Rare and antique geography books, astronomy, antique maps and atlases, cosmographies, astronomical observations

Third edition.

Our copy is preserved in its original state, issued in temporary blue paper wrappers, with some losses to the corners and a mounted title label on the spine.

Some light foxing.

Pierre-Auguste Mutel (1795–1847) entered the École Polytechnique in 1813, graduating 34th in the class of 1815, and went on to serve in the artillery corps.

Manuscript ex-libris of Becquerel, dated 24 October 1833; it is difficult to determine which member of this illustrious family should be associated with this provenance.

Head of the collection of this technical periodical, which appeared for only three years (1839, 1840, and 1841); this set comprises all the issues published from January 1839 to December 1840.

Half lavallière calf bindings with corners, smooth spines lightened and decorated with gilt and blind fillets, red calf title labels, green volume labels, some rubbing to the spines, marbled paper boards, marbled edges, contemporary bindings.

Some occasional foxing.

The first volume is illustrated with in-text figures and 3 plates out of text; the second contains in-text figures.

The articles abound in practical details on the state of science and technology during the July...

New edition with hitherto unpublished material, printed three years after the first edition.
Contemporary full brown sheepskin binding, smooth spine with 7 gilt compartments decorated with friezes and classical vases, leather lettering piece, inscription "Lycée impérial de Marseille, prix de l'an XIII (1805)" gilt-stamped on upper cover, gilt rolls on board edges, tooled spine-ends, white pastedowns and endpapers, price label with the "Lycée's" header affixed to front pastedown. Usual wear to joints with a small hole, lower spine-end missing and leather loss at foot of spine, wormhole affecting several letters of the word...

New edition illustrated with 79 woodcuts in the text (cf. Bibliographie der Spielbücher).

Contemporary limp vellum, plain spine rubbed and soiled, covers stained.

Light dampstaining at the head of the opening leaves, at the foot of the first part, and affecting other leaves.

The work is generally attributed to Father Leurechon (1591-1670), a Jesuit from Lorraine, professor of mathematics, philosophy and theology at the University of Pont-à-Mousson (Dictionary of Scientific Biography VIII 271), though its authorship remains disputed (cf. David Singmaster, Bibliography of Some Recreational Mathematics Books, 2004, who attributes it to Hendrik van Etten).

...

First and only edition, with a tumultuous publishing history: the first volume had been printed as early as 1835 by Paulin, but the entire edition was destroyed in the fire on rue du Pot-au-Fer. The author subsequently revised his work and published a new version in 1838, simultaneously with the second volume.

Minor marginal defects to spines and covers; the second volume is bound in a temporary plain wrapper (lacking the printed covers); scattered foxing.

First french translation of the article originally published in the New York Sun in August 1825 under the title Great astronomical discoveries lately made by Sir John Herschel, along with the content of the five subsequent installments.

Bradel binding in full marbled paper-covered boards, flat spine, vertical title label with a small chip, modern binding.

First edition (cf. Polak 2791).

Contemporary half purple calf binding, smooth spine darkened and decorated with gilt fillets, garlands and fleurons, marbled paper boards, hand-marbled endpapers and pastedowns, red edges. Corners rubbed. Period binding.

Small restored loss to the title page, two scuffs to the foot of the upper board.

The author, a former graduate of the École Polytechnique, was a professor of navigation.

First edition, illustrated with a folding map bound at the end (cf. Quérard I 529).

Copy preserved in its original plain green wrappers,

uncut, some foxing to the map.

"Tableau des stations géodésiques et astronomiques choisies pour déterminer la mesure de l'arc du parallèle terrestre compris entre les tours de Cordouan et de Fiume, et qui doit s'étendre jusqu'à Orsowa en Transilvanie".

Inscribed and signed by Joseph-François Nicollet on the title-page, addressed to a Monsieur Pouillet.

First edition of the bilingual Greek-Latin text of Iamblichus' Life of Pythagoras by Ludolf Küster from the manuscript held at the Laurentian Library. The facing Latin translation is the work of Frédéric Ulrich Obrecht and Konrad Rittershausen. Bound at the end is Porphyry’s Life of Pythagoras.

Illustrated with a large frontispiece portrait of Pythagoras, based on a coin from the collection of Fulvio Orsini.

Contemporary Dutch gilt-panelled vellum boards, spine with 5 raised bands and gilt ornaments with the arms of the city of Amsterdam, large gilt arms of the city of Amsterdam...

Second illustrated edition, with 68 wood engravings within the text.

The first leaf bears, on its verso, a few lines of music (the recto is blank). On the final leaf, the same score reveals, when folded, lines of writing: "Les notes musicales qui servent de Frontispice à cet Ouvrage, ressemblent parfaitement au Discours & à la Musique ci-dessus. C'est la manière de plier le papier qui fait paraître l'un & disparaître l'autre" (cf. Fechner, p. 152).

