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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. DARWIN, Charles.

    The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication. By Charles Darwin, M.A., F.R.S., &c. In Two Volumes ....

    London, John Murray, 1868.

    First edition, first issue, of both volumes.

    £17500

  2. MATTIOLI, Pier Andrea.

    Commentarii secundo aucti, in libros sex Pedacii Dioscoridis Anazarbe de medica materia ... His accessit...

    Venice, Officina Valgrisiana, 1560.

    Fourth Latin edition (first 1554) of Mattioli’s enormously popular herbal; from the library of the learned German orientalist Jakob Christmann and with his annotations in Latin, Greek, Arabic, Aramaic, and German.

    £12000

  3. POCOCKE, Richard.

    A Description of the East, and some other Countries.

    London: W. Bowyer for the Author, [‘and sold by J. and P. Knapton, W. Innys, W. Meadows, G. Hawkins, S. Birt, T. Longman, C. Hitch, R. Dodsley,...

    First edition, demy folio issue. The traveller and cleric Pococke (1704-1765), was educated at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, and graduated BA in 1725, BCL in 1731, and DCL in 1733. His family’s ecclesiastical connexions and his facility at navigating the complexities of clerical patronage enabled...

    £8000

  4. 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

  5. RUINI, Carlo.

    Anatomia del cavallo, infermità, et suoi rimedii: opera nuova, degna di qualsivoglia prencipe, & cavaliere, & molto...

    Venice, Fioravante Prati, 1618.

    Fourth edition of the first detailed study in veterinary anatomy and an extremely important work in the history of anatomy as a discipline. Influenced by Andreas Vesalius’s De fabrica corporis humani (Basel, 1543), the Anatomia del cavallo is copiously illustrated with large woodcuts,...

    £6000

  6. CLUSIUS, Charles (de l’Écluse).

    Rariorum plantarum historia.

    Antwerp, Jan Moretus ‘ex officina Plantiniana’, 1601.

    First edition of Clusius’s magnum opus, containing approximately one hundred new species. A valuable collection of careful descriptions of rare plants, the Rariorum plantarum historia gathers accounts from Clusius’s earlier botanical tours of Spain (Rariorum aliquot stirpium...

    £4800

  7. 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

  8. DREVES, [Johann Friedrich Peter,] and [Friedrich Gottlob] HAYNE [and Johann Stephan CAPIEUX (engraver)].

    Choix...

    Leipzig, Voss et compagnie, 1802.

    First edition in French, the Plesch set, with 125 handsomely hand-coloured botanical plates, adapted from the German edition finished the previous year. Issued under the title Botanisches Bilderbuch für die Jugend und Freunde der Pflanzenkunde, the work had first appeared in twenty-eight...

    £3500

  9. LISTER, Martin.

    Exercitatio anatomica. In qua de cochleis, maxime terrestribus et limacibus, agitur. Omnium dissectiones tabulis...

    London, Samuel Smith and Benjamin Walford, 1694.

    Scarce first edition of the first separate work devoted to snails. ‘It is in the publications of the English physician Martin Lister (1639–1712) that we first observe a scientific approach to the study of molluscs’ (Peter Dance).

    £3250

  10. RAIMONDI, Eugenio.

    Delle caccie … libri Quattro, aggiuntovi’n questa nuova ’mpressione il quinto libro della villa.

    [Naples, Lazzaro Scoriggio, 1626].

    Second edition, expanded and extended, with a new series of striking venatic plates. The series of plates (attributable to Nicolas Perrey, who signs the title), showing composite scenes of hunters pursuing animals from birds and fish to lions and elephants, is wholly new, replacing the woodcut...

    £2500

  11. MATTIOLI, Pietro Andrea, and Francesco CALZOLARI.

    Compendium de plantis omnibus, una cum earum iconibus, de quibus scripsit...

    Venice, Vincenzo Valgrisi, 1571.

