The Must-Have
Rare work of astronomy by a great French mathematician
A very rare astronomical work written in the 16th Century by François Viète,
the precursor of algebra and guardian of Catherine de Parthenay.
A very pure copy in its contemporary limp vellum.
VIETE, François. Principes de cosmographie. Tirés d’un manuscrit de Viette, & traduits en François. Corrigées & augmentées.
Rouen, Jean Behourt, 1647.
12 mo [146 x 77 mm], (8) pp., 172.
Bound in contemporary limp vellum, flat spine, old handwritten calculations on covers. Light waterstain in the lower corner.
Third edition of this very rare astronomical work written in the 16th century for Catherine de Parthenay.
DSB 14, pp. 18-25.
François Viète (1540-1603) follows courses of law at the University of Poitiers, where he obtains his degree in 1560. Few years later, he decides to leave the bar in order to become the guardian of Catherine de Parthenay. At this time he is particularly interested in astronomy, and he writes his first scientific work for his pupil. The Principes de cosmographie are the only reading he made to his pupil that survived, in a French translation; they were published for the first time in 1637.
Catherine de Parthenay is the heiress of a powerful Huguenot family, the Parthenay-Lévêque. She is interested in astrology and astronomy, and when she is eleven years old, her mother gives her François Viète as guardian, one of the greatest mathematicians of that time. Viète will stay her adviser and friend during all her life.
The present work is divided into three parts: the Traicté de la sphere from pp. 1 to 24, illustrated with 2 figures in the text, the Elémens de géographie from pp. 25 to 144, where Viète describes the countries of the world, and Elémens d’astronomie, from pp. 145 to 172, where he deals with stars and planets.
Viète financed his own writings and he only printed his books in a very limited number of copies for his friends. That’s the reason why his books are so rare.
He is considered as the main precursor to algebra. He was the first one to represent the parameters of an equation with letters. His writings influenced Descartes, Harriot, but also Newton and Leibniz.
The present edition is the rarest of this book.
OCLC records 2 copies of the first edition dated 1637, 5 copies of the 1643 edition and only 1 copy of this edition, preserved at the Burndy Library.
The B.n.F. is the only French library to own this 1647 edition.
No copy is listed in ABPC.
A very pure copy of this rare and sought-after astronomical work, preserved in its contemporary limp vellum.
Price: € 12 000
A decisive work in science history
First edition, first issue, of Claude Bernard’s « decisive work »
that « marks a turning point in science history ».
(En Français dans le texte 288).
PMM 353.
Bernard, Claude. Introduction à l’Etude de la Médecine Expérimentale.
Paris, J. B. Baillière, 1865.
8vo [210 x 130 mm], 400 pp.; bound in contemporary green half-roan, flat spine decorated with gilt fillets, mottled edges. Head of spine slightly rubbed. Owner’s stamp on the first 3 leaves.
First edition, first issue, of claude bernard’s “decisive work”. (Dictionnaire des Œuvres, III, p. 734).
PMM 353 ; En Français dans le texte 288 ; Garrison-Morton 1766.501 ; Grolier, 100 Books famous in Science, 11b ; Norman 206.
« The introduction is a decisive work. When it was published, it was perfectly answering numerous questions concerning a medical science which was trying to find itself since Corvisart and that was involved in the fight of dogmatic systems, and was learning since, the precisions made about clinical observation and anatamo-pathology, the requirements of the physiology laboratories, of medical chemistry and histology […]. Claude bernard, for whom methodology was a constant concern, gave a coherent status to this medicine. He justified his experimental inclinations and established its bounds. From this moment, thanks to claude bernard, we can talk about an experimental medicine. However, the great physiologist’s work has a significance that goes beyond this discipline. His discoveries are valid for every scientific research fields. […].
The introduction is a revolutionary work as much as the ‘discours de la méthode’, well-known by the scholar. »
Dictionnaire des Œuvres.
