1817. 12mo, pp. [ii] half-title, xxv, [i] advertisement, 191, [i] title-page ‘Descriptive Catalogue’, 59, [i] advertisement; with a couple of small text engravings; a little foxed and dust-soiled throughout, though often marginal, the ‘Descriptive catalogue a little more foxed, with prominent staining affecting lower gutter between pp. 25-48 and from p. 47 to the end of the ‘Descriptive Catalogue’ also affecting final endpaper; Uncommon first edition, and of appeal being in the original boards. ‘One of the most popular expositions of elementary chemistry of the time, which did much to bring the study of the science to the attention of the general public. The book was “written with a view, to blend chemical science with rational amusement” (preface). Five English editions appeared in quick succession: 1817, 1818 (2 eds.), 1819, and 1821, as well as translations into German (1819, 1824), Italian (1820, 1829, 1854), French (1825, 1835), and Spanish (1836). At the end is A descriptive catalogue of the apparatus & instruments employed in experimental and operative chemistry manufactured and sold by Frederick Accum (1817), comprising a detailed list of the apparatus and chemicals used at the time, complete with prices. Accum supplied apparatus to Harvard and Yale universities and even universities in India. The first edition is very scarce’ (Neville, p. 4-5).
Of the 103 experiments, a considerable number involve the properties of silver and other substances later applied to the photographic process.
Friedrich Christian Accum (1769-1838) ‘came to England in 1793 as an assistant in the firm of Brande, apothecaries to George III. By about 1800 he had his own laboratory and was soon giving lecture courses which proved popular. Accum was one of the forerunners of the developing class of professional chemists, seeing and exploiting the technological possibilities created by the rapid advance of chemical knowledge. He was active as a lecturer, author, merchant, consultant and did fundamental work on gas-lighting and food adulteration’ (Cole, p. 1). Cole notes that the first edition was sold out within two months, leading to Accum to issue the revised and expanded second edition in the following year.
Provenance: Benjamin Flounders (1768-1846) was a prominent English Quaker with business interests in key new industries and developments at the time of the mid-industrial revolution, such as The Stockton and Darlington Railway (of which he was a founding Director) and new canals in his native Northeast of England. Cole, Chemical Literature 1700-1860, p. 1 (second edition); Duveen, Bibliotheca Alchemica et Chemica, p. 2; Eder, History of Photography, p. 106; Neville, The Roy G. Neville Historical Chemical Library, Vol I. p. 4.

1866. Small folio, pp. [ii], 4 with ten engraved plates and plans (one double-page); some occasional minor marginal dust-soiling, and some light foxing; First separate edition of this attractively illustrated architectural account of the design and construction of the new anatomical Institute at the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität, Berlin, by the noted German architect Friedrich Albert Cremer (1824-1891). The engraved plates include depiction’s of some of the finer details of the building, including some of the ornate light fittings, and even the water closets, with plans of the proposed grounds also included.
Cremer, the son of the builder Johann Peter Cremer (1785-1853), studied architecture at the Berlin Academy in 1846. After some time spent in the Prussian Army as a hydraulics engineer, he returned to Berlin in 1859 and was appointed as a building Inspector. His first major architectural project, together with Carl Johann Christian Zimmermann (1831-1911), was an expansion to the Berlin debt prison to create a women’s prison. This was followed by his two most famous commissions for the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität: designing both a new Anatomical Institute building as discussed here, and under the guidance of the new director of Chemistry August Wilhelm von Hofmann, a new purpose-built chemistry laboratory, about which Cremer also published a similar account in 1868, Das neue chemische laboratorium zu Berlin.
The present account was also published in Zeitschrift für Bauwesen 16/1866 and 17/1867. OCLC locates copies at Cornell, the New York Public Library, the NLM, Glasgow, the Victoria and Albert Museum and the British Library.

