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.-
LAMB, Sir Horace.
Autograph letter, signed, to Thomas Bromwich.
6 Wilbraham Road, Fallowfield, Manchester, 9 March 1916.
A letter from Sir Horace Lamb (1849–1934) to fellow mathematician Thomas Bromwich. Lamb held the chair of pure mathematics at Owens College, Manchester, from 1885 until 1920. He ‘was a talented and inspiring teacher, whose lectures to generations of mathematics, engineering, and physics students...
£125
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LANDI, Bassiano.
De origine et causa pestis Patauinae, anni MDLV ...
Venice, apud Balthassarem Constantinum (colophon: ‘Ioan. Gryphius excudebat’), 1555.
First edition of this important work investigating the causes of the plague which struck Padua in 1555, by the eminent, and controversial, professor of medicine Bassiano Landi (d. 1562). In his De origine Landi argues against the then popular belief that the plague had been caused by putrid...
£1250
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LAWRENCE, Richard.
The complete Farrier and British Sportsman, containing a systematic Enquiry into the Structure and animal Economy...
London, W. Clowes for Thomas Kelly, [c. 1816].
Likely first edition, dedicated ‘to the noblemen and gentlemen of the Quorn Hunt’. Much unlike his earlier scholarly work on veterinary science, Lawrence’s Complete Farrier and British Sportsman is written for gentlemen and noblemen with an interest not in farriery but in fox-hunting,...
£250
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LAWRENCE, Richard.
The complete Farrier and British Sportsman, containing a systematic Enquiry into the Structure and animal Economy...
London, W. Clowes for Thomas Kelly, [c. 1823].
A sporting compendium, dedicated ‘to the noblemen and gentlemen of the Quorn Hunt’. Much unlike his earlier scholarly work on veterinary science, Lawrence’s Complete Farrier and British Sportsman is written for gentlemen and noblemen with an interest not in farriery but in fox-hunting,...
£180
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LEE, Henry.
[Cover title:] The White Whale …
London, R. K. Burt & Co. … 1878.
First edition, an account of the white Beluga whale by Henry Lee of the Royal Aquarium in Brighton, specifically of the first such whale successfully transported to England, exhibited for four days in 1877 before its death from pneumonia; and of four further whales transported the following year....
£225
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LEIBNIZ, Gottfried Wilhelm.
Oeuvres de Leibniz publiées pour la première fois d’après les manuscrits originaux avec notes...
Paris, Firmin Didot, 1859-1875.
A handsome seven-volume edition of the correspondence and historical and political writings of the German polymath Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716), the ‘last universal genius’, edited by Louis-Alexandre Foucher de Careil (1826–1891), with texts in French, German, and Latin. The second volume...
£250
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LEIGH, William R.
The Western Pony … Foreword by James L. Clark.
New York, Huntington Press, 1933.
First edition of Leigh’s finely printed account of the Western pony. A painter known primarily for his scenes of the American West, William Robinson Leigh (1866-1955) produced several equine paintings, here reproduced in colour by Max Jaffé of Vienna.
£450
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LEROY, Camille.
Instruction relative au choléra-morbus, et a l’emploi des moyens désinfectans ... imprimée par ordre de la mairie.
Grenoble, Baratier frères et fils, 1832.
Only edition of this very rare pamphlet published at the request of the city authorities in Grenoble to advise the public on the best ways to protect themselves against cholera at the height of the pandemic of 1831-2.
£165
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L’HÔPITAL, Guillaume François Antoine, marquis de.
Analyse des infiniment petits, pour l’intelligence des lignes...
Paris, François Montalant, 1715.
Second edition (first 1696) of l’Hôpital’s famous Analyse, the first textbook on differential calculus, inspired by the work of Leibniz and the Bernoulli brothers, this copy profusely annotated by an anonymous but proficient eighteenth-century mathematician.
£3500
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LIEBIG, Justus von.
Autograph letter to the publishers Heinrich Ludwig Brönner.
