Rare and antique physics books, chemistry & scientific experiments, alchemy treatises, optics, Newton, experimental physics

New edition, partly original, revised and enlarged (cf. Vicaire 56; Bitting 231; Oberlé, Fastes, 466).

Contemporary-style half tan sheep, smooth spine decorated with gilt and blind fillets and blind-stamped ornaments, black shagreen lettering-piece, marbled paper boards, modern binding.

A few instances of foxing. 

The author of this work, born in Grasse in 1767 and died in 1839, was appointed physician to Joseph Bonaparte, King of Naples, in 1806.

His dictionary is a mine of highly valuable information on food products from throughout the world, with historical, literary, anecdotal, scientific, gastronomic, and medical entries. It also...

Rare illustrated first edition, with a large folding map at the end of the volume showing the route of the railway line linking Rosario to Puerto Belgrano.

Only copies recorded at the BnF in the CCF.

The "Ferrocarril Rosario-Puerto Belgrano" company (Rosario–Puerto Belgrano Railway) was established in the first decade of the 20th century with French capital; its promoters based their railway policy around the ports of Rosario and Arroyo Pareja.

WITH, loosely inserted on three leaves: three local printed documents relating to the liquidation (notice to creditors; verification of claims; a receipt for 8 coupons, dated 1919).

See Chalier (Gustavo): Capitaux français...

First edition of this scarce catalogue of mineral specimens exhibited by the National Department of Mines and Geology of the Argentine Republic at the 1889 Universal Exposition.

Contemporary Bradel binding in chocolate brown half shagreen, smooth spine with gilt title lettered vertically, library shelf label at the foot of the spine, double gilt fillets to marbled paper boards, two abrasions with small losses of paper at the foot of the upper cover, comb-marbled endpapers and pastedowns, speckled edges.

Library stamp skilfully erased from the upper right corner of the introductory page.

A pleasing copy in very good internal condition.

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.

Rare set of eight works by Baron Thénard, all in first edition, seven of which concern agronomy.

The son of the chemist Louis Thénard, the agronomist Paul Thénard (1819–1884) conducted extensive research on soil fertility, begun on the estate of his in-laws in Givry, where he first undertook soil analysis in order to understand the factors favourable to vine cultivation.

In 1847 his wife inherited an estate in Talmay (Côte-d’Or). While retaining Givry, he settled in Talmay to pursue his investigations into ways of improving soil fertility.

Contemporary half midnight-blue shagreen, spine with five raised bands decorated with gilt tools; slight rubbing to the spine...

First edition, illustrated with a folding plate bound at the end of the volume (cf. Quérard IX, 259).

Contemporary full boards covered with marbled paper, smooth spine heavily rubbed, a label with a now-effaced manuscript title affixed at the head of the spine, surface abrasions with paper losses to the boards, snags to the edges, bumped corners, sprinkled edges; a period binding.

Following general remarks on the designation, status, quality, and responsibilities of consuls, the work presents the texts of ordinances, treaties, and conventions relating to the Levant and Barbary trading posts (1781), prizes brought into foreign ports (1784), navigation and commerce between...

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.

Rare whaling share certificate issued by the Lamotte & Cie shipowners of Le Havre.

Lithographed sheet on pink paper with manuscript additions, presented in a modern glazed frame (with a small chip to the upper right corner of the frame) and set within a mat.

The document is mounted on a guard, tipped in at the head to the mat.

This is a half-share certificate valued at two thousand five hundred francs, relating to the vessel Hâvre, issued in the name of Mr Levis de Pontaudemer and bearing the number 25.

Dated at Le Havre, 10 September 1834.

A very rare and attractive document.

First edition (the work was reissued in 1838–1839); an atlas was planned but appears never to have been published (its prospectus is bound at the beginning of volume IV), cf. Mennessier de La Lance I, 657.

Half blond calf bindings, spines with four raised bands framed with gilt garlands and decorated with gilt fillets and vine motifs, as well as blind-stamped scrolls, marbled paper boards showing some rubbing with small losses, marbled endpapers and pastedowns, sprinkled edges, contemporary bindings.

Two headcaps shaved, some foxing, small loss along one joint of the volume entitled Elève d’Alfort. Hurtrel d’Arboval (1777–1839) was particularly interested in equine...

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, printed in a small number of copies, of this offprint from the Bulletin de la Société géographique de Paris.

Copies recorded in the CCFr only at the BnF, BULAC, and Tarbes libraries.

Half hazel shagreen binding with corners, smooth spine slightly faded with minor rubbing, boards, endpapers and pastedowns in olive-green paper, top edge gilt, original wrappers and spine preserved; modern binding.

The Fourierist Armand-Jules Duval (1813–1870), an influential member of the Société de géographie, was a staunch advocate of the colonisation of Algeria.

He had himself lived in the colony from 1847 to 1862, overseeing the fortunes of an agricultural...

First edition, printed in a small run, of this offprint from the Mémoires présentés par divers savants à l’Académie des sciences, vol. XXII, no. 6.

This publication constitutes botanist Maxime Cornu’s (1843–1901) first work on phylloxera and stands among the earliest scientific studies in French devoted to the subject.

Our copy is preserved in its original plain blue waiting wrapper, showing two losses along the spine and some foxing to the panels.

Very scarce work illustrated with three plates.

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, 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).