[1838.]. 8vo, pp. [iv], 102; with four large folding lithograph plates; lightly foxed and browned throughout due to paper quality, with some further occasional minor soiling, minor ink staining on verso of first plate, with other three plates a little creased and with evidence of previous folds; Uncommon first edition of this detailed work, based very much on first hand experience, on the design and management of boilers, and the work of the Manchester engineer Robert Armstrong. The work bears testament, therefore, to the many technical and mechanical advances which emanated from the town, thanks to the rapid growth of the cotton industry which had transformed Manchester from being a small market town with a popular of 10,000 at the turn of the century, to becoming Britain’s second city by the 1840s, and home to nearly 400,000.
Indeed Armstrong dedicates his work to the ‘Cotton Manufacturers and other Proprietors of Steam engines, in Manchester and its vicinity, who have afforded him many opportunities of obtaining a variety of information on practical details’. This first edition is printed on rather cheap paper, the four large folding plates containing somewhat crude illustrations done reproduced from his original drawings in lithograph, a fact which Armstrong rather ruefully acknowledges in his concluding remarks, his publisher clearly having had little faith in its sale and suggesting only a limited initial print run ‘to meet a merely local sale’. Whilst he prides himself upon his boiler-making workmanship, his limited budget had not allowed him to use skilled engravers and printers, when it came to his bookmaking. An interesting commentary, perhaps, upon how lithography was considered to be a less skilled profession.
The poor design and management of boilers was frequently the Achilles heel of the steam engine, preventing their efficient and economic running. Armstrong focuses in particular upon boilers for mill engines, though there is a small section describing locomotive boilers. He deals with high and low pressure boilers, form and proportions, the capacity of the steam chamber and what happens when the boiler is too small, together with rules for alteration and improvement. There is advice on re-setting boilers in order to save fuel, methods of estimating power, the best form of fire-grate, boiler cleansing machinery and ways to get rid of scale and boiler balls, which clogged up pipes and flues, and on the cause and prevention of explosions. Various types of boiler, such as the Boulton and Watt boiler or Durham and Cornish boilers are referred to and some leading contemporary books, such as Tredgold and Pambour, are cited. A practical and thorough work. OCLC locates copies at Toronto, Michigan, the British Library and Manchester.

ca. 1947. Small photograph album, 175 x 210mm, sheet size 166 x 180mm; ff. 15 leaves of brown card, containing 73 photographs of varying sizes, most presumably taken by the compiler, one larger and more formal photograph embossed with the stamp ‘Forest Hall Observatory, Northumberland’, and with four later newspaper clippings loosely inserted at rear; with evidence of at least two further images no longer present; the majority neatly annotated in a single hand in ink; some occasional light scuffing to the card, fore-edge of a few leaves a little thumbed and rubbed; A striking personally compiled photograph album from the mid 20th century, assembled by the noted local astronomer and Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society, Frank J. Acfield (1905-1975). A large striking photograph is found on the verso of f. 4, and annotated ‘Circumpolar Star Trails by F. J. Acfield, Forest Hall Observatory’, whilst another photograph is annotated ‘F.J.A’ and shows him standing by his own telescope. A previous owner has also had the handwriting verified, by the archivist of the British Astronomical Society, as being that of Acfield.
The 73 photographs of varying sizes were taken during the late 1940s and early 1950s, and depict a number of UK and European Observatories and buildings, their astronomers (including one of Acfield himself at work), 26 images of telescopes, and 25 depicting various observations of the solar system, including images of the sun, the moon, Jupiter, ‘Comet Honda’, and auroral light. Amongst the observatories visited include Seaton, Hepple, the Royal Observatory Edinburgh, Paris, Whickham, with a number taken of, and from, Acfield’s own observatory at Forest Hall in Newcastle, which he set up at his home in 1949. Using a 10-inch reflecting telescope, Acfield undertook extensive celestial photography, and according to Harold Gooch in his ‘Appreciation’ of Acfield in the Journal of the British Astronomical Association (Vol 89, p. 504-505, 1979) ‘did much for the Jupiter Section of the BAA and also worked extensively in the fields of cometary and auroral work as well as in the patient pursuit of the minor planets. Much of his outstanding photographic work is still widely reproduced’ (Gooch, p. 504). In addition he was a tireless astronomy populariser, writing weekly newspaper columns, and giving regular lectures. In 1970 an episode of the famous ‘Sky at Night’ series, hosted by Patrick Moore, was transmitted from Forest Hall, with the programme dedicated to his work and expertise.
Acfield was born in Southampton and trained and worked in the woollen industry, moving to Newcastle upon Tyne in 1936. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1945 and later was honoured by the Société Astronomique de France.