Darmstadt, 16 September 1847.
Letter from the German chemist Justus von Liebig (1803–1873) to H. L. Brönner, the Frankfurt publishers and booksellers named after their eighteenth-century founder.
£750
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LINNAEUS, Carl (or von LINNÉ), and James JENKINSON (translator).
A generic and specific Description of...
Ashburner, and Lancaster, A. Ashburner, 1775.
First edition of this provincially printed partial translation of Linnaeus’s Genera plantarum. It precedes both William Withering’s The Botanical Arrangement of all the Vegetables naturally growing in Great Britain (1776), the first such work to be based on Linnaean taxonomy,...
£225
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LISTER, Joseph.
Three autograph letters, signed, to Sir John Evans.
London, 12 Park Crescent, Portland Place, 19 April 1896 and 18 February 1898, and Bath, York House Hotel, 20 November 1898.
Three letters by the great surgeon Joseph Lister to the archaeologist and geologist Sir John Evans (1823–1908), who was treasurer of the Royal Society during Lister’s presidency.
£750
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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
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[LONDON ZOO.] HARVEY, William (illustrator).
The Gardens and Menagerie of the Zoological Society delineated … Vol. I:...
Chiswick, Charles Wittingham, for London, Charles Tilt, 1831.
First edition, second issue, of the first record of the menagerie of the Zoological Society. Founded in 1826 with botanical gardens and a zoological collection at Regent’s Park, the Zoological Society of London was soon established as the foremost natural history collection in Europe, receiving...
£175
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[MABBUT, George].
Sir Isaac Newton’s tables for renewing and purchasing the leases of cathedral-churches and colleges, according...
London, printed for Thomas Astley, 1742
Sixth edition, first published in 1686, this issue was sometimes also published with a separate title page and imprint reading, ‘The money’d man’s pocket-book’, London, 1742’ immediately preceding the title-page of the second part. A series of tables calculating the amounts owed on leases based...
£125
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MAGNER, D.
The new System of Educating Horses, including Instructions on Feeding, Watering, Stabling, Shoeing, etc., with Treatment...
Philadelphia, Burk & M’Fetridge, 1881.
Twelfth edition of a well illustrated manual on equestrianism, principally the training of horses. ‘The horse is an animal of high and spirited organization, endowed by his Creator with capabilities and faculties which sufficiently resemble man’s to come under the same general law of education...
£65
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MANFREDI, Girolamo; Pedro de RIBAS, translator.
Libro llamado El porque provechosissimo para la conservacion de la salud,...
Alcalá de Henares, Juan Iñiguez de Lequerica, 1587 [colophon: Hernan Ramirez, 1589].
Extremely rare early edition of Pedro de Ribas’s Spanish translation of Girolamo Manfredi’s popular Liber de Homine, first published in 1567.
£1250
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MAPLET, John, and W.H. DAVIES (editor).
A greene Forest, or a naturall Historie, wherein may bee seene first the...
London, Hesperides Press, 1930.
Limited edition, numbered 31 of fifty copies on Millbourne pure rag hand-made paper, signed by Davies.
£75
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MARINIS, Dominico de.
Dissertatio philosophico-medica de re monstrosa à Capuccino Pisauri per urinam excreta. Plura de sanguinis...
Rome, typis Iacobi Mascardi ... sumptibus Ben Carrarae, 1678.
First edition of this scarce dissertation on worms focussing on the extraordinary case of a Capuchin preacher from Pesaro who in 1677 passed a ‘monster’ worm in his urine, which upon subsequent examination was declared to be a serpent.
£1850
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MARKHAM, Gervase.
Cavalarice, or the English Horseman: Contayning all the Art of Horse-manship, asmuch as is necessary for any...
London, Edward Allde for Edward White, [1616–] 1617.
A beautiful copy of the second edition, ‘corrected and augmented’, of Markham’s Cavalarice, exceptionally well-preserved in a contemporary binding, from the library of the antiquary Sir John Marsham.
£12000