris of treatment houses for the poor and in the...

Third edition, the second issued by Simon de Colines (cf. Renouard, Bibliogr. de Finé, 357-358. Brun, 189. Mortimer, French, 228 (not this ed.). Schreiber, 188. Not in Fairfax Murray.)

This edition constitutes a revised and improved reissue of the 1535 edition, with a newly cut woodcut architectural border to the title ("Quadrivium II").

Full vellum binding, smooth spine, manuscript title at the head of the spine, modern binding in the style of early vellum bindings,

A small tear to the title-page restored, a date inscribed in ink beside the printed date of publication.

A pleasing copy of one of Simon de Colines’ typographical masterpieces.

First edition, illustrated at the end of the volume with 28 hors-texte plates of Chinese ideograms (cf. Cordier, Sinica, 1735-36; Backer & Sommervogel II, 1168 (2)).

The table of plates lists 27; Backer records 29; our copy contains 28, whereas most copies indeed call for 27.

Modern half fawn calf, smooth spine ruled in gilt with double fillets and gilt floral tools, brown speckled paper-covered boards, speckled top edge. The sole edition of a work thoroughly informed on the ideogrammatic origins of Chinese characters, thereby contradicting the thesis advanced by the English orientalist Needham concerning the supposed analogy between Chinese writing and the Egyptian...

Illustrated first edition, lacking the frontispiece portrait of Hippocrates, but complete with its five plates, fine decorative initials and large tailpieces.

Contemporary full tree calf, smooth spine richly gilt with, among other decorations, a palmette roll, tan morocco lettering piece, gilt roll on board edges. Ink ownership inscription on the front pastedown: "J. E. Petrequin \ lyon, nov. 1856," in the hand of Joseph Pierre Eléonor Pétrequin, chief surgeon at the Hôtel-Dieu de Lyon, who received the...

First edition by a forgotten Ferrarese polygraph and historian, which nevertheless enjoyed considerable success upon publication and was followed by two subsequent editions in 1577 and 1599. According to Marc Adam Kolakowski, Alessandro Sardi, together with Johannes Boemus, pioneered the use of "antiquarian and ethnographic perspectives" in the study of ancient religions.

Fine historiated initials depicting various Greco-Roman deities.

First edition, complete with the two posthumous volumes issued in 1800 and written by Chaptal, Parmentier, Biot, and others. It is illustrated with 248 plates, several of them folding, a frontispiece in volume 10, and a map of France in volume 1; together with several folding tables. Text printed in double columns.

Contemporary full brown calf. Spines with raised bands, decorated with two grotesque compartments and two urn tools. Black calf lettering and volume labels. Losses to the headcaps of volumes 9 and 10. In volume 1, the outer margin trimmed over approximately 10 cm. In volume 1, the headcap partly worn, and a brown dampstain in the upper margin of the final leaves. Two or...

An intriguing first edition, complete with its engraved frontispiece of the author by Giovanni Volpato after Domenico Corvi, and its introductory poem by the Abbé Luigi Godard. A copy unrecorded in non-European libraries according to WorldCat.

Contemporary binding of fawn mottled calf, smooth spine divided into five gilt compartments by gilt rolls, brown morocco lettering-piece, triple gilt fillet framing the boards, double gilt fillet on the board edges, blue speckled edges, and shell-pattern marbled pastedowns and endpapers.

The lower cap lacking, some surface...

First quarto edition, complete with all volumes and plates, commonly referred to as the “Third Edition” of the Encyclopédie, and also known as the “Encyclopédie de Pellet” or “Encyclopédie de Lyon” or “Encyclopédie du Lac” by Simon-Nicolas-Henri Linguet.

Full marbled and polished brown sheepskin contemporary bindings, spines with five raised bands and four gilt compartments decorated with pomegranate gilt tools, two gilt decorative rolls at foot, title and volume lettering-pieces in red and green morocco, boards twice framed in blind, board edges gilt, all red edges, marbled pastedowns and...

New edition.

Contemporary half bottle-green sheep over green paper boards, smooth spine decorated with double gilt fillets and a central gilt fleuron, green endpapers and pastedowns, contemporary binding.

Some light foxing.

"The author's Cosmologie, published at Paris in 1815 [?], devoted considerable space to America". (Sabin, 100990).

Rare first edition, illustrated with an engraved frontispiece (cf. Barbier II 802; Cioranescu 65461).

