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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. HOPKINS, William. 

    Address delivered at the Hull Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, September...

    London, Taylor & Francis, 1853. 

    First edition, an 1853 Address to the British Association for the Advancement of Science by its President William Hopkins (1793–1866), inscribed by the author and given to his erstwhile student Francis Galton (1822–1911).  A mathematician and geologist, Hopkins became President of the British...

    £350

  2. 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

  3. 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

  4. FLEMING, Alexander, Sir.

    On the antibacterial Action of Cultures of a Penicillium, with special Reference to their Use in...

    [London, H.K. Lewis & Co., 1944.]

    Second edition of Fleming’s study announcing the discovery of penicillin, one of 250 copies which Fleming commissioned to be printed in 1944. The original offprint, issued in 1929 in 150 copies and liberally distributed by Fleming to the scientific community at large for the prompt furthering...

    £4000

  5. [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

  6. [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

  7. 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

  8. ESTIENNE, Charles.

    De re vestiaria libellus, ex Bayfio excerptus: addita vulgaris linguae interpretatione, in adulesce[n]tuloru[m]...

    Paris, Robert Estienne, 1536.

    A wonderful sammelband of four children’s books compiled and published by the Estiennes, covering Roman dress and vases as well as plants and trees, bound with Antonio Telesio’s celebrated treatise on colours.

    £2250

  9. 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

  10. SWOBODA, Hermann.

    Die Perioden des menschlichen Organismus: in ihrer psychologischen und biologischen Bedeutung.

    Leipzig, Deuticke, 1904.

    First editions, all rare, the first two being foundational works in the formation of the theory of biorhythm. Swoboda’s early studies on the recurrence or periodicity in phenomena acquired a psychological character and application in his work since his encounter and brief experience of analysis with...

    £200

  11. VILLA, Antonio, and Giovanni Battista VILLA. 

    Dispositio systematica conchyliarum terrestrium et fluviatilium quae adservantur...

    Milan, ex typis Borroni et Scotti, 1841. 

    First edition of this catalogue of molluscs and shellfish in the collection of Antonio and Giovanni Battista Villa. 

    £275

  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. [SCHLOSSER, Johann Albert].  BODDAERT, Pieter.

    Epistola ad … Hier. Dav. Gaubium … De chaetodonte diacantho, descripto atque...

    Amsterdam, apud M. Magerum, 1772.

    First and only edition of Boddaert’s description of the Royal Angelfish found in the Schlosser natural history cabinet.  This is the first monograph on the Royal Angelfish (and its first illustration), a now common species of coral fish in the Pacific and Indian Ocean. 

    £500

  14. [SCHLOSSER, Johann Albert.] BODDAERT, Pieter. 

    Epistola ad virum celeberrimum Johannem Burmannum … De Chaetodonte Argo descripto...

    Amsterdam, apud Cornelium van Tongerlo, 1770.

    First and only edition of Boddaert’s description of this Indo-West Pacific fish species found in the Schlosser natural history cabinet. 

    £500

  15. 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

  16. [LONDON ZOO.] HARVEY, William (illustrator).

    The Gardens and Menagerie of the Zoological Society delineated … Vol. I:...

    Chiswick, Charles Wittingham, for London, Charles Tilt, 1831.

    First edition, second issue, of the first record of the menagerie of the Zoological Society. Founded in 1826 with botanical gardens and a zoological collection at Regent’s Park, the Zoological Society of London was soon established as the foremost natural history collection in Europe, receiving...

    £175

  17. LINNAEUS, Carl (or von LINNÉ), and James JENKINSON (translator). 

    A generic and specific Description of...

    Ashburner, and Lancaster, A. Ashburner, 1775. 

    First edition of this provincially printed partial translation of Linnaeus’s Genera plantarum.  It precedes both William Withering’s The Botanical Arrangement of all the Vegetables naturally growing in Great Britain (1776), the first such work to be based on Linnaean taxonomy,...

    £225

  18. STRICKLAND, Hugh Edwin, and A. 

    G. MELVILLE. The Dodo and its Kindred; or, the History, Affinities and Osteology of the Dodo,...

    London, Reeve, Benham, and Reeve, 1848.

    An extra-illustrated family copy of the first scientific monograph on the dodo, and a related flightless bird, the Rodrigues solitaire, with the bookplates of the author and his father and a frontispiece by the author’s wife.

    £7500

  19. MAPLET, John, and W.H. DAVIES (editor).

    A greene Forest, or a naturall Historie, wherein may bee seene first the...

    London, Hesperides Press, 1930.

    Limited edition, numbered 31 of fifty copies on Millbourne pure rag hand-made paper, signed by Davies.

    £75

  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