1810. 8vo, pp. [iv], [4] ‘Annonce’ giving times and dates of the sessions of the auction; [v]–xx 338; with duty paid stamp at head of the ‘Annonce’; some light foxing and spotting, but generally clean and crisp; First and only edition of this uncommon and important catalogue intended to be used as a bibliography as well as a sale catalogue of the library of the renowned chemist Fourcroy (1755-1809), including a classification scheme and indexes of authors and anonymous titles. Over 2,700 items in Fourcroy’s library are listed, 1800 of which are on science or medicine, with many rare chemical books being listed. It is preceded by a brief biography of Fourcroy including a bibliography of his own works. The sale dates are given in the separately paginated announcement. The library was sold on consecutive days, Monday to Saturday 19 November to 22 December 1810, 29 days in all. Fourcroy’s library is interesting in its own right, but also valuable as it provides a point of comparison with the library of Lavoisier who was his near contemporary and collaborator on the Méthode de nomenclature chimique (1787) which ushered in the chemical revolution. Lavoisier’s library was about the same size, 2,500 titles including pamphlets. Of the 1,746 books (excluding pamphlets) Beretta classifies 844 as scientific and medical (another 145 are on mineralogy and mining and 91 on agriculture and husbandry). According to Peignot, the compiler of the catalogue was François Henri Stanislas de l'Aulnay (1739-1831), the author of a book published in 1786 on Pilâtre de Rozier's antimephitic respirator, upon which he improved. Michael North, Printed Catalogues of French Book Auctions and Sales by Private Treaty 1643–1830 in the Library of the Grolier Club (2004), 496; Neville I, p. 465; Peignot, Répertoire bibliographique universel, p. 99; Smeaton, Fourcroy, Chemist and Revolutionary 1755–1809, p. 212.

1927. 8vo, pp. 469-480; with five text illustrations and halftones; paper a little soiled and browned; Offprint of this the second of two important papers by the Austrian/US physicist Marietta Blau (1894-1970), published during her time as an unpaid researcher at the Institute of Radium Research, Vienna (1923-1938), outlining her pioneering work on the development of the photographic method of detecting and observing nuclear particles and reactions, a method which was to play a prominent role in nuclear physics in the following decades. Considered extraordinarily gifted by Albert Einstein, Blau was nominated three times for the Nobel prize in physics, twice by Erwin Schrodinger. ‘Blau began to explore the possibility of finding protons and smashed atoms using photographic emulsions. Finally, in 1925, she succeeded in detecting the fragments of atoms hit by alpha particles, [Über die photographische Wirkung natürlicher H-Strahlen] including the thinner, harder-to-find tracks of protons. These experiments were followed in 1926 and 1927 by a series of experiments in which Blau bombarded aluminium with alpha particles in order to measure the nuclear fragments that would emerge. Unfortunately, with a week radioactive source (the only kind available to her), she had to settle for the very lowest energy particles. It was clear that is she was going to make fast protons visible (as opposed to the much more heavily ionizing nuclear fragments or slow-moving protons), she would have to improve both the emulsion and the development process that would bring out the narrow tracks’ (Galison, Image and Logic: A Material Culture of Microphysics, p. 150).
Blau received her Ph.D. in 1919 with a thesis on ray physics and the absorption of gamma rays. Following her doctorate she moved to Berlin in 1921, taking a position with a company that manufactured X-ray tubes. This was followed by a position at the Institute for Medical Physics at the University of Frankfurt where she worked and published papers on X-ray physics. ‘Blau’s sex and her Jewish background impeded her professional advancement in Austria... When the Nazis annexed Austria in 1938, Blau, who was out of the country at the time, did not return. She worked briefly in Oslo at the invitation of her friend Ellen Gleditsch, then relocated to Mexico City. In 1944 Blau moved to New York, where she worked on radioactivity and took out several patents. She then did research at Columbia University and at Brookhaven National Laboratory. Afterward she took a position at the University of Miami’. Due to the brevity of her employment in the United States, Blau’s retirement income was very low. In order to economize on expenses, she returned to Austria for an eye operation. Poor health caused in part by radiation exposure prevented her from returning to the United States, and she died impoverished in Vienna’ (Ogilvie I, 143). Grolier Club, ‘Extraordinary Women’ pp. 57-60; Ogilvie I, p. 143; see Strohmaier and Rosner, ‘Marietta Blau, Stars of Disintegration: Biography of a Pioneer of Particle Physics’ 2006.

