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Science

Contact Andrea Mazzocchi

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. AELIANUS, Claudius, Conrad GESSNER (translator), and Pierre GILLES (editor).

    Περι ζωων ιδιοτητος...

    Cologny, Philippe Albert, 1616.

    Uncommon Geneva edition of Aelianus’s De animalium natura, the Greek printed in parallel with Gessner’s Latin translation. A third-century work on natural history, Aelianus’s text offers accounts and anecdotes of animals, ‘an appealing collection of facts and fables about the animal...

    £300

  2. 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

  3. ARISTOTLE; THEOPHRASTUS; Theodorus GAZA and Pietro ALCIONIO, translators.

    Historiae. Cum de natura Animalium, tum de Plantis &...

    Lyons, [Nicolas Bacquenois for] Guillaume Gazeau, 1552.

    A union of Aristotle on animals and Theophrastus on plants, the fundamental texts from Ancient Greece on zoology and botany, in the translations of Gaza and Alcionio.

    £800

  4. ASTRUC, Jean. 

    Tractatus de motus fermentativi causa novam et mechanicam hypothesim conteniens, authore Joanne Astruc artium liberalium...

    Montpellier, Honoratus Pech, 1702. 

    A dissertation on fermentation published by the physician Jean Astruc (1684–1766), aged eighteen; he later taught anatomy at Toulouse and the Collège Royal in Paris, and served as consultant to Louis XV and as chief physician of August II of Poland. 

    £500

  5. [BALLANTINE, E.]

    Natural History of Quadrupeds, for Children, combined with an Attempt to engraft on the youthful Mind the Principles...

    London, Harvey & Darton, 1824.

    A scarce work, second edition, the first edition to be attributed to ‘a lady’. An attractive natural history for children, the work was first published in 1813 ‘by the Author of The Decoy’, an educational work on English grammar; this second edition is the first to credit ‘a lady’...

    £400

  6. [BERKENHOUT, John].

    Clavis anglica Linguæ botanicæ; or, a botanical Lexicon; in which the Terms of Botany, particularly those...

    London: Printed for the Author. Sold by T. Becket, and A. de Hondt … and Mess. Hawes, Clarke, and Collins … 1764.

    First edition, dedicated to John Hope of the University of Edinburgh, and written with the assistance of Arthur Lee of Virginia, winner of the Hope Medal in 1763.

    £325

  7. 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

  8. BIGLAND, John.

    Letters on natural History, exhibiting a View of the Power, Wisdom, and Goodness of the Deity, so eminently displayed...

    London, James Cundee for Longman, Hurst Rees, & Orme, and James Cundee, 1806.

    Scarce first edition of Bigland’s Letters on natural History. Published ‘for the use of schools and young persons in general’, Bigland’s natural history intended to show ‘the power, wisdom, and goodness of the Deity’. Its attempts at taxonomy, however, are rudimentary, as Bigland...

    £200

  9. BINGLEY, William.

    Animal Biography, or authentic Anecdotes of the Lives, Manners, and Economy of the animal Creation, arranged...

    London, R. Taylor & Co. for Richard Phillips, 1805.

    Third edition of Bingley’s most popular zoological work. First published in 1802, the Animal Biography provides accounts of the form and behaviour of a wide variety of mammals, birds, fish, and insects.

    £175

  10. BRAUN, Adolphe.

    Untitled flower study (orchids).

    c. 1870?

    A stunning monumental flower study by Adolphe Braun (1811–1877). Born in Besançon, Braun’s first career was a designer of textiles, and his first exercises in flower photography in the late 1840s and early 1850s were intended as compositional aids. His album of Fleurs photographiées...

    £1200

  11. BRAUN, Adolphe.

    Untitled flower study (camellia).

    c. 1870?

    An exquisite monumental flower study by Adolphe Braun (1811–1877). Born in Besançon, Braun’s first career was a designer of textiles, and his first exercises in flower photography in the late 1840s and early 1850s were intended as compositional aids. His album of Fleurs photographiées...

    £1200

  12. 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

  13. [BRITISH MOSSES.]

    Two volumes of window-mounted moss samples, with manuscript captions.

    [England, 1860s.]

    A charming nineteenth-century herbarium comprising 560 moss specimens.

    £850

  14. 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

  15. CUVIER, Georges, and Edward BLYTH (editor).

    The animal Kingdom, arranged after its Organization, forming a natural...

    London, William S. Orr & Co., 1851.

    Third Blyth edition of Cuvier’s Règne animal. A seminal work of natural history and comparative anatomy, the Règne animal was first published in December 1816 and translated into English in parts issued from 1824 to 1835. The work was edited and enlarged in 1840 by the zoologist...

    £175

  16. [DEZALLIER D’ARGENVILLE, Antoine Joseph.]

    Conchyliologie nouvelle et portative, ou collection de coquilles propres à orner les...

    Paris, ‘chez Regnard, Imprimeur de l’Académie Françoise’, 1767.

    First edition, uncommon, of this pocket guide to the then relatively new craze for collecting shells.

    £400

  17. DURHAM, Arthur E. 

    Transverse Section of Wood (Salisburia). 

    Circa 1870s. 

    A rare and attractive microphotograph of a transverse section of Ginkgo biloba wood, traditionally used in Chinese medicine and homeopathy. 

    £1100

  18. DUTROCHET, Henri. 

    Recherches sur l’endosmose et sur la cause physique de ce phénomène (Extrait des Annales de Chimie et de...

    [Paris, imprimerie de Veuve Thuau, 1832.] 

    An interesting article on endosmosis by the important French physiologist Henri Dutrochet (1776–1847), renowned for his work on osmosis and cell theory.  ‘Although the conditions of Dutrochet’s experiments were rather simple and did not allow of great accuracy, he made the first important...

    £175

  19. DVIGUBSKII, Ivan Alekseevich.

    Opyt estestvennoi istorii vsekh zhivotnykh Rossiiskoi Imperii … S izobrazheniiami zhivotnykh. [Fly-title:]...

    Moscow, University Press, 1831.

    First edition, rare, one of a series of six works on the flora and fauna of the Russian Empire, published 1829–1833 under the same general title. The present volume covers molluscs, including cephalopods and gastropods.

    £2000

  20. EDWARDS, James.

    The hemiptera-homoptera (cicadina and psyllina) of the British Isles: A descriptive Account of the Families, Genera,...

    London, Ballantyne, Hanson, & Co. for L. Reeve & Co., 1896.

    First edition of Edwards’s survey of British hemiptera-heteroptera.

    £75