Contemporary full mottled brown calf, spine with five raised bands tooled with rubbed gilt fillets and decorated with gilt compartments containing floral tools, gilt roll-tooling to the head- and tailcaps, rubbing to the joints, mottled edges; contemporary binding.

The work is attributed to Claude Vanel, who served as counsellor at the Cour des Comptes in Montpellier.

Provenance: from the library of Jacques Charreton, a Lyon jurist contemporary with the publication; his armorial bookplate (Meyer-Noirel C 0949) appears on the pastedown.

Manuscript shelf-mark in...

First edition, illustrated with five engraved plates (see Crowley 894; David 258; Poletti 182).

Scattered foxing, otherwise a pleasing copy.

Contemporary half sheep, the flat spine gilt with decorative rolls and small tools, black morocco lettering-piece, headcap worn, some rubbing to spine and joints, marbled paper boards.

"… Serres did research into the development of the bones and teeth…" (D.S.B., XII, 315).

Rare first edition, illustrated with four plates at the end of the volume (cf. Polak 8728).

This practical treatise was reissued repeatedly until the end of the Ancien Régime.

Our copy is offered in its original state, stitched in the temporary blue paper wrappers.

A waterstain in the right margin of the first fifty leaves, with another affecting the lower margins of the subsequent leaves; title page detached.

Gilles-François Segondat (1724–1791), deputy commissioner of the navy, was to conclude his career as an ordinary commissioner of the ports.

First edition.

Our copy is preserved in its original wrappers beneath a plain cover, the spine split with losses to the paper and the title label also with defects.

Pleasing condition internally, with only occasional foxing.

Among the finest works relating to naval medicine; a substantial section (pp. 90–212) is devoted to scurvy.

The author, a physician in the Dutch navy, composed this work entirely from his own firsthand observations. 

A substantial section (pp. 90–212) is devoted to scurvy.

Second edition, revised and expanded (see Backer & Sommervogel VI, 1557). Only three copies recorded in the CCFr (BnF, Dijon and Nîmes).

Contemporary full mottled calf, spine with five raised bands and richly gilt compartments, modern burgundy morocco lettering-piece, some rubbing to spine and joints, headcaps trimmed, triple gilt fillet frame on boards, marbled endpapers and pastedowns, speckled edges, bookplate pasted to one pastedown.

The first edition of this small universal calendar appeared in 1711 in the form of a folio broadside. 

Each subsequent issue expanded the content: the 1731 edition was intended to serve as a supplement to the large Calendrier...

Rare first edition (cf. Pritzel 7288).

Only three copies recorded in the CCF (BnF, Amiens and Montpellier).

Bound in a modern bradel binding of full blue paper-covered boards, smooth spine without lettering, printed paper title label pasted at the centre of the upper cover, a small dampstain at the foot of the spine.

The author, an apothecary in Montpellier, later qualified as a doctor of medicine.

First edition, illustrated at the end of the volume with a folding plate showing surgical instruments (cf. Garrison & Morton 2158.1; V. Rozier 3346).

A copy preserved in the original wrappers, in contemporary orange marbled paper without lettering.

Spine split; a light dampstain to the lower margins of the first few leaves.

Percy stresses the importance of immediate care for the wounded on the battlefield. "One of Napoleon's leading surgeons, Percy laid down his principles of the practice of military surgery in the same year he was appointed médecin consultant of the Army of the North. He divised his own instrument for bullet extraction, the tribulcon. He was...

Substantial collection of theses submitted to the Special School of Medicine of Strasbourg between 1803 and 1808, composed in Latin or French and arranged in reverse chronological order.

Contemporary binding in speckled fawn half sheep, smooth spine decorated with triple gilt fillets, black sheep lettering-piece partly rubbed, vellum tips, yellow edges, corners worn; period binding.

I. ORDINAIRE (Désiré): Dissertation sur l'influence de l'habitude sur les facultés physiques et morales de l'homme (2 ll. unnumbered, 33 pp.). The Fourierist Désiré Ordinaire (1773-1847) was professor of natural history, then academy inspector and rector of the Academies of Besançon...

Substantial compilation of these three texts setting forth the statutes of the Faculty of Medicine of Paris, together with the related legal instruments: royal declarations or edicts, rulings of the Parlement, and a judgment of the Châtelet of Paris. 

The second part sets out in detail the conditions governing the conferral of degrees, while the final section comprises several discourses on medicine.

