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.
  1. 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

  2. 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

  3. [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

  4. MARTIN, Benjamin.

    The Young Student’s Memorial Book, or pocket Library.

    London: Printed for J. Noon … 1736.

    First and only edition. A self-taught schoolmaster in Chichester, Benjamin Martin (1705-1782) ‘began to write, with the avowed intention of bringing down the price of books, especially for the benefit of those who were trying to educate themselves as he had done’ (Oxford DNB). ‘One of the great...

    £650

  5. MARZAGLIA, Gaetano.

    Fascetto di pratiche matematiche spiegate alle persone popolari per uso del comercio umano, e civile, in questa...

    Verona, Dionisio Ramanzini, 1780.

    A lovely copy of the second edition, considerably augmented from the first of 1754, of this book of applied mathematical problems by the Veronese mathematician Gaetano Marzaglia (or Marcegaglia, 1716–1787), heavily influenced by the work of Wolff, who provides the motto to the book, and whose works...

    £650

  6. MEITNER, Lise, and Otto R. FRISCH. 

    On the Products of the Fission of Uranium and Thorium under Neutron Bombardment. 

    Copenhagen, Ejnar Munksgaard, 1939. 

    First edition of this highly important paper, published in Det Kgl. Danske Videnskabernes Selskab.  Mathematisk-Fysiske Meddelelser, vol. 17, no. 5. 

    £850

  7. PONCELET, Jean-Victoire.

    Traité des propriétés projectives des figures, ouvrage utile à ceux qui s’occupent des applications...

    Paris, Gauthier-Villars, 1865-1866.

    Second edition, revised and enlarged, Émile Borel’s prize copy. A finely bound, well-preserved, and prestigious association set.

    Borel (1871–1956), the French mathematician best known for his work in measure theory and probability theory, was awarded several honours in the early...

    £950

  8. RAYLEIGH, John William Strutt, Baron.

    Two autograph letters, signed, to the mathematician Thomas Bromwich.

    Terling Place, Witham, Essex, 19 June 1916, and 4 Carlton Gardens, Pall Mall, London, 7 March 1917.

    In the first, brief, letter, written from Rayleigh’s home at Witham in Essex and dated 19 June 1916, Rayleigh agrees to forward a paper to the Royal Society: ‘I will gladly communicate Mr White’s paper to R. S. The extension of what I did is interesting, and he points out a stupid mistake of mine...

    £750

  9. REID, Thomas.

    Essays on the powers of the human mind; to which are prefixed, an Essay on quantity, and an Analysis of Aristotle’s...

    [Edinburgh, W. Aitchison for] London, Ogle, Duncan & Co., and Edinburgh, J. Dick & Co. and W. Hunter, and Glasgow, M. Ogle, 1822.

    A beautiful set of this small format edition of the principal philosophical works of the Scottish enlightenment philosopher Thomas Reid (1710–1796).

    £750

  10. RIEMANN, Georg Friedrich Bernhard.

    Ein Beitrag zu den Untersuchungen über die Bewegung eines flüssigen gleichartigen Ellipsoids.

    Göttingen, Dieterichsche Buchhandlung, 1861.

    the very rare offprint issue from the abhandlungen der königlichen gesellschaft der wissenschaften zu göttigen of riemann’s classic paper on rotating liquid ellipsoids, containing solutions of the equations of fluid dynamics that were later applied to the physics of rotating stars by chandrasekhar...

    £750

  11. [ROYAL PRUSSIAN SOCIETY OF SCIENCES.] 

    Miscellanea berolinensia ad incrementum scientiarum, ex scriptis societati regiae scientiarum...

    Berlin, Johann Christoph Papen, 1723. 

    First continuation of Leibniz’s Miscellanea berolinensia First appearing in 1710, the publication of the Miscellanea was revived in 1723 as the official journal of the Royal Prussian Society of Sciences after the death of Leibniz, its founding President.  The Continuatio comprises...

    £575

  12. SACCHI, Giovenale. 

    Del numero e delle misure delle corde musiche e loro corrispondenze.  Dissertazione del P. D. Giovenale...

    Milan, [Giuseppe Mazzucchelli (colophon),] 1761. 

    First edition of Sacchi’s first work: a theoretical study of music and acoustic from a mathematical and physical perspective built upon the most innovative eighteenth-century physics. 

    £850

  13. WELLS, Edward.

    The young Gentleman’s Astronomy, Chronology, and Dialling, containing such Elements of the said Arts or Sciences,...

    London, James & John Knapton, 1725.

    Third edition of Wells’s successful mathematical handbook.

    £350

  14. WHITWORTH, William Allen.

    Choice and chance.

    Cambridge, Deighton, Bell and Co.; London, Bell and Daldy, 1867.

    First edition, scarce especially in good condition, of a key work in the history of probability and statistics. Whitworth’s best-known book, an accessible presentation of problems of probability and associated areas, was derived from a series of lectures delivered before the women of Queen’s College,...

    £225