A rare run of approximately 250 issues of the Levant Times and Shipping Gazette, the bilingual maritime newspaper published in Constantinople, covering almost a complete year from 1 July 1869 to 3 June 1870. At the centre of this period stands the opening of the Suez Canal on 17 November 1869, an event that transformed the geography of trade between the Mediterranean, the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean. The present collection records the anticipation, announcement and immediate aftermath of that moment from one of the principal ports of the Ottoman Empire.

Two large folio volumes (31 × 48 cm), bound Bradel-style in half black cloth over beige boards, smooth...

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).

First edition of the Voyage pittoresque à l'Île-de-France, au Cap de Bonne-Espérance et à l'Île de Ténériffe, published in Paris by Auguste Nepveu in 1812 and printed by Le Normant. Two octavo text volumes with an accompanying atlas. The second text volume contains three folding tables; the atlas in the present copy comprises 45 engraved plates, both single-page and folding, including three maps and 42 plans and picturesque views, most retaining their tissue guards. 

Some foxing in the text volumes and atlas.

The text volumes in slightly later...

Typescript with one autograph page by Saint-Exupéry in pencil, Method for Guiding Aeroplanes [the title is in English], followed by Letters-Patent of Invention. A New Method for the Landing of Aeroplanes without Visibility with instruments and apparatus for its realization [also in English], 8 October 1937

Rust stains from staple holes and light dampstaining.

Original typescript of Saint-Exupéry patent titled "Method for Guiding Aeroplanes", addressing in particular the problem of piloting and guiding aircraft without visibility: a problem which, as he explains, is virtually solved... His demonstrations are illustrated with geometric diagrams (6 plates). The...

First edition abundantly illustrated with photographs.
Publisher's full black cloth binding, smooth spine, black paper endpapers and pastedowns, black edges, complete with dust jacket and soft cardboard slipcase.
Signed and inscribed by Peter Marino to a couple of friends accompanied by two drawn hearts on an endpaper: "For Christine & Olivier. Love. Peter"

New edition, illustrated with 111 drawings by Neuville and Riou. 7 plates, some in color.
Publisher's gilt Globe binding, upper cover signed Blancheland, Engel relieur, spine with lighthouse motif, rear cover of Engel H type, publisher's Y catalogue at rear of volume.
Spine with minor discoloration, a few small stains to upper corner of front cover, endpapers discolored, corners slightly twisted, the engraving between pages 122-123 with small corner lacks, occasional light foxing mainly to edges.
Undoubtedly the most famous of Jules Verne's novels, featuring the mythical figure of Captain Nemo and his legendary submarine, the Nautilus.

First edition. Illustrated with a lithograph showing sections and views of the Tain-Tournon bridge project, then under construction.
3/4 marbled roan binding, spine framed and decorated in gilt, red morocco title-piece, marbled paper boards, marbled paper endpapers and flyleaves. Spine, spine-ends and corners rubbed, contemporary binding signed by Stroobants.

Extremely rare pamphlet by Seguin on a prototype suspension bridge built over the Galore river at Saint-Vallier in Isère. It served as an experimental construction for the Tain-Tournon bridge, the world's first large suspension bridge invented by Seguin using metal wires.

First edition, printed in a small run of numbered copies.

With two photographic portraits: one of Charles Pathé and the other of his brother Émile, and a view of the Kodak-Pathé and Pathé-Cinéma factories.
3/4 beige sheepskin binding, spine with four raised bands decorated with black typographical motifs, date at foot of spine, marbled paper boards, endpapers and flyleaves.
Discrete restorations to spine, some rubbing to upper corners of boards.

Signed by Charles Pathé on his photographic portrait.

Rare first edition of this manual on film development.
Illustrated with 54 figures in the text and 6 folding plates at rear, containing 107 interest­ing samples of films negatives and celluloid.

With a frontispiece photographic portrait of Charles Pathé.

Skilfully restored brown half sheepskin pub­lisher's binding, smooth spine decorated with golden arabesques, small gaps filled at head of spine, marbled endpapers and past­edowns.

"In the early years of the twentieth century, the largest film production company was the Société Pathé Frères (Pathé Brothers Com­pany). Founded in 1897, the company was at its height in 1920s when it unveiled the first home...

First and only edition. This copy is one of the rare examples complete with the 64 full-page plates. The work is also illustrated with a title vignette depicting the artist Ambroise-Louis Garneray in a small boat, sketching the entrance to the port of Brest.

Contemporary binding of half tan sheep with corners, smooth spine richly decorated in gilt and blind with multiple large typographic tools, discreet restorations to the joints, marbled-paper boards, marbled endpapers and pastedowns.

A magnificent work on the ports of France, and one of the finest collections ever...

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.

De luxe edition illustrated with a hundred drawings by Pierre Bonnard scattered in the margins of the leaves, one of 200 numbered copies on Arches vellum, one print after 25 Japan.
A beautiful copy.
Binding in half brown calf, spine decorated with double black fillets, gilt date at the foot, marbled paper boards, marbled endpapers, covers and spine preserved, top edge gilt on the rough.
Handwritten presentation signed by Pierre Bonnard to Xavier Roux: “... à son compatriote dauphinois et ami...” “...to his Dauphiné compatriot and friend...” enriched with a handwritten presentation signed by Octave Mirbeau to the same.