Bound after the principal work are Hyacinthe Théodore Baron’s "Ritus usus et laudabiles Facultatis medicinae parisiensis consuetudines" and Gabriel Naudé’s "De Antiquitate et dignitate Scolae medicae parisiensis panegyris", published in  Paris by G.F...

First edition.

Our copy is offered unbound.

The dissertation concerned "Les Loix du choc des corps à ressort"; the R. P. Mazière was a priest of the Oratory, born in Pontoise.

A very rare first edition printed on blue paper (only four copies recorded in the CCFr: Aix-en-Provence (2), Angers and Avignon).

Not recorded in Monglond.

Contemporary flexible boards covered in blue marbled paper, speckled edges.

A few scuffs to the covers, spine restored.

With an additional pierced copper plate indicating units and fractions.

The author, a clerk in the Imperial Navy at Toulon, here sets out, in tabular form, a method enabling the rapid conversion of former units of measurement into the metric system, instituted in 1795 but still little used at the time.

The accompanying copper plate bears the engraved inscription: "Le...

Manuscript drawing consisting of a coloured sketch of one of the fort’s bastions, with scale in toises.

Construction of the Fort de Lamalgue, situated on the hill of the same name and intended to secure the landward approaches to Toulon while also protecting Fort Saint-Louis (Mourillon), which had been bombarded and abandoned during the siege of 1707, began in 1764 under the direction of Milet de Monville.

Works continued until 1792.

Traces of folding to the sheet.

Very rare first edition.

A single copy is held at the Municipal Archives of Lyon. Absent from the CCFr.

Not recorded in Goldsmith, Kress, Einaudi, or Higgs.

Modern Bradel-style binding in full beige boards, printed title label, signed by Hervé.

Lengthy discussion of the trade in tallow, animal fats used in the manufacture of candles.

The authors argue that butchers are not responsible for the high price of tallow, and that the ordinance of 16 April 1771, which prohibited its export, in fact hampers the trade in this commodity. In conclusion, the butchers request not to be placed at the mercy of the chandlers, whether in terms of price or outlets.

Corner...

Rare first edition.

Our copy is offered unbound, preserved in comb-marbled paper wrappers, red edges.

The sole and scarce edition of this treatise written by a surgeon-major of the Santerre and Touraine regiments.

First edition of Jacques Le Meilleur’s medical thesis.

Our copy is presented disbound.

Waterstaining at head throughout, not affecting the text.

First edition (cf. Wellcome, II, 340).

Our copy is preserved in its original sewn state, in provisional cream paper wrappers.

Signed presentation inscription from Charles-Irénée Jacquin to his colleague Dr Long, physician at Die.

Accompanied by a dated autograph letter signed by Charles-Irénée Jacquin, one page written on both sides, discussing his work and thanking his correspondent for the advice he had given him in the preparation of the present volume.

First edition, illustrated at the end of the volume with a folding plate entitled "Système dentaire des oiseaux" (see Crowley 916; David, p. 127; Poletti 90).

Occasional light foxing; a tear along the left margin of the plate not touching the engraved figures.

Contemporary half tawny calf, smooth spine decorated with gilt tools and fillets; a restored snag at the head of the spine, which also shows some rubbing; marbled paper boards, marbled edges.

First edition of the treatise "qui comprend la structure et les fonctions de la bouche, l'histoire de ses maladies, les moyens d'en conserver la santé et la beauté, et les opérations particulières à l'art du dentiste" (cf. Crowley 846. David p. 125. Poletti p. 49.)

Half brown calf binding, the smooth spine decorated with double gilt fillets and gilt panels; rubbing to the spine and joints; marbled paper boards, marbled endpapers and pastedowns; late 19th-century binding.

A few minor spots of foxing.

Illustrated with an engraved title-page, an allegorical frontispiece, and 13 copper-engraved plates printed hors texte.

First edition.

"Voulons & Nous plaist, qu'à commencer au premier Mars prochain, aucuns de nos Sujets de quelque estat, condition & sexe qu'ils soient, à l'Exception de ceux qui en auront obtenu nostre permission par Ecrit, ne puissent porter des Diamans, Perles et Pierres precieuses, à peine de confiscation & de Dix mille livres d'amende : Faisons deffenses sous la mesme peine, à compter du premier Avril prochain d'en faire entrer dans le Royaume ; N'entendons néantmoins comprendre dans la presente prohibition les Bagues Episcopales & les Pierreries employées aux Ornemens des Eglises".