1910. Chromolithograph trade card, 126 x 96mm, printed on both sides, verso a little browned, with small tear at tail touching a couple of letters. A striking trade card celebrating ‘Wampole’s Preparation’, and notably its receipt of a Gold Medal at the International Health Exhibition of 1910, held in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
This tonic, containing extracts of cod livers, malt, calcium and wild cherry, was created in the 1880s by Henry K Wampole in Philadelphia. It found a ready market with doctors, providing as it did a way of administering cod liver oil in a more palatable form, having masked both the taste and odour of the oil. The company soon expanded with a large and well equipped second laboratory opened in Ontario in 1905. As the present striking card attests, it clearly found an International market. Seemingly not in Atwater.

1892. Small 8vo, pp. [vi], 44; with 7 full-page half tone plates, and further illustrations within the text, together with head- and tailpieces; some occasional light marginal soiling and foxing; with library label on front paste down, and library deaccession stamp on front free endpaper, and a number of smaller though quite discreet stamps throughout; An attractively printed account by Robert Boyle the younger, the noted Glasgow sanitary engineer and inventor and adept self-promoter, recounting his experiences during his ‘fourth crusade’ around the world, studying sanitary science and promoting sanitary reform through his own inventions.
Robert Boyle Senior (c. 1820-1878) was a practical religious philanthropist, who established charitable bakeries for Glasgow's poor, and delivered earnest, illustrated 'missionary lectures'. He opened an industrial museum promoting temperance but it failed in 1857. In 1866 he successfully demonstrated 'safe' high-explosives. Robert Boyle Junior (1850–1930) went into business with his father, and from 1870 onwards, to counter 'foul air' and harmful gaslight vapours, they developed their 'patent self-acting air-pump' roof and ship ventilators. These eliminated 'down-draught' and utilised natural air currents. They solicited testimonials from eminent scientists such as Lord Kelvin and Sir Joseph Lister, and from noted architects which adorned their full-page adverts. They won multiple prizes at international sanitary exhibitions (e.g. 1881, 1884, Paris 1900), and prominent clients included Caius College, Cambridge and St Paul's Cathedral and the Royal Society's Burlington House in London.
From their London offices at 64 Holborn Viaduct, Boyle Junior began his world-wide 'sanitary crusades' in which he would preach a doctrine of health through the breathing of pure air. Reports on Boyle's travels appeared in the Building News during the early 1890s. The present work is an account of his fourth such venture, visiting Burma, the Malay Peninsula, Sumatra, Siam, Borneo, Java, Australia, New Zealand, Samoa and the Sandwich Islands. He is particularly struck by the sight of the lepers at the Shway Dagohn Pagoda in Burma, who lined the steps from top to bottom, and all “suffering from that loathsome disease in its worst forms and most advanced stages” (p. 6). He observes further terrible cases in Mandalay and in the Sandwich Islands, Boyle believing it to be one of the greatest scourges of the day, and seemingly little tackled by the medical authorities. ‘Mr Boyle has a theory that the practice of cannibalism has had in the past much to do with the propagation of this terrible scourge, the disease being spread wholesale through the eating of infected bodies’ (p. 43). He also witnesses cholera and smallpox in Bangkok, discusses the water supply in Rangoon, sanitation in Sydney and Melbourne, public buildings in Adelaide, house drainage in Christchurch, and discusses the recent revolution in Honolulu. An account of this trip appeared in Nature 47, 105-106 (01 December 1892).
By the beginning of the 20th century Boyle had amassed a large fortune and in 1902 he donated £100,000 towards hygiene education in schools in 1902. When he died over £169,000 of his estate was bequeathed to charity.