« When he came to Paris, Claude Bernard found his real vocation near F. Magendie: the study of vital functions with the experimental method. Before him, this method was barely used and in a non-systematic way. It permitted him to discover chemical and nervous vital phenomena unsuspected until this time […]. Concise and with a brilliant clearness, associating a personal adventure with great philosophical and scientific questions, this book marks a turning point in science history. Within, he sets out and details the “experimental reasoning” and establishes the notions of inner environment and biological determinism. The Introduction ‘is for us what was for the 17th and the 18th centuries the Discours de la Méthode’ (H. Bergson); it is ‘an everlasting book, a bible of scientific probity’ (J. Rostand) ».
En Français dans le texte, 288.
« The Introduction was an important didactic work which biologists of the last hundred years have found of great interest and value ». (PMM).
« Probably the greatest classic on the principles of physiological investigation and of the scientific method as applied to the life sciences” (Garrison-Morton).
This copy bears the marks of the first issue: on page 400, there is the printer’s name Crété (the name Crété is replaced by Martinet in the second issue), and the names of the five branches of Baillière throughout the world appear on the title-page (only 3 names appear in the second issue).
A fine copy without any foxing, preserved in its fine contemporary green half-roan binding.
Provenance : ex libris Bibliothèque Charpentier on the endpaper.
Price: € 2 500
De luxe edition of Buffon’s Natural History
De luxe edition of Buffon’s Natural History printed on vellum paper,
illustrated with 233 fine contemporary hand-coloured engravings,
bound in bright red straight-grained morocco by Thouvenin.
BUFFON, Georges-Louis Leclerc, comte de / Louis Jean Marie DAUBENTON/ Bernard de LACEPEDE. Œuvres complètes de Buffon, mises en ordre par M. le Comte de Lacépède. Seconde édition.
Paris, chez Rapet, 1819-1822.
25 volumes 8vo [215 x 130 mm], full red straight-grained morocco, gilt fillet on covers, blind-stamped border and central rose, spine ribbed and nicely decorated with gilt borders, inner border, edges gilt, few leaves slightly brown. Contemporary binding signed by Thouvenin.
De luxe edition of Buffon’s works printed on vellum paper with the engravings contemporary hand-coloured. It is illustrated with the author’s portrait by Dévéria, 6 engravings in black, 4 folding maps, 96 engravings dedicated to quadrupeds and 126 engravings dedicated to birds, each of them finely contemporary hand-coloured.
Here is the foreward : « Pour donner à cette seconde édition toute la correction désirable, nous avons suivi le texte de l’édition, intitulé Vue générale des Progrès de plusieurs branches des Sciences naturelles depuis le milieu du originale, in-4, de l’Imprimerie Royale… On trouvera dans le dernier volume le discours de M. Le Comte de Lacépède dernier siècle ».
« L’Histoire naturelle » is an encyclopedic work, conceived and elaborated by the natural scientist Georges Louis Leclerc, comte de Buffon (1707-1788) who wrote it with the help of a team of scholars and writers. It is only when he was appointed intendant of the King’s Garden (current Jardin des Plantes) and lived surrounded by the collections from the Royal Cabinet of Natural History (currently known as the Museum d’Histoire Naturelle) that he conceived the layout of this grandiose work.
Since the publication of its first volumes « L’Histoire naturelle » was greeted with resounding success. Buffon was admired by all Europe and enjoyed a celebrity equal to Voltaire’s and Rousseau’s. He was called “le Pline et l’Aristote de la France” and without taking any step he became a member of the Académie Française; his statue was erected during his lifetime. « L’Histoire naturelle » fairly appeared as a masterpiece of modern science and of the awakening of minds, like the Encyclopedia which is contemporary of it. It brought into fashion the genuine science of observation in opposition to unskilled experiences which were, at this time, in vogue within society people. It immediately gave rise to an intense development of natural history.
The edition was printed on ordinary paper with black figures, while some de luxe copies, like this one, were printed on vellum paper with contemporary hand-coloured figures.
A beautiful copy of which the 25 volumes were contemporary bound in bright red morocco with gilt and blind-stamped decorations by Thouvenin, one of the greatest bookbinders from the Restauration. The first and last volumes bear the master’s signature at the tail of the spines.
Price: € 17 000
First edition of a foundind work of the theory of probability
First edition of a fundamental work in the history of mathematics,
one of the founding texts of the theory of probability by the “French Newton”.
LAPLACE, Pierre Simon; marquis de. Théorie analytique des probabilités ; par M. le comte de Laplace… [With:] supplement [Premier-Deuxième-Troisième].