New edition illustrated with 66 plates and maps printed outside the text, most of them folding: 3 frontispieces, 39 plates and 24 maps, including a world map and charts of the various islands, some printed with coastal profiles, as well as views of ports (Manila, Bahia, Scio), of islands (the Canaries, Cape Verde), monuments, a shipwreck, battle scenes, indigenous peoples, flora (apricot, cocoa), and fauna (birds, fish), together with a curious depiction of the “hippopotamus or sea-horse” (vol. 3, p. 361).

Cf. Sabin, 18382. Borba de Moraes, I, 243-244. Leclerc (1867), 416. Cordier, Bibl. Indosinica, 1459-1460. Boucher de La Richarderie, I, 121-122. Hoefer, XII, 881-885.

First edition describing 1,539 entries.

Bound in modern brown half shagreen over marbled paper boards, smooth spine lettered in blind, corners rubbed, bookplate pasted to the front pastedown; a modest modern binding.

Occasional light foxing.

Provenance: copy from the library of the Canadian bookseller G. S. Terence Cavanagh (1923–2005), also librarian of the Trent Collection, with his bookplate pasted to the front pastedown.

First edition (cf. Quérard II, 140).

Our copy is preserved in its original publisher’s wrappers, under the plain pink provisional cover; the spine is split and faded with losses, and there are small marginal tears to the covers.

A scholar and statesman from Île de France (present-day Mauritius), J.-F. Charpentier de Cossigny (1736–1809) was elected deputy for the island to the Constituent Assembly. He returned there in 1800, sent by Bonaparte to announce the advent of the Consular regime and to serve as Director of gunpowder manufacture in Port Louis.

But because he sought to employ enslaved workers while paying them as free men, he encountered such fierce opposition...

First edition (cf. Neu 838.)

Light foxing.

Contemporary full tan sheep, the spine with five raised bands ruled in gilt and decorated with gilt panels and gilt floral tools; some rubbing and small defects to the spine, gilt rolls to the head- and tailcaps, surface wear to the boards, red edges, gilt fillets to the board edges, corners a little softened; a period binding.

Second edition of this treatise, first published in 1771 and reissued again in 1813 (see Mennessier de La Lance I, 162).

Our copy is offered stitched, in its provisional blue paper wrappers, the spine reinforced with an adhesive strip.

First edition of Étienne Bourdet’s major treatise, published in Paris in 1757 in two volumes, eleven years after the second edition of Pierre Fauchard’s Le Chirurgien Dentiste. The work is illustrated with 13 folding engraved plates depicting instruments, appliances and dental procedures.

Contemporary full mottled tan calf. Spines with five raised bands outlined in gilt and decorated with gilt floral compartments; bronze calf lettering-pieces, the volume-numbering pieces partly rubbed away; gilt rolls to the headcaps, blind fillet...

Important dossier of documents relating to a dispute between the bakers of Le Mans and the city’s mayor and aldermen, comprising the following items:

• Avis donné par le lieutenant général de la Senechaussée du Maine, en exécution de l'Arrest du 17 décembre 1749. Sur la confection, la qualité & le prix du pain, & autres choses en dépendante (sic). 4 pp.
• Mémoire dans la Cause indiquée au Samedi 24. Avril 1751. Pour les Boulangers du Mans, Demandeurs. Contre les Maire & Echevins de la même Ville, Deffendeurs. 12 pp. "Les Boulangers demandent la nullité d'un essai fait au Mans en conséquence d'un Arrêt de la cour du 17 Décembre 1749, dans lequel en...

Very rare first edition of this french translation of Boerhaave’s Aphorismi (1709), issued by La Mettrie in the very year of the author’s death (most bibliographies record only the 1739 edition), (cf. Wellcome II, 185).

Contemporary half brown sheepskin with corners, spine with four raised bands ruled in blind, lacking title label, minor losses at the headcaps and rubbing to the spine, red speckled edges, period binding restored.

A collection of precepts concerning diagnosis and therapy.

La Mettrie was a pupil of Boerhaave at Leiden, which accounts for the lasting interest he showed throughout his life in the writings of the Dutch physician.

Bound...

Rare group of six fascicules, all in the original edition.

Bradel-style binding in green mottled boards, smooth unlettered spine, printed title label mounted at the centre of the upper cover; modern binding.

Not recorded by Polak. Apparently no copy located in the CCFr.

A stain at the head of the title page.

