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Science

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Science at Quaritch is broadly defined, ranging from medicine, anatomy, pharmacology (including herbals) and natural history to astronomy, physics, chemistry and mathematics.

An interest in the origins of modern chemistry has led to a specialisation in works on alchemy and distillation, and from there we have also branched out into occultism and hermeticism. We have developed an interest in gastronomy and books on nutrition and wine, an area which over the years has become one of our specialities.
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  1. NEWTON, Isaac.

    Opticks: or, a Treatise of the Reflexions, Refractions, Inflexions, and Colours of Light. Also two treatises of...

    London, for Samuel Smith and Benjamin Walford, printers to the Royal Society, 1704.

    First edition of Newton’s Opticks, ‘which did for light what his Principia had done for gravitation, namely, placed it on a scientific basis’, and ‘expounds Newton’s corpuscular or emission theory of light, and first contains his important optical discoveries in a collected...

    £70000

  2. ARCHIMEDES.

    Τα μεχρι νυν σωζομενα, απαντα … Opera, quae quidem extant, omnia, multis iam seculis desiderata...

    Basel, Johannes Herwagen, [(colophon): March] 1544.

    Editio princeps of the works of Archimedes, ‘the greatest mathematician and engineer of antiquity’ (PMM). Prior to this edition only a small tract in Latin translation, published in 1503, and a partial translation by Tartaglia, published in 1543, had appeared.

    £45000

  3. ALLIONI, Carlo.

    Flora Pedemontana sive enumeratio methodica stirpium indigenarum Pedemontii [– Florae Pedemontanae icones accedit...

    Turin, Giovanni Michele Briolo, 1785.

    First edition of the earliest Italian regional flora by the ‘Linnaeus of Piedmont’, here in the extremely rare hand-coloured state and extensively annotated by Giovanni Battista Balbis, the author’s pupil and successor at the Botanical Garden of the University of Turin.

    £30000

  4. NIGHTINGALE, Florence.

    Notes on Matters affecting the Health, Efficiency, and Hospital Administration of the British Army.

    London, Harrison and Sons, 1858.

    First edition, printed for private circulation only, of Florence Nightingale’s pioneering report on the sanitary condition of the British Army, resulting in a radical reform of the administration, sanitation, and nursing practices at large, this copy with remarkable nursing association.

    £18000

  5. [LOO, Pieter van, attributed.]

    156 watercolours of flowers, plants, and fruits.

    [Holland, c. 1760–80].

    A truly stunning collection of over 150 original eighteenth-century botanical watercolours, attributed to the noted Dutch botanical artist Pieter van Loo (1731–1784).

    £100000

  6. MARKHAM, Gervase.

    Cavalarice, or the English Horseman: Contayning all the Art of Horse-manship, asmuch as is necessary for any...

    London, Edward Allde for Edward White, [1616 –] 1617. 

    A beautiful copy of the second edition, ‘corrected and augmented’, of Markham’s Cavalarice, exceptionally well-preserved in a contemporary binding, from the library of the antiquary Sir John Marsham.

    £9750

  7. POCOCKE, Richard. 

    A Description of the East, and some other Countries.  London: W. Bowyer for the Author, [‘and sold by J. and...

    [Nourse, and J. Rivington’ (I)], 1743–1745. 

    First edition, demy folio issue. A successful churchman Pococke (1704-1765) is now best remembered as a traveller and mountaineer. His earliest journeys were undertaken between 1733 and 1736 through continental Europe. His ‘next and most ambitious journey, from 1737 to 1740, was to the Near...

    £8000

  8. TARTAGLIA, Niccolò Fontana.

    Quesiti, et inventioni diverse.

    [(Colophon:) Venice, Venturino Ruffinelli ‘ad instantia et requisitione, & a proprie spese de Nicolo Tartalea Brisciano Autire’, July 1546.]

    First edition, annotated throughout by a contemporary reader, of Tartaglia’s highly influential work on ballistics and algebra, containing his polemical rule for solving cubic equations.

    £6750

  9. BERRYAT, Jean, et al., editors.

    Receuil de Mémoires, ou Collection de Pièces Académiques, concernant la Médicine, l’Anatomie...

    Dijon, Auxerre, Paris and Liège, F. Desventes, F. Fournier, et al., 1754-86.

    The scarce first collected edition of these scientific papers from all over Europe (lacking only the last five volumes of the Partie Française), including among its contributors such famous names as Huygens, Leeuwenhoek, Hevelius, De La Hire, Mariotte, Réaumur, La Condamine, Haller, Maupertuis, Boyle,...