Paris, Mme Ve Courcier, 1812 [-1820].
4 to [254 x 203 mm], (3) ff., 464 pp., (1) l. of errata, 34 pp., 50 pp., 36 pp. Some foxing
Bound in contemporary aubergine straight-grained half-morocco, flat spine decorated with gilt fillets. Corners and joints rubbed. Binding worn.
First edition of one of the founding works of the theory of probability.
DSB XV, 367-376; UC Berkely, First Editions of Epochal Achievements (1934), 12; Stigler, History of Statistics, pp. 146-148.
“The ‘Théorie analytique des Probabilités’ contains besides an introduction two books and four supplements: Book I. Du calcul des Fonctions génératrices; Book II. Théorie générale des Probabilités ; first supplement, composed in 1816. Sur l’Application du calcul des Probabilités à la philosophie naturelle ; second supplement, composed in 1817. Sur l’Application du calcul des Probabilités aux opérations géodésiques, et sur la Probabilité des résultats déduits d’un grand nombre d’observations ; third supplement, composed in 1819. Application des formules géodésiques de Probabilité à la Méridienne de France. It is in this publication that Laplace expounded his beautiful theory of the generative functions.”
(Hoefer, Nouvelle biographie générale, 547).
“Pierre Simon Laplace was born in Normandy on the 23rd of March 1749 and died in Arcueil on the 5th of March 1827. He was so talented for analysis that he was called “the French Newton”; he paid particular attention to the great problem of universal gravitation and motion of the celestial bodies.
Like Lagrange, he attained remarkable results in this field, proving the stability of the solar system and making notables discoveries, which were recorded in the reports of the Académie des Sciences from 1784 […]. In the ‘Théorie analytique’ (1812) Laplace gave a classical form to the calculation of probabilities.” (Dictionnaire des auteurs, III, 40).
Laplace who had carried out his first works about probabilities between 1771 and 1774 published his ‘Théorie analytique des probabilités’ in 1812.
In this work Laplace gives decisive elements for the theory of probabilities, for which he is considered as one of the founders.
As a direct heir to Newton in the field of celestial mechanics, Laplace may also be considered as the heir of Pascal in the field of calculation of probabilities as thanks to his works this subject has acquired a new power.
“In the ‘theorie’ Laplace gave a new level of mathematical foundation and development both to probability theory and to mathematical statistics.
‘Theorie Analytique des probabilités’. First publication: Paris, Courcier, 1812. 465 pages. Print-run : 1200 copies.
Pierre Simon Laplace published the first edition of ‘Théorie analytique’ in 1812, at the age of 63 years. It represented the culmination of a professional lifetime of concern for the topic, and all of its text consisted of reworked versions of his earlier work. Laplace’s prodigious abilities in the mathematical sciences were recognized early on, by his teachers in Normandy and by Jean d’Alembert in Paris when he was only 20.”
(Landmark writings in Western Mathematics, 1640-1940, p.329).
« Laplace has been called the ‘Newton of France’… He was the son of a small farmer in Normandy. Some rich neighbours recognized his talents and helped with his education. Arriving in Paris at the age of eighteen he met d’Alembert, who secured for him a position as professor of mathematics at the Ecole Militaire, and he soon became a member of the Académie des Sciences […]
Laplace’s other mathematical work included the ‘Théorie Analytique des Probabilités’, 1812, and a treatise on the attraction of spheroids. Laplace’s co-efficients are important in the theory of attraction, hydrodynamics and electrical science.” (PMM, 252).
Precious copy of this fundamental work in the history of mathematics.
The present book is extremely rare on the market.
Only one copy of this first edition appeared on the public market since over 30 years, the Honeyman copy which included only the first supplement and that was sold by Sotheby’s London in May 1980.
Only two copies complete with the supplements are recorded in French public institutions: at the Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève of Paris and at the Bibliothèque de Toulouse.
The copy of this original edition preserved at the B.n.F. does not include any of the three supplements.
Price: € 35 000
« The first printed book intended to be read by the blind”
« The first printed book intended to be read by the blind ». (Norman).
P.M.M., 292.