This curious compilation, bearing almost no identifying information, appears to be particularly rare.

It contains:

- 1. A notice to mariners concerning the change in the lighting of the lighthouse in the Bay of the Somme, scheduled for 25 Pluviôse, Year IX [14 February 1801].

- 2. An instruction on filters for purifying water, signed by the...

Exceptionally rare first edition of this study in applied mathematics, which had been the subject of a report presented to the Class of Physical Sciences and Mathematics of the Academy of Turin on 26 Ventôse, Year XIII. 

Our copy is preserved in its original wrappers, in provisional speckled green paper covers with a few small losses at the corners.

Some foxing.

Not in Quérard. Only two copies recorded in WorldCat.

Tommaso Valperga di Caluso (1737-1815), Piedmontese orientalist and mathematician, was one of the two signatories of this report.

First edition of this Arabic grammar, one of the earliest works printed by the Propaganda Press, whose own printing office had only been established in 1627 by Pope Urban VIII through the consolidation of several typographical collections, notably the Medici Arabic presses.

Contemporary full stiff vellum, smooth spine, title and date lettered in black ink, small wormholes to one joint and the left margin of the upper cover, sprinkled edges, contemporary binding.

A wormtrack runs through most of the leaves, occasionally affecting a few letters of the text.

The Franciscan friar Tommaso Obizzino (1585-1632), a native of Novara, produced several manuals for the study of the...

Very rare first edition.

According to the CCFr, copies are recorded only in Dijon and Nîmes.

Our copy is offered disbound, with a few foxing spots and a small wormhole in the left margin of all leaves, not affecting the text.

Having observed that the water supplied to Dijon was unwholesome, the author argues that the waters of the River Ouche, being of good quality, could be used for consumption.

Jean Fournier, doctor of the University of Montpellier, was successively salaried physician to the city of Dijon, physician to the Estates of Burgundy, and naval physician in the ports of Brest and Lorient.

New edition.

Contemporary full mottled tan calf binding, smooth spine decorated with gilt garlands and floral tools, black morocco lettering-piece, blind-tooled rolls to the spine ends, boards framed with a gilt fillet and palmette border, marbled endpapers, gilt fillets to the edges partly rubbed, marbled edges, one lower corner bumped, contemporary Restoration-period binding, 88 pp.

The first edition had been published in 1794; this reissue attests to the persistence of the epizootic outbreak in the Île-de-France region.

This work has been bound together with ten additional texts relating to epizootic diseases in the early nineteenth century:

I. CHABERT...

First edition of the second work in a set of four, published by a royal army officer between 1783 and 1788, focusing on a remedy claimed to cure numerous ailments. The remedy was prepared from a plant whose name the author deliberately withheld.

Bound in contemporary marbled paper over flexible cardboard, with wear and losses to the spine, labels pasted on the spine, and minor paper losses to the boards.

Printed stamps on some leaves.

The substance was both widely condemned as an excessively harsh purgative and praised—even by practitioners—for its apparent relief to gout sufferers.

An analysis conducted by Cadet and Parmentier failed to identify the plant used...

First edition (cf. Rozier 2031.)

Modern half-speckled brown calf over marbled paper boards, smooth spine decorated with double gilt fillets, brown calf title label lettered lengthwise, bookseller's label pasted at the head of a pastedown. Born in Tours in 1750, Nicolas Heurteloup was appointed surgeon trainee on the island of Corsica in 1770.

In 1782, he was appointed chief surgeon of the hospitals of Corsica and, in 1786, was placed in charge of the military hospital at Toulon.

Chief physician in 1790 and principal army surgeon in 1795, he became Inspector General of the Medical Service in 1804 and Surgeon-in-Chief of the Grande Armée in 1808, succeeding...

First edition of this treatise "qui comprend la structure et les fonctions de la bouche, l'histoire de ses maladies, les moyens d'en conserver la santé et la beauté, et les opérations particulières à l'art du dentiste".

Cf. Crowley 846. David p. 125. Poletti p. 49.

Contemporary half tan calf, smooth spine decorated with gilt ornamental rolls, red calf lettering-piece, some rubbing and minor losses to the joints, speckled-paper boards, marbled edges.

Illustrated with an engraved title-page, an allegorical frontispiece and 13 engraved plates, all hors texte.

Some foxing.

First edition of this thesis, illustrated with 4 plates.

Modern black half-calf binding, smooth spine decorated with double gilt fillets, marbled-paper boards.

