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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. ‘A.C.’ and ‘A.L.C.’

    Dialogue entre un médecin et un homme du monde …

    Paris, chez les marchands de nouveautés, 1824.

    Rare first edition of this entertaining satirical dialogue between ‘M. de B.’ and ‘le docteur X’, taking a swipe at contemporary medicine and the medical profession.

    £375

  2. ACTON, William.

    Prostitution, considered in its moral, social, & sanitary aspects, in London and other large cities. With proposals...

    London, [Savill and Edwards for] John Churchill, 1857.

    First edition of this medico-social analysis of sex work and sexually transmitted infections in London, in which physician William Acton argues for increased governmental intervention, influential in shaping the later Contagious Diseases Acts of 1864, 1866, and 1869.

    £1250

  3. 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

  4. 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

  5. [ALKEN, Henry.]

    The Beauties & Defects in the Figure of the Horse, comparatively delineated in a series of Engravings.

    Boston, Carter & Hendee, 1830.

    First American edition, the second and scarcest overall. ‘The dominant sporting artist of the early nineteenth century’ (ODNB), Henry Thomas Alken (1785–1851) ‘showed an early liking for depicting animals, especially dogs and horses’, and ‘demonstrated his expertise in the book The...

    £1600

  6. ALLEN, John.

    Principles of modern Riding for Gentlemen, in which the late Improvements of the Manege and military Systems are applied...

    London, C. & C. Whittingham for Thomas Tegg, Glasgow, for R. Griffin & Co., and Dublin, for J. Cumming, 1825.

    First and only edition of an uncommon riding manual. A riding master teaching near Bryanstone Square, John Allen ‘flatters himself that, at a time when riding has become so fashionable an exercise, his work will more than any preceding one ensure the security, ease, and grace of the rider, both...

    £350

  7. ALLIONI, Carlo.

    Flora Pedemontana sive enumeratio methodica stirpium indigenarum Pedemontii [– Florae Pedemontanae icones accedit...

    Turin, Giovanni Michele Briolo, 1785.

    First edition of the earliest Italian regional floras by the ‘Linnaeus of Piedmont’, here in the extremely rare hand-coloured state and extensively annotated by Giovanni Battista Balbis, the author’s pupil and successor at the Botanical Garden of the University of Turin.

    £30000

  8. ALOS, Juan.

    Pharmacopoea Cathalana, sive antidotarium Barcinonense restitutum, et reformatum. Medicis, medicinae studiosis, chirurgis,...

    Barcelona, Antonio & Balthasar Ferrer, 1686.

    Scarce first edition of this Barcelona pharmacopoeia edited by Juan Alos (1617–1695).

    £1500

  9. [ANATOMY.]

    ‘Breve compendio anatomico’.

    [Italy, c. 1720.]

    A handsome set of apparently unpublished notes on orthopaedics by an anonymous medical student, compiled in Italy in the early eighteenth century, covering bones, cartilage, ligaments and muscles. The manuscript opens with a detailed analysis of the human skeleton, its bones and articulation,...

    £1750

  10. ANDREWS, Mark E.

    The Science and Engineering of Water: An illustrated catalogue of books and manuscripts on Italian hydraulics,...

    Toronto, A.E. Publications, 2022.

    A lavishly illustrated catalogue, tracing the development of science and engineering through the early modern period. Some 367 printed books, manuscripts, and maps are presented in chronological order, highlighting the relationship between the evolution of ideas and the authors who documented...

    £85

  11. ANDREWS, Mark E.

    The Science and Engineering of Materials: A Theatre of Machine Books, 1472–1800.

    Toronto, AE Publications, 2023.

    An extraordinary survey of four centuries of machine books, tracing the evolution of printing techniques and draughtsmanship alongside the development of the machines themselves. In this catalogue of eighty-six works from his collection of books on civil engineering, Mark Andrews situates a series...

    £85

  12. [ANON.]

    The Gentleman’s compleat Jockey, with the perfect Horse-Man and experienc’d Farrier, containing: I. the Nature of Horses,...

    London, Peter Parker, 1711.

    Fifth edition, very scarce, of an anonymous early farriery manual. Among the first popular guides to farriery, a form which would be much copied throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the Gentleman’s compleat Jockey (formerly attributed to Adolphus Speed) was first published...

    £1750

  13. [ANON].

    Elogio del corno. Dell‘ autore della felice produzione italiana intitolata Della Necessità ed Utilità dei Debiti.

    Venice, Stamperia Graziosi, 1796.

    Only edition, as far as we can tell unrecorded, of this anonymously published poem in praise of the horn. Although ostensibly a chaste work extolling the virtues of the instrument, there is enough to suggest that the poet may have been thinking along less musical lines; the horn, we are repeatedly told,...

    £275

  14. ANSELMI, Giorgio, the younger. 

    Georgii Anselmi nepotis Epigrammaton libri septem. Sosthyrides. Peplum Palladis. Aeglogae...

    Venice, Maffeo Pasini, September 1528. 

    The definitive edition of the epigrams of Giorgio Anselmi, grandson of the astrologer and music theorist of the same name, with several epigrams on his grandfather’s lost works on magic and the occult. 

    £875

  15. [APPERLEY, Charles James.] ‘NIMROD’, and Henry ALKEN (illustrator).

    The Chace, the Turf, and the Road.

    London, A. Spottiswoode for John Murray, 1837.

    First edition of a series of articles first published in the Quarterly Review, illustrated by Henry Alken. A sporting writer who ‘may even be said to have created the role of gentleman hunting correspondent’ (ODNB), Charles James Apperley (1778–1843) published widely on hunting and...

    £350

  16. APULEIUS, Lucius. 

    L. Apuleii Metamorphoseos, sive lusus Asini libri XI.  Floridoru[m] IIII.  De deo Socratis I.  De philosophia...

    Venice, ‘in aedibus Aldi et Andreae Soceri’, May 1521. 

    First Aldine edition of the works of the second-century AD Numidian novelist Apuleius, with the editio princeps of Alcinous’s second-century handbook on Plato’s philosophy in the original Greek, from the library of the great French writer Victor Hugo. 

    £2000

  17. 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

  18. 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

  19. [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

  20. [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