HAUY, Valentin. Essai sur l’éducation des aveugles, ou exposé de différens moyens, vérifiés par l’expérience, pour les mettre en état de lire, à l’aide du trait, d’imprimer des Livres dans lesquels ils puissent prendre des connaissances de Langues, d’Histoire, de Géographie, de Musique, &c., d’exécuter différens travaux relatifs aux Métiers, &c.
Paris, Imprimé par les Enfans-Aveugles, sous la direction de M. Clousier, Imprimeur du Roi, 1786.
4to [246 x 190 mm], (1) bl.l., vii pp., (1) p., pp. 1 to 111 printed with embossed characters, pp. 113 to 126, 15 pp., (1) l., (11) ff., (1) l. of observation, (3) ff. with the « Programme des exercices que les enfans-aveugles feront à Versailles » devant le roi, (3) ff., (1) bl. l. Bound in contemporary full marbled calf, spine ribbed, edges red. Binding skilfully restored.
Rare first edition of « the first printed book intended to be read by the blind ».
GM 5833; Lende p.15; PMM 292; En Français dans le texte 242; Norman 1023.
Valentin Haüy (1745-1822) wanted to make the blind read. In 1784 he created special characters that produced a raised typography. In 1786 he published the present work to expound his revolutionary method to educate the blind. The present book was printed by blind children with embossed letters.
« Valentine Haüy was the first to devise type that could be read by the blind. Characters slightly different in shape from ordinary italic were embossed on heavy paper to be read with the fingers. He founded the Institut Royale des Jeunes Aveugles in 1785 and seems actually to have succeeded in teaching some of his pupils not only to read by this method but to set and print the embossed type. His ‘Essai sur l’Education des Aveugles’, 1786, is an incunable of the method”. (PMM 292).
A good copy of this important work for the history of science, a work that symbolizes the philanthropic outburst to the underprivileged classes in 18th century France.
Price: €6 500
« The first Aerial Voyage ». (P.M.M., 229).
« The first Aerial Voyage ». (P.M.M., 229).
Paris, 1783-1784.
FAUJAS DE SAINT-FOND, Barthélémy. Description des Expériences de la Machine Aérostatique de MM. De Montgolfier, Et de celles auxquelles cette découverte a donné lieu. [Et]-Première suite de la description des expériences aérostatiques de MM. De Montgolfier.
Paris, Cuchet, 1783-1784.
2 volumes 8vo [192 x 122 mm]: XL, 299, (7) pp., 9 plates and 1 folding table ; (1) l., 366 pp., (1) l. of errata and 5 plates.
Bound in contemporary marbled calf, spine ribbed and decorated, edges red. Heads and tails of spines damaged.
First edition of « the first Aerial Voyage » (P.M.M., 229).
En Français dans le texte, 175 ; Cohen 372.
« Faujas de Saint-Fond, an eminent French scientist, was at once the sponsor of the Montgolfiers and their chronicler. He set on foot a subscription to repeat an experiment conducted by them in June 1783 when ‘a cloud enclosed in a bag’, in fact a linen globe of 105 feet circumference in which the air was heated by a straw fire, made a successful ascent at Annonay. The subscribers preferred the hydrogen-filled balloon devised by Charles. This was only 13 feet in diameter and its ascent took place from the Champs de Mars in Paris in August 1783.
This feat, however, was surpassed by the Montgolfiers in September when they successfully launched a balloon carrying a sheep, a cock and a duck, and even more sensationally in November when, after some tethered experiments, Pilâtre de Rozier, accompanied by the Marquis d’Arlandes, made the first aerial voyage in history. They ascended from the Château de la Muette in the Bois de Boulogne, sustained their flight for five-and-a-half miles across Paris and descended after twenty-five minutes on the outskirts of the city.
Faujas de Saint-Fond’s ‘Description of the Aerial Machine of MM. Montgolfier’ was the earliest record of this flight, written and published in the very year of its accomplishment. It is the first serious treatise on aerostation as a practical possibility”. (PMM 229).
The illustration consists of 14 figures of aerostatic experiments, drawn by Lorimier and engraved by De Launay and Sellier.
Complete copies preserved in their uniform contemporary bindings are rare.