A few minor spots of foxing; stamps of the Library of the Paris Faculty of Medicine on the plates and title page.

Not recorded by V. Rozier. 

The author served as chief surgeon to the First Battalion of Foot Grenadiers of the Consular Guard.

He invented an adjustable inclined bed, an instrument for the treatment of compound fractures of the lower jaw, a compression device for use in cases involving severed arteries, and an apparatus designed to transport seriously wounded men over long distances...

First edition, illustrated, featuring at the end of the volume a folding plate bringing together two figures (cf. Quérard II, 130. Poggendorff I, 420. Not in Duveen.)

Bradel binding in full brick-coloured boards, smooth spine, green morocco title label, modern binding.

Chaptal develops ideas he had already set out some ten years earlier in volume VI of the "Mémoires de l'institut, sciences physiques et mathématiques" : he examines the art of restoring faded colours.

Some light, harmless foxing.

First edition of this major classification, arranged according to the Linnaean system, describing a thousand plants with remarkable precision (cf. Pritzel 9806.)

Full green vellum bindings, smooth spines tooled with double gilt fillets and gilt rolls, brown calf lettering- and volume-pieces, slight rubbing to the spines, yellow mottled edges, some corners a little softened; contemporary bindings.

The author, Abbé Fulgenzio Vitman (1728–1806), a Florentine botanist, founded the Milan botanical garden after directing that of Pavia.

Second edition, embellished with a copper-engraved map by Giraud l’aîné, folded, together with a copper-engraved plan of the labyrinth of Knossos by Chapuy.

This edition is not recorded by Contominas, Atabey or Blackmer (1493 for the first edition).

Contemporary half mottled sheep with parchment corners, smooth spine decorated with delicate black fillets, paper labels serving as title pieces, green paper boards with some rubbing, sprinkled edges.

Spine foot restored.

Three gatherings very lightly toned, otherwise a clean, fresh copy.

Bound at the end is the first edition of the French translation prepared by Jean-Claude Pingeron of Dominique Sestini’s work...

Illustrated edition, with 6 plates bound at the end of the volume.

Our copy is preserved in its original plain wrappers.

Spine with tears and losses.

From the "Description des Arts et Métiers" published by the Académie des Sciences.

First edition of the French translation, illustrated with a plate showing the alphabet and a large folding map at the end of the first volume (cf. Quérard V, 561). Two modern bookplates pasted to the front pastedowns. 

Contemporary full marbled tan calf bindings, smooth spines decorated with gilt friezes (partly rubbed), blond morocco lettering-piece, lower headcap slightly damaged, some wear to joints and boards, old restorations on boards, a few bumped corners, gilt rolls on board edges, red edges.

Small ink stain and marginal tear on the map, otherwise a clean and appealing copy.

The most comprehensive work of its time devoted to the largest island of...

Very rare first edition of the French translation, illustrated at the end of the volume with one folding copper-engraved plate and two folding printed tables, all hors texte.

See Oberlé (for the Milan 1819 edition). Lacking from the Kilian Fristch Collection. Vicaire, 353-354.

A rare and appealing copy preserved in its original wrappers, with the plain provisional cover showing some surface wear.

First edition of the French translation, illustrated with an engraved portrait by Verzy after Longhi as a frontispiece to the first volume, together with five folding tables and five folding plates out of text in the second volume.

Half brown sheepskin bindings, smooth spines decorated with gilt garlands now partly faded, some rubbing to spines, modern brown sheepskin title labels, vellum corners, pink paper-covered boards, a few scuffs to the covers, wear to the edges, corners bumped, red edges, contemporary bindings.

Uncommon sole French translation of the Farmacopia generale by the Italian practitioner Brugnatelli (whose given names vary across sources, 1761–1818)...

Scarce sammelband comprising six treatises on dental surgery, some of which are present here in the first edition.

Half blue sheep, the smooth spine decorated with gilt romantic ornaments, marbled paper boards lightly darkened and faded at the margins, marbled endpapers and pastedowns, marbled edges.

A faint dampstain to the lower margin of the initial leaves of the first work, a few occasional light spots.

Bound together are:

1. by N. Lefebvre: "La Médecine domestique, petit ouvrage… concernant les moyens de détourner & guérir les maladies par la connoissance & l'usage des plantes", printed in Le Mans by Pivron in 1782 (24 pp.).
2. by Hébert...

