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.-
ADAMS, John Couch.
The scientific Papers … edited by William Grylls Adams … with a Memoir by J.W.L. Glaisher.
Cambridge, University Press, 1896 [– 1900].
First edition of the posthumously published collected papers of the Cambridge mathematician and astronomer, John Couch Adams (1819–1892). ‘In retrospect Adams’ many mathematical and astronomical achievements pale in comparison to his analysis of the orbit of Uranus and his prediction of...
£175
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ARCHIMEDES, BOETHIUS, and CAMPANO da Novara; Luca GAURICO, editor.
Tetragonismus id est circuli quadratura per Campanum...
Venice, [Giacomo Penzio for] Giovanni Battista Sessa, 28 August 1503.
The first appearance in print of any complete work by Archimedes, ‘generally regarded as one of the greatest mathematicians the world has ever known’ (PMM), including one of the earliest approximations of the value of pi.
£18000
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[ARISTOTLE.]
Disputations on Aristotle’s Organon.
Milan, 1600-1601.
An interesting manuscript comprising disputations on the first four works of Aristotle’s Organon, covering logical analysis and dialectic, compiled by a Milanese student at the turn of the seventeenth century.
£1250
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[ARISTOTLE – ELIAS.]
Biblioteca Armeno-Georgica. I. Commentarii in Aristotelis Categorias Eliae commentatori adscripti versio...
St Petersburg, Academiae Imperialis Scientarum, 1911.
Uncommon edition, published by the Imperial Academy of Sciences in St Petersburg, of the Armenian translation of the commentaries on Aristotle’s Categories by the sixth-century Christian philosopher and commentator Elias.
£250
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[ARNAULD, Antoine, and Pierre NICOLE.]
La logique ou l’art de penser, contenant, outre les regles communes, plusieurs...
Paris, Jean Guignart, Charles Savreaux, and Jean de Launay, 1662.
Scarce first edition of the work known as the Port Royal Logic. The authors were leaders of the Port Royal movement, and the book displays the distinctive tone of earnest piety for which the movement became famous.
£1750
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BALLARIN, Vincenzo.
Dimostrazione sintetica della quadratura del circolo di Don Vincenzo Ballarin, piovano di S. Pietro della...
Venice, Fracasso, 1828.
First and only edition of this confident but mistaken attempt at squaring the circle – drawing a square with the same area as a given circle using a compass and straightedge – later proven to be impossible.
£900
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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
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BOSE, Johann Andreas.
Io. Andr. Bosii introductio generalis in notitiam rerumpublicarum orbis universi. Accedunt eiusdem dissertationes...
Jenae, Johann Bielke, 1676.
First edition of a pioneering work of statistics and rare Americanum, by the philosopher and historian Johann Andreas Bose (1624-1674). Bose’s crucial intuition as a student of human societies lies in his advocacy of interdisciplinary investigations. His work ‘on all the states in the world’ marshalls...
£1500
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BROGGI, Ugo.
Die Axiome der Wahrscheinlichkeitsrechnung.
Göttingen, Dieterischen Universitäts-Buchdruckerei, 1907.
Rare first edition of this doctoral dissertation on the solution of Hilbert’s sixth problem, written under the supervision of David Hilbert. The problem posed tried to axiomatize those branches of science in which mathematics is prevalent. Broggi here aims to establish a system with which to prove...
£200
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DE MOIVRE, Abraham.
The Doctrine of Chances: or, a Method of Calculating the Probability of Events in Play.
London, W. Pearson for the author, 1718.
First edition, a very good copy with likely Virginian provenance, of this classic on the theory of probability and game theory, inscribed in multiple hands aboard the sixty-gun warship HMS Dunkirk, a human moment of indulgence stolen between the drudgery and danger of life aboard a Royal Naval ship.
£14000
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DEPARCIEUX, Antoine.
Essai sur les probabilités de la durée de la vie humaine; d’où l’on déduit la manière de déterminer...
Paris, chez les frères Guerin, 1746.
A large, crisp and illustrious copy of the first edition of a classic of statistical science: it is the first to define expectation of life – which Deparcieux calls ‘la vie moyenne’ – and the first to contain life tables for men and women.
£3000
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[DONN, Benjamin.]
‘The Mathematicians Pocket Companion. Or a collection of the most valuable Theorems … The whole collected...
[?Bideford], 1754.
A comprehensive manuscript compendium on mathematics and its practical applications – including architecture, astronomy, book-keeping, dioptrics, hydraulics, mechanics, music, and shipbuilding – most likely compiled by the mathematician and mathematics teacher Benjamin Donn, with examples from...
£1750
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EUCLID.
Στοιχειων βιβλ. ιε εκ των θεωνος συνουσιων. Εις του αυτου του πρωτον,...
Basel, Johannes Herwagen, September 1533.
Editio princeps of Euclid, the ‘oldest mathematical textbook still in common use today’ (PMM), a work which ‘has exercised an influence upon the human mind greater than that of any other work except the Bible’ (DSB).
£18000
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FENNING, Daniel.
The Ready Reckoner; or Trader’s most useful Assistant, in buying and selling all sorts of Commodities either...
London, printed for S. Crowder … and B.C. Collins … in Salisbury, 1785.
First edition thus, edited by the mathematician and almanack-maker Joseph Moon of Salisbury.
£250
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FINÉ, Oronce.
Opere di Orontio Fineo … divise in cinque parti, arimetica, geometria, cosmografia, e orivoli, tradotte da...
Venice, Francesco Franceschi, 1587.
First Italian edition of the works of Finé. Among the most influential scientific scholars of the sixteenth century, over three decades at the Collège Royale Oronce Finé (1494–1555) made considerable contributions to various branches of mathematics, from geometry and arithmetic to astronomy...
£2750
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GOSSELIN, Charles-Robert.
Plan d’éducation, en réponse aux académies de Marseille et de Châlons, dont l’une a proposé...
Amsterdam, 1785.
A most interesting sammelband of three rare French works on education from the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, promoting, inter alia, the appointment of more women teachers, better education for girls, and the use of visual aids in teaching mathematics.
£875
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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
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HURRY, Thomas.
Tables of interest, from one pound to five hundred millions, for one day; by which the interest for any sum of money...
[Yarmouth], Printed for the author, and sold by Messrs. Robinson, London; and Downes and March, Yarmouth, 1786.
One of two editions published in 1786, the other one undated, ESTC does not give any precedence. Tables for calculating interest at a quarter, half, three-quarters, three, four, and five percent; intended as a quick reference for bankers and merchants. Hurry precedes his tables with four pages of example...
£150
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JEVONS, William Stanley.
Studies in deductive logic. A manual for students.
London, Macmillan and Co., 1880.
First edition. Jevons had been preoccupied with speculations into the science of logic from the early 1860s. In his work Elementary lessons in logic (1870), he had sought to give a clear notion of the results to which the discoveries of Boole and his predecessors necessarily led. The present work consists...
£175
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KNAPP, Georg Friedrich.
Die neuern Ansichten über Moralstatistik …
Jena, Friedrich Mauke, 1871.
First edition of a lecture given on 29 April 1871 at the University of Leipzig, presentation copy, the title-page inscribed ‘Herrn Dr Adolf Mayer, freundschaftlich G.F. Knapp’.
£250