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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. [ANDREAE, Johann Valentin.] 

    Reipublicae Christianopolitanae descriptio ... 

    Strasburg, heirs of Lazarus Zetzner, 1619. 

    A rare and influential Renaissance political utopia, in a fine sammelband of four first editions by the Lutheran humanist Johann Valentin Andreae (1586–1654). 

    £12500

  2. AUBREY, John. 

    Miscellanies, upon the following Subjects.  I. Day-Fatality. II. Local-Fatality. III. Ostenta. IV. Omens....

    London: Printed for A. Bettewsorth, and J. Battley … J. Pemberton … and E. Curll …  1721. 

    Second edition, enlarged, of Aubrey’s entertaining collection of folk history, superstitions, and gossip, the only book he completed, first published in 1696.  The topics he tackles in this work of ‘hermetick philosophy’ include ‘omens and prophecies, dreams and apparitions, day fatality...

    £750

  3. 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

  4. BLANCHON, Jacques.

    Iacobi Blanchoni ucessiensis adversus Ludovicum beneventanum abbatem selestensem defensionum liber.

    Lyon, Jean de Tournes, 1550.

    First edition of a very rare work of sixteenth-century Lyonnese Neoplatonism, an elegantly-printed de Tournes edition. Ostensibly a simple series of remarks against the theses of the (presumably sternly Scholastic) abbot of Selestan, this is a tract of Renaissance moral philosophy. The theme of...

    £950

  5. CLAVELL, John.

    A Recantation of an Ill Led Life: or, a Discoverie of the High-way Law. With ... many cautelous Admonitions and...

    London, Printed by A.M. for Richard Meighen ... 1634.

    Third and final edition, incorporating Clavell’s final revisions (it is 138 lines longer than the first edition of 1628), and a new preface by ‘his friend’ Richard Meighen.

    £3250

  6. [KRÜDENER, Barbara Juliane de Vietinghoff, Baronne de.]

    Valérie, ou Lettres de Gustave de Linar à Ernest de G… Tome...

    Paris, Henrichs, 1804.

    Rare first edition of Valérie, the most famous novel by the Russian mystic and novelist Madame de Krüdener (1766–1824), who for a time exerted an influence over Tsar Alexander I. The novel created a literary sensation, and became one of the classic novels of the pre-Romantic movement...

    £800

  7. KUNCKEL VON LÖWENSTERN, Johann.

    Collegium physico-chemicum experimentale, Oder Laboratorium Chymicum, In welchem Deutlich und...

    Hamburg and Leipzig, Samuel Heyl, 1716.

    the rare first edition of a famous chemical handbook, the most important work of the leading german chemist of the second half of the seventeenth century. Partington, devoting pp. 361-77 of vol. II to Kunckel, gives ‘a nearly complete bibliographical account with comment’ (Marie Boas Hall in DSB),...

    £4000

  8. LOCATELLI, Lodovico.

    Theatro d’Arcani… nel quale si tratta dell’arte chimica, et suoi arcani, con gli afforismi d’Ippocrate...

    Milan, Gio. Pietro Ramellati, 1644.

    First edition of Locatelli’s alchemical tract, which includes the first Italian translation of Paracelsus.

    £2500

  9. PANTHEO, Giovanni Agostino.

    Voarchadumia contra alchimiam: ars distincta ab archimia, et sophia: cum additionibus, proportionibus,...

    Venice, [Giovanni Tacuino], 1530.

    First edition, first issue, of this rare alchemical work, highly unusual for its early use of four-colour printing.

    £18000

  10. PASTEUR, Louis. 

    Études sur la bière, ses maladies, causes qui les provoquent, procédé pour la rendre inaltérable, avec une...

    Paris, Gauthier-Villars, 1876.

    First edition.  In his Études sur la bière, Pasteur ‘described a new and perfected method of preparing pure yeast [and] emphasized that yeast occasionally required small quantities of oxygen in order to retain its “youth” and its capacity to germinate in oxygen-free environments. ...

    £750

  11. REFELL, A. 

    Trugbilder: Eine Anleitung Erscheinungen, auf optischer Täuschung beruhend, nach Belieben hervorzuheben und wissenschaftliche...

    Stuttgart, Rieger, 1865. 

    First German edition, rare, of this fascinating study of mirages and optical illusions, in particular ghostly apparitions, in which the author attempts to demonstrate using the principles of optics how they might appear, with the aim of proving the absurdity of the superstitions to which they...

    £1250

  12. 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). There are five treatises: Richardus Anglicus’ Correctorium and Reformierte Alchimei; Lull’s Apertorium et accuratio vegetabilium, and Vom philosophischen Stein, and Geber’s Secretum. The thirteenth-century Richardus Anglicus or Richard of...

    £6000

  13. [ROSICRUCIANISM.]

    Fortalitium scientiae, das ist: die unfehlbare, volkommeliche, unerschätzliche Kunst aller Künsten und...

    [Nuremberg], 1617.

    First edition of this tract on Rosicrucianism which purports to have been written by Hugo de Alverda, an imaginary and very old Rosicrucian character.

    £2850

  14. [WALL, Thomas].

    A Second Christian Warning-Piece; wherein is shewed the first and chief Cause of Englands present Misery … Humbly...

    London, 1681-2.

    First edition, very rare, of a vehement anti-Catholic tract published in the context of the Exclusion Crisis; bound with the principal astrological work of John Holwell (a slightly imperfect copy).

    £1750