First edition of Joseph Pitton de Tournefort’s (1656-1708) seminal work, illustrated with three repeated engraved frontispiece titles by Cornelis Vermeulen depicting the Jardin du Roi, 451 botanical plates drawn by Claude Aubriet - who would later accompany the author on his journey to the Levant - and 5 text vignettes. Dedicatory epistle to King Louis XIV.

Three volumes bound in contemporary polished marbled calf. Raised-band spines decorated with the cipher of Louis XIV in four compartments, embellished with fleurs-de-lis, stars and botanical ornaments; red morocco lettering and numbering pieces, likewise...

First edition, illustrated with 4 large engraved plates printed on separate leaves and bound at the end of the volume.

Our copy is offered in its original wrappers, under contemporary plain paper covers.

Spine worn with tears and losses, internally in good condition.

From the "Description des Arts et Métiers" (1761-1776).

First and only edition, illustrated with a folding engraved frontispiece (see Polak 6795; not in Sabin).

Bound in bottle-green full sheep, Bradel-style binding, smooth spine ruled in gilt with double fillets, gilt date at foot, original pink paper waiting cover preserved, modern binding.

A waterstain affects the lower margin of the initial leaves, gradually fading throughout the volume.

Unique and uncommon edition (the purported 1814 edition is a bibliographical ghost).

Paris, Gueffier, 1769-1770. Four octavo volumes.

First edition of this major eighteenth-century classic of scientific recreations, illustrated with 72 folding plates, 68 of them finely coloured by hand at the time of publication, together with a folding table. Four further plates listing the prices of recreational apparatus sold by Guyot accompany the first three volumes. The first two volumes appeared in 1769 and the remaining two in 1770.

Contemporary full polished tan calf, smooth spines elegantly decorated with gilt floral tools and fillets, red morocco lettering-pieces...

Rare first edition, complete with the folding plate depicting the stove bound at the end. "First collected edition of these various reports concerning charitable institutions built following the model of the famous 'Rumford stoves'" (Oberlé).
Contemporary binding in half blond sheep, spine elaborately decorated in gilt with fillets and tools in the shape of stars and leaves, and with a red morocco title label; marbled paper boards, all edges yellow. The front flyleaf bears bibliographical notes in pencil concerning the authors of the collection.

Second edition, after the original published in 1791. 2 large folding plates at the end of volume 2 with multiple figures.
Contemporary red Bradel binding in temporary boards. Smooth spine decorated with fillets. Brown shagreen title label. Gilt volume numbering. Volume 1: dampstain traces at mid-page from page 32 to 50, and p. 422 to 433. Humidity traces thereafter to page 250. Volume 2: light dampstain traces in upper margin p. 158 to 209, very faded thereafter. Dampstain traces in upper section on the 2 folding plates. Some signatures uncut. Rubbing traces.
One of the most important treatises on the subject, which remained for a long time the manual for dye workers...

First edition, illustrated with an allegorical frontispiece by Dubois and 21 engraved plates by Azélie Hubert after Julie Ribault, depicting blind individuals engaged in various activities and the tools used for their education. On the verso of the front free endpaper, a manuscript note referencing the life of Saint Jerome by Colombey, concerning the life of a blind philosopher.

Pastiche Bradel-style binding in waxed, speckled beige paper, typical of the period. Contemporary brown sheepskin title label. Untrimmed copy, with full margins. From p. 190 onward, a faint angular water stain appears and continues through to p. 204; otherwise, a clean and bright copy.

French first edition, translated by Baron d'Holbach.

Contemporary full brown glazed and marbled calf binding. Smooth spine decorated. Garnet morocco title label. Headcaps, joints, edges and corners restored. Browning to margins of title page.
Bookplate, Library of Henri Tardivi.
Major work by the German chemist Stahl, who developed the famous phlogistic theory, which dominated chemistry until the end of the 18th century. Stahl himself had borrowed the notion from his master Becker. Although this theory was invalidated by Lavoisier, it was very important because for the first time in history, a principle unified all of chemistry. In his theory of salts, the...

Paris, Jean-Thomas Hérissant, 1759. Three octavo volumes.

First edition in French of Johann Gottlob Lehmann's Traités de physique, d'histoire naturelle, de minéralogie et de métallurgie, translated and annotated by Paul-Henri Thiry, Baron d'Holbach. All three volumes bear this collective half-title and bring together in French for the first time several of the German scientist's principal works on mining, mineralogy, metallurgy and geology.