    First edition of this scarce digest of Matthioli’s commentaries on Dioscorides’s Materia medica. A heavily illustrated compendium drawn from the author’s earlier Commentarii (Venice, 1554), the Compendium offers a practical enchiridion to medicinal botany, with almost...

    £2250

  12. 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

  13. SAUNIER, Jean de, and Gaspard de SAUNIER.

    La parfaite connoissance des chevaux, leur anatomie, leurs bonnes & mauvaises...

    The Hague, for the Author and sold by Adrien Moetjens, 1734.

    First edition of Gaspard de Saunier’s most important work, the only one published during his lifetime. Gaspard de Saunier (1663 - 1748) established his reputation with the foundation of his equestrian academy at Leiden in 1707 and as riding master to the university there, having previously served...

    £1950

  14. BARTHOLIN, Thomas, and Caspar BARTHOLIN the younger (editor).

    De unicornu observationes novae. Secunda editione auctiores...

    Amsterdam, Henricus Wetstein, 1678.

    First illustrated edition (second overall) of Bartholin’s scarce treatise. The second of his family in a distinguished line of physicians at the University of Copenhagen, Thomas Bartholin (1616 - 1680) is remembered more for his medical discoveries than for the present work discussing single-horned...

    £1500

  15. [NOBBES, Robert.]

    The compleat Troller, or, the Art of Trolling, with a Description of all the Utensils, Instruments, Tackling,...

    London, T. James for Thomas Helder, 1682.

    First edition of ‘the earliest major work devoted to pike fishing’ (ODNB). Nobbes’s anonymous Compleat Troller is the first English book substantially on ‘trolling’, or angling for deep-freshwater fish, especially pike, with live bait or artificial lures. Though ‘trolling’...

    £1450

  16. HARRIS, Moses.

    An Exposition of English Insects, including the several Classes of Neuroptera, Hymenoptera, & Diptera, or Bees,...

    London, White and Robson, 1782.

    Second edition of Harris’s ‘principal scientific work’ (ODNB), incorporating his important treatise establishing the classification of insects by wing venation. ‘I have kept so far as this method was agreeable to, and did not interfere with the plan, which I have adopted, of a strict adherence...

    £950

  17. MEGUSCHER, Francesco.

    Memoria … in risposta al quesito additare la migliore e più facile maniera per rimittere i boschi nelle...

    Milan, presso l’I.R. Istituto, 1847.

    First edition of this comprehensive report on the best means to reverse the deforestation of the mountains of Lombardy, in a way that could be both environmentally sustainable and economically profitable.

    £950

  18. MORTON, John.

    The natural History of Northampton-Shire, with some Account of the Antiquities, to which is annex’d a Transcript...

    London, R. Knaplock and R. Wilkin, 1712.

    First edition of Morton’s systematic natural history of Northamptonshire. Compiled over the course of a decade, Morton’s Natural History provides a careful account of the natural history, minerals, fossils, and geography of the county, accompanied by fourteen large copper-engravings....

    £775

  19. YARRELL, William.

    A History of British Fishes … illustrated by nearly 400 Woodcuts.

    London, Samuel Bentley for John van Voorst, 1836.

    First collected editions, with an autograph letter on the Hebridal smelt from the species’ discoverer. Published serially from 1835 to 1836, Yarrell’s History of British Fishes was reprinted within a year, and followed soon after by Thomas Bell’s British Reptiles in 1839 and...

    £750

  20. BOTTO, Giuseppe Domenico.

    Observations microscopiques sur les mouvements des globules végétaux suspendus dans un menstrue.

    [Turin], Imprimerie Royale, [1840].

    An extremely rare offprint from the Memorie della Reale Accademia delle Scienze di Torino on Brownian Movement and a contribution to the ‘heated controversy with the best known botanists of the world [started by the] discovery that made [Amici] famous ... that of the fertilization of phanerogams, particularly...

    £675