Search results
-
ZARLINO, Gioseffo.
Le Istitutioni harmoniche … nelle quali; oltra le materie appartenenti alla musica; si trovano dichiarati...
Venice, [Pietro da Fino], 1558.
First edition, rare, of ‘arguably the most important and influential book in the history of music theory … [It] opened the way for the new tonality which has governed music from the seventeenth century to the present day’ (PMM).
£15000
-
WOLLSTONECRAFT, Mary.
An Historical and moral View of the Origin and Progress of the French Revolution; and the Effect it has produced...
London, J. Johnson, 1794.
First edition of Wollstonecraft’s eloquent analysis of the causes of the French revolution, written as an antidote to Burke’s Reflections, our copy with manuscript notes by William Michael Rossetti. The work was never completed before Wollstonecraft’s death in 1797, though the first volume...
£7250
-
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
-
ARCHIMEDES.
Τα μεχρι νυν σωζομενα, απαντα … Opera, quae quidem extant, omnia, multis iam seculis desiderata...
Basel, Johannes Herwagen, [(colophon): March] 1544.
Editio princeps of the works of Archimedes, ‘the greatest mathematician and engineer of antiquity’ (PMM). Prior to this edition only a small tract in Latin translation, published in 1503, and a partial translation by Tartaglia, published in 1543, had appeared.
£45000
-
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
-
SIMONETTA, Bonifacio.
De Christiane Fidei et Romanorum Pontificum Persecutionibus.
[(Colophon:) Basel, Nicolaus Kesler, 1509.]
A beautiful copy of the second edition of Simonetta’s principal work, containing an early and intriguing reference to the New World, our copy from the library of Christian VI (1699–1746), King of Denmark and Norway, under whom the kingdom expanded its possessions in the Americas.
£4500
-
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
-
SCHRÖDINGER, Erwin, et al.
A collection of offprints and papers from the library of Nándor Balázs.
1902–1961.
A remarkable collection of offprints and papers from the library of Hungarian-American physicist Nándor Balázs, laboratory assistant in the early 1950s to the Nobel Prize-winning Austrian physicist Erwin Schrödinger, comprising an exceptionally strong core of Schrödinger’s works – many of...
£50000
-
[LINCOLN, Abraham, and Stephen DOUGLAS.]
Political Debates between Hon. Abraham Lincoln and Hon. Stephen A. Douglas, in...
Columbus, Follet, Foster, and Company, 1860.
First edition, later issue, with a rule above the printer’s names on the copyright page and advertisements stating fifteen thousand copies sold, of the Lincoln–Douglas Senate campaign debates of 1858, ‘historically the most important series of American political debates’ (Howes), our...
£950
-
RUSCELLI, Girolamo.
Le imprese illustri con espositioni, et discorsi …
[(Colophon:) Venice, Comin da Trino di Monferrato, 1572.]
Second edition of one of the finest emblem books of the sixteenth century, illustrated with over one hundred engravings depicting the imprese of notable figures in Italy and beyond, our copy bound for Giacomo Boncompagni, illegitimate son of Pope Gregory XIII.
£2750
-
RICH, Jeremiah.
The Whole Book of Psalms in Meter. According to the Art of Short-Writing …
London, ‘Printed and are sold by Samuel Botley Teacher of the said Art … and nowhere els.’, [1660?].
First edition, the issue with Samuel Botley in the imprint – an extremely attractive miniature Psalter in shorthand by a ‘skilled and celebrated’ practitioner whose work was known to Pepys (though Pepys himself employed a rival system).
£4250
-
[PUBLICIUS, Jacobus.]
Ars memorativa.
[Cologne, Johann Guldenschaff, c. 1481.]
First illustrated edition of this treatise on the art of memory, with moving parts; the first general treatise on memory to be printed.
£18000
-
[PSALTER. BRUNO, Archbishop of Würzburg, editor.]
Psalterium.
[Würzburg, Georg Reyser, c. 1488–1489.]
First edition of the Psalter with the commentary ascribed to the eleventh-century Bishop of Würzburg, printed at Würzburg by Georg Reyser and in a contemporary Würzburg monastic binding.
£24000
-
POPPER, Karl.
A substantial archive of books and associated working papers from one of the most important philosophers of modernity;...
London et al., 1960s–1970s.
An extremely important archive witnessing the development of Karl Popper’s thought and showcasing his writing process, from the library of his former research assistant, Dr Ivan Slade.
£175000
-
NIGHTINGALE, Florence.
Notes on Matters affecting the Health, Efficiency, and Hospital Administration of the British Army.
London, Harrison and Sons, 1858.
First edition, printed for private circulation only, of Florence Nightingale’s pioneering report on the sanitary condition of the British Army, resulting in a radical reform of the administration, sanitation, and nursing practices at large, this copy with remarkable nursing association.
£18000
-
LIVY; [Pedro DE LA VEGA, translator].
Todas las decadas de Tito Livio paduano, que hasta al presente se hallaron y fueron...
[(Colophon:) Cologne [i.e. Antwerp?], Arnold Birckmann], 1553.
A handsome copy of Livy’s History in Spanish, containing the surviving books as well as Florus’s Epitome, in a contemporary Augsburg binding produced by a bindery in the service of the Fugger family.
£3500
-
MÄNDL, Kaspar.
Christliche Sitten-Lehr und heylsame Anmuthungen gezogen auß Betrachtung deß bitteren Leyden und Sterbens unsers...
Augsburg, Matthias Wolff, 1737.
A superb example of Rococo decorative binding, exploiting all available materials – silks, metals, beads, papers, gilding, and leather – to extraordinary (if perhaps excessive) effect.
£6750
-
MARX, Karl.
Capital. A critical analysis of capitalist production … translated from the third edition by Samuel Moore and Edward...
London, Swan Sonnenschein, Lowrey & Co., 1887.
A remarkably well-preserved copy of the first edition, first issue, one of only five hundred copies (Sraffa), of the English translation of Marx’s Das Kapital, published in London four years after Marx’s death under the editorship of Engels.
£35000
-
MILL, James.
Elements of Political Economy … Second edition, revised and corrected.
London, [C. Baldwin] for Baldwin, Cradock, and Joy, 1824.
Second edition of ‘Mill’s masterpiece’ (Palgrave), extensively revised with alterations ‘too numerous to be specified’, our copy with a presentation inscription to Mill’s former colleague at the East India Company, Thomas Love Peacock, signed ‘his sincere Friend The Author’.
£1250
-
NEWTON, Isaac.
Opticks: or, a Treatise of the Reflexions, Refractions, Inflexions, and Colours of Light. Also two treatises of...
London, for Samuel Smith and Benjamin Walford, printers to the Royal Society, 1704.
First edition of Newton’s Opticks, ‘which did for light what his Principia had done for gravitation, namely, placed it on a scientific basis’, and ‘expounds Newton’s corpuscular or emission theory of light, and first contains his important optical discoveries in a collected...
£70000