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.-
SQUIRES, Richard F.
Typescript letter to John Derek Smith, signed Rick,
dated Gladsaxe [Denmark], December 7, 1965.
Squires’ main research was into multiple forms of monoamine oxidases, and their inhibitors, which are nowadays used as antidepressants. Squires reports of problems not entirely unrelated with psycho-active substances:
£180
-
STABLES, Gordon.
Hints about home and farm favourites for pleasure, prizes, and profit.
London and New York, Frederick Warne, 1889.
First edition of this charming work on the care of pets, with chapters on dogs, cats, poultry, rabbits, goats, ferrets, monkeys, guinea-pigs, ‘fancy rats’, and tortoises, as well as on ‘monkeys as pets’. The book is dedicated to the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
£250
-
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
-
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
-
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
-
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
-
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
-
‘WOODLAND SKETCHES.
With poetical Selections …
Frome. 1836’.
A delightful illustrated manuscript commonplace of uncommonly coherent design, assembling relevant quotations from Shakespeare, Milton, Byron, Cowper, Spenser, Coleridge, and others, alongside illustrations of ten British trees – Beech, Willow, White Poplar, Cedar, Elm, Pine, Oak, Birch, Yew,...
£1250
-
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