Paris: Chez l'Auteur, Granger, Bailly, Lesclapart, Hardouin & Gattey, Varin, Lagrange [Printed by Veuve Hérissant], 1786. Octavo (in-8), 2 ff. n. ch., pp. [v] to xix, 328 pp., 1 folding unnumbered leaf in accordion format, 68...

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...

First edition, illustrated with numerous in-text tables.

Spine split with small losses, a restored tear at the foot of the upper cover, minor losses to the lower cover, internally well preserved.

Antoine-Paulin Pihan (1810–1879), who was proficient in Arabic, Turkish, and Persian, held the modest post of compositor in the Oriental Typography department at the Imprimerie Impériale. Yet the volume of his linguistic work reveals an orientalist of far greater depth than his official title suggests. This work documents a remarkable variety of numeral systems (see the alphabetical index at the end of the volume), ranging from Albania to Japan, and from Ethiopia to Mongolia.

First edition of the French translation, illustrated with a photographic portrait of Albert Einstein as frontispiece.

A small loss at the foot of the spine, which also shows rubbing along the joints, upper right corner of the front board starting to come loose, a slight marginal tear just below, pleasant internal condition, manuscript bookplate at the head of a flyleaf.

Annotations and markings in red pen on pages 8 and 9.

Work illustrated with figures in the text.

First edition, no copy recorded in the CCF.

Modern bradel binding in full burgundy cloth, spine ruled in gilt.

First leaf restored to the right margin with an adhesive repair, some light foxing, dampstain to the upper margin of the opening leaves.

A native of the Briançonnais (Villeneuve-la-Salle), like many booksellers who settled beyond the Alps, Yves Gravier established himself in Genoa in the second half of the eighteenth century, first in partnership with Louis Fantin, and subsequently on his own.

His parents Jean, Thomas and Simon Gravier were likewise active in Italy (Thomas in Rome itself).

In 1839, the firm was placed into liquidation.

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...

Scarce new edition, illustrated with a folding plate printed on a separate leaf.

According to the CCF, copies are recorded only under the date 1826.

Bound in full fawn marbled paper boards, smooth spine, unlettered; modern binding.

A rare edition, though not the first: the approval printed at the end of the volume is dated 30 August 1766 for the censor’s permission (yet no public holding records a copy earlier than 1799). Contemporary manuscript ex-libris of Gabory Dodin, dated 24 July 1817.

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, adorned with numerous tables including 8 folding at the end of the volume, and illustrated with 62 figures in the text.

Publisher’s Bradel binding in full burgundy cloth, smooth spine lettered in gilt on the upper cover, upper headcap lacking, lower headcap worn, upper cover framed with blind-stamped typographical motifs at the corners, blue-grey endpapers and pastedowns, upper corners rubbed.

A marginal loss to the right margin of pages 97-98, not affecting the text.

A treatise on hydrography and maritime topography, the first of its kind in Brazil, intended for fourth-year students of the Brazilian Naval School.

The author, the naval officer...

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...

• Observations du thermomètre faites pendant les grands froids de Sibérie, par M. Delisle.
• Recherche de statique et de dynamique, par M. le Marquis de Courtivron.
• Expériences de l'electricité appliquées à des paralytiques, par Mrs Morand et...

New edition, illustrated with 14 plates, most folding.
Contemporary full brown marbled calf binding. Decorated spine with raised bands. Red morocco title label, and black wax volume label. 2 corners slightly bumped. Rubbing. Good copy.
Notable articles in each of the mentioned sections include: Experiments to determine if the strength of ropes exceeds the sum of the strengths of the threads composing these same ropes, by M. de Réaumur. Observations on the vegetation of truffles, by M. Geoffroy. Observations on fecal matter, by M. Homberg. Remarks on certain colors, by M. de La Hire. Rules and remarks for the construction of equalities, by M. Rolle. On different ways in which...

Illustrated edition with 16 folding plates, 8 per volume.
Contemporary full marbled brown calf bindings. Raised band spines with gilt ornaments. Red morocco title-labels, and black wax volume labels. Small lack to head of volume I. One corner slightly bumped. Rubbing. Last errata leaf frayed at margin. Good copies.
Notable articles to be retained in each of the mentioned sections include the following: On beam resistance by M. Parent. On conchoids in general by M. de La Hire. Observations on coral analysis by M. Geoffroy. Reflections on magnetic variations by M. Houssaye. General method for finding an infinity of new curved lines by M. Réaumur. Physical explanation of the...

First edition.
Contemporary limp parchment binding. Smooth, unlettered spine. Brown stains on both boards, more extensive on the upper board. Binding detached from upper board. Tears to the lower margin of leaf li.
Complete set of navigation tables (latitudes, moon, winds, ports...), with 64 pages explaining these tables.