Provenance: G. Goury (handwritten note: “G. Goury Ing. Des P. Et Ch.” at the beginning of the volumes).
Price: € 7 500
First editions of two of Andersen’s main tales
A rare compilation that gathers together the first editions of two of Andersen’s main tales:
The Little Mermaid and The Emperor’s New Clothes.
P.M.M., n°299.
ANDERSEN, Hans Christian. Eventyr, fortalte for born.
Copenhague, Bianco & Schneider for C.A. Reitzel, 1842-1844-1837.
3 parts in 1 volume 16mo [126 x 77 mm], VIII pp. with the general title, the table and the preface (« Til de aeldre Laesere »), (2) ff., 61 pp., (1) f. of table, pp. 3 to 76 (without the half-title in this part), (1) f., 60 pp. and (1) f. Bound in red shagreen, flat spine. Some foxing.
One of the few copies of the compilation that gathers together for the first time 9 of Andersen’s most important tales.
The first pamphlet contains 4 tales in the second issue: “The Tinder box”, “Little Claus and Big Claus”, “The Princess on the Pea” and “Little Ida’s Flowers”. The second part contains the second issue of 3 tales: “Thumbelina”, “The Naughty Boy” and “The Travelling Companion”. The third part presents the first issue of 2 of the most famous tales by Andersen: “The Little Mermaid” and “The Emperor’s New Clothes”.
His first fairy tales were only issued in c. 200 copies and are increasingly rare on the market.
The collector Jean Hersholt wrote in 1954 that « no copy with all its title-pages and tables of contents has ever been offered for sale by any dealer or at any auction sale”.
« The tales of Hans Christian Andersen are unique. Unlike Perrault’s and Grimm’s, his stories were original inventions […] The “Eventyr” are fairy tales of supernatural creatures and fantastic happenings. […] Over and above their intrinsic merit Andersen’s stories signalized a new and fundamentally different approach to the writing of books for children. Mawkishness, didacticism, and moral proselytizing were totally abjured and he was the harbinger of a new era in this genre”
(Printing and the Mind of Man, n°299).
Hans Christian Andersen (1805-1875) is a Danish writer who personifies the popular Nordic genius.
This rare set contains the first printing of two of his most important tales: The Little Mermaid and The Emperor’s New Clothes.
Price: €10 000
The first edition of La Fontaine’s Fables
One of the very few copies recorded in its contemporary binding.
The Montmorency family’s copy.
LA FONTAINE. Fables choisies, mises en vers par M. de La Fontaine.
Paris, Claude Barbin, 1668. Avec Privilège du Roy.
4to [238 x 170 mm], (28) ff., 284 pp., (1) l. with the epilogue and the privilege (dated 6th of June 1667).
Bound in contemporary full marbled calf, spine ribbed and decorated.
First edition of La Fontaine’s Fables, containing 124 fables, such as: « Le Chêne et le roseau », « Le Corbeau et le renard », « La Grenouille qui veut se faire aussi grosse que le bœuf », « Le Laboureur et ses enfants », « Le Lièvre et la Tortue », « Le Loup et l’Agneau », « Le Lion et le Rat », « Le Meunier, son fils et l’ane », « La Mort et le bûcheron », « Les Deux Mulets », « L’œil du Maître », « Le Pot de terre et le pot de fer », « Le Renard et la cigogne », « Le Renard et les raisins », « Le Vieillard et ses enfants », …
Tchemerzine, III, 865-866 ; Brunet, III, p. 750 ; En Français dans le texte, n°105.
The present edition is illustrated with 118 etchings signed François Chauveau.
The present copy bears 4 particularities: 3 old handwritten corrections in the text and 1 printed paste-on.
Very rare and precious copy of the first edition of the Fables of La Fontaine, a wide-margined copy preserved in its contemporary marbled calf binding.
Provenance: from the collection of the family de Montmorency with 2 handwritten ex libris.
Price: €120 000
First edition of the Nuremberg Chronicle
First edition of the Nuremberg Chronicle
printed in July 1493, illustrated with 1809 woodcuts.
Schedel, Hartmann. Liber Chronicarum. Chronique de Nuremberg.
A la fin: “Consummatu autem duodecima mensis Iulii. Anno Salutis n’re. 1493. »
Nuremberg, 12 juillet 1493.