1871. Small folio, pp. vi, [2], 28; with six partially hand-coloured lithograph plates; some foxing throughout, more prominent in early leaves, with some staining and foxing to plates; Uncommon first edition of this finely illustrated anatomical treatise on the femoral vein, by the noted German anatomist Wilhelm Braune (1831–1892), published just a year before his groundbreaking and iconic ‘Topographische-anatomischer Atlas’ (1872), famous for its use of frozen sections.
Braune studied at the universities of Göttingen and Würzburg, and in 1872, became professor of topographical anatomy at the University of Leipzig. His works are renowned for his excellent use of lithography to depict the anatomy of the human body, of which this is a striking and early example. A second edition was published in 1873, together with a companion volume ‘Die Venen der menschlichen Hand’, and which are sometimes found together. These preliminary works and studies eventually culminated in his publication of ‘Das venensystem des menschlichen körpers’ (1884-1889), and which GM remarks was also ‘notable for its excellent illustrations’. OCLC locates copies at Cambridge, Edinburgh, the Royal College of Surgeons, Chicago, Michigan, Columbia, NYAM and Cleveland.

1779. Single engraved sheet, sheet size 300 x 640mm, image size 285 x 625mm; hand-coloured; evidence of three previous vertical folds, with small hole in centre of left fold with minor loss, some light surface wear, paper a little browned and foxed, with neat repair along lower margin; very good. A rare hand-coloured engraving showing the side elevation and top view plan of an attractive six arch self-supporting stone bridge, and the design of the noted Montpellier architect Jean-Antoine Giral (1713-1787). According to the running headline the bridge ‘a été exécuté à Montpellier, en pierre de taille sur l’Echelle d’un pied par toise; c’est a dire, le sixieme du Grand, au quel on a done trente pouces de largeur. Representant quinze pieds en grand pour la moité de trente pieds de largeur d’une cette a l’autre il est entre pour les six arches sans les culées, 1000 pieds cubes de pierre de taille, pezant 2000 quintaux, qui sont soutenus sans aucune pille ni pillier sur lequel pont on roule des brouettes remplies de boulets de canon pesant douze à quinze quintaux sans que les arches reçoivent le plus petit mouvement, présentant au contraire, la plus grand solidité, depuis environ une année, que ce pont est construit’. The attractive engraving is signed by Giral and dated August 24th 1779.
Despite our best efforts, we have been unable to identify the bridge, or to ascertain for certain whether it was ever constructed, or whether this is merely a proposal for future discussion - which seems more likely.
We have found no other mention of this engraving. Giral, from a distinguished family of architects, was named state architect for Languedoc and he was entrusted with the design of a number of municipal and public edifices, most notably the water fountain at Peyrou, and the Royal Promenade which linked the water tower to the Montpellier Aquaduct. He was also responsible for the design of the new Pont sur la Mosson at Villeneuve-lès-Maguelone, built to replace one destroyed by a severe flood, and completed in 1766. The present engraving certainly bears some resemblance to that bridge, and as a number of other bridges in the area had been damaged during flooding, it seems likely that he had been called upon for new proposals.

1911. Large folio broadside, 615 x 505mm, pictorial chromolithograph surround and red letterpress, surrounded by gilt border, with larger 95mm tear at tail just touching gilt border, and with further small nicks and tears along upper and right margin; A most attractively printed certificate of merit, evoking images of a bygone era pre WWI when traditional rural skills still held sway. Presented to Elea Adine Hare, this large certificate of merit recognises her ‘Proficiency in the Theory and Practice of Cheddar Cheesemaking’, and was awarded in 1911 after examination. Printed in red letterpress, the text is surrounded by a series of appealing vignettes in lithograph depicting various scenes of farming life.
According a family genealogy found online, Elea Adine Hare (1894-1926) was born in 1894 in Saffron Walden, Essex. The tranquil life that