    £6000

  10. EUCLID; Jean MAGNIEN and Stephanus GRACILIS, editors.

    Euclidis elementorum libri XV Graece et Latine, quibus, cum...

    Paris, Guillaume Cavellat, 1557.

    First edition of Euclid’s Elements as edited by Jean Magnien and Stephanus Gracilis, with woodcut diagrams throughout, this copy extensively annotated by a contemporary student.

    £5500

  11. RICHARDUS ANGLICUS.

    Correctorium alchymiae ... Das is reformierte Alchimy, oder Alchimeibesserung, und Straffung der Alchimistischen...

    Strasbourg, Bernard Jobin, 1581.

    First edition of ‘a very rare collection’ (Duveen) of five alchemical treatises, comprising Richardus Anglicus’ Correctorium and Reformierte Alchimei, Lull’s Apertorium et accuratio vegetabilium and Vom philosophischen Stein, and Geber’s Secretum.

    £4500

  12. COLONNA, Fabio.

    Φυτοβασανος, sive Plantarum aliquot historia …

    Naples, Orazio Salviani, 1592.

    First edition, a landmark in botanical illustration, ‘the first strictly botanical book with intaglio prints’ (Blunt).

    £4000

  13. VISSCHER, Nicolaes [I]. 

    Avium vivae et artificiosissimae delineationes. 

    Amsterdam, Nicolaus [I] Visscher, 1659. 

    First and only edition of this rare set of ornithological prints by the famed cartographer Nicolaes Visscher I. 

    £3750

  14. WALCOTT, John. 

    The Figures, Description, and History of exotic Animals, comprised under the Classes Amphibia and Pisces of Linnaeus. 

    London, W. Justins for the Author, and sold by White & son, Robson & Clarke, and J. Mathews, 1788.

    First and only edition, very rare, published in parts.  The engraved figures and their descriptions comprise a variety of turtles, snakes, frogs, and fish, including several notable species from America.  Though Walcott writes in his preface of the prospect of ‘a Second Part, which will contain...

    £3500

  15. L’HÔPITAL, Guillaume François Antoine, marquis de. 

    Analyse des infiniment petits, pour l’intelligence des lignes...

    Paris, François Montalant, 1715. 

    Second edition (first 1696) of l’Hôpital’s famous Analyse, the first textbook on differential calculus, inspired by the work of Leibniz and the Bernoulli brothers, this copy profusely annotated by an anonymous but proficient eighteenth-century mathematician. 

    £3500

  16. HUMBLOT, F.

    Journal de voyage ...

    France, June–September 1866.

    A handsome manuscript on mining engineering, apparently unpublished, recording visits undertaken by the engineer F. Humblot to coal mines and iron works in eastern and southern France in 1866, containing well over one hundred beautifully executed technical drawings.

    £3500

  17. BREREWOOD, Edward. 

    Enquiries touching the Diversity of Languages, and Religions through the cheife Parts of the World … 

    London, Printed [by Eliot’s Court Press] for John Bill, 1614. 

    First edition.  Brerewood, professor of astronomy at Gresham College, was a scholar in many fields who published nothing in his own lifetime (he died in 1613).  Enquiries, seen through the press by a nephew, explores the spread of ancient, eastern, and modern languages, discusses the...

    £3000

  18. DEPARCIEUX, Antoine.

    Essai sur les probabilités de la durée de la vie humaine; d’où l’on déduit la manière de déterminer...

    Paris, chez les frères Guerin, 1746.

    A large, crisp, and illustrious copy of the first edition of a classic of statistical science: it is the first to define expectation of life – which Deparcieux calls ‘la vie moyenne’ – and the first to contain life tables for men and women.

    £3000

  19. CIUCCI, Antonio Filippo.

    Promptuarium Chirurgicum in quo agitur de Morbis, qui indigent manuali Operatione Artis Chirurgiae.

    Macerata, Joseph Piccinus, 1679–1680.

    First edition, very rare, of this handbook of practical surgery, by the author of the first treatise of forensic medicine written in Italian.

    £2850

  20. SECHENOV, Ivan Mikhaylovich.

    Fisiologia nervnoy sistemy [in Cyrillic].

    St. Petersburg, 1866.

    first edition, rare, of Sechenov’s influential lectures at the St. Petersburg Medico-Surgical Academy. Sechenov states in his preface that as soon as he began to lecture (St. Petersburg in 1860 was his first professorship) he discovered the deficiencies of the existing textbooks, which tended to be...

    £2750