Large folio [452 x 305 mm], (20) preliminary leaves, 300 ff. and (5) ff. inserted between ff. 266 and 267 (without final blank). Complete with the 3 blank leaves CCLIX-CCLX-CCLXI; inner margin of the double-page map at the end of the volume reinforced.
Bound in 19th Century brown blind-stamped morocco, decorated ribbed spine.
First edition of the Nuremberg Chronicle, illustrated with 1809 woodcuts.
Fairfax Murray, II, 394 ; Hain 14508 ; Proctor 2084 ; B.M.C. II, 437; Muther 424; Schreiber 5203; Dogson, I, 228; Goff S 307; Leclerc, Bibliotheca Americana, 533.
Most European towns are engraved on double or single pages: Jerusalem, Rome, Venice, Firenze, Augsburg, Vienna, Nuremberg (345 x 520 mm), Constantinople, Strasbourg, Salzburg, Ulm, Munich, Prague, Basel, Cracow, …
These famous woodcuts were produced by Wolgemut, Albrecht Dürer’s master from 1486 to 1490.
That’s one of the most spectacular incunable evidence about Fifteenth-Century Europe.
« The Chronicle and the Schatzbehalter are the two first important books with original illustrations published at Nuremberg and with the exception of Bredenbach, the earliest books printed in Germany of which the woodcuts can be assigned with certainty to a known draughtsman ». Dogson.
A charming wide-margined copy (452 mm high), complete with the 3 blank leaves that are often missing.
Price: €75 000
The founding text of non-Euclidian geometry
Rare first edition of this founding text of non-Euclidian geometry.
PMM, 293.
LOBACHEVSKI, Nicolai Ivanovitch. Geometrische Untersuchungen zur Theorie der Parallellinien.
Berlin, G. Fincke, 1840.
8vo [188 x 113 mm], (1) title-page, 61 pp., (1) p., 2 folding plates. Some foxing. Preserved in its original green printed wrappers, lower cover renewed.
Very scarce first edition of this founding text of non-Euclidian geometry.
PMM 293; Poggendorff I, 1482; Engel 13; DSB VIII, 432 f.; Norman I, 1379.
« Gauss who had received a copy of the ‘Geometrische Untersuchungen’ from Lobachevsky, spoke to him flatteringly of the book, studied Russian especially to read his work in their original language, and supported his election to the Göttingen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften” (DSB).
« The revolution in our conception of the nature of mathematics can be traced back to the explicit formulation of the first non-Euclidian geometries early in the nineteenth century.
The researches that culminated in the discovery of non-Euclidean geometry arose from unsuccessful attempts to prove the axiom of parallels in Euclidean geometry. This postulate asserts that through any point there can be drawn one and only one straight line parallel to a given straight line. Although this statement was not regarded as self-evident and its derivation from the other axioms of geometry was repeatedly sought, no one openly challenged it as an accepted truth of the universe until Lobatchewsky published the first non-Euclidean geometry […]. In Lobatchewsky’s geometry an infinity of parallels can be drawn through a given point that never intersect a given straight line.
Nicolai Ivanovitch Lobatchewsky was born in Nizhni-Novgorod, Russia, and studied at the University of Kazan, where in 1827 he was appointed professor. His fundamental paper was read to his colleagues in Kazan in 1826 but he did not publish the results until 1829-30 when a series of five papers appeared in the Kazan University Courier, the first of which bore the title cited above, ‘The Origins of Geometry’. He amplified his findings (still in Russian) in 1836-8 under the title ‘New Elements of Geometry, with a Complete Theory of Parallels’. In 1840 he published a brief summary in Berlin under the title Geometrische Untersuchungen zur Theorie der Parallellinien”. (PMM).
The present work is the earliest obtainable book-edition presenting the new geometry.
It is illustrated with 2 folding plates of geometrical figures.
The present copy is preserved in its original green printed wrappers.
ABPC doesn’t list any copy of this work.
Part of Lobachevski’s memoir printed in 1829-1830 by the Kazan University was sold by Christie’s New York on the 29th of October 1998 for 405 000 $ (about 2 200 000 F at the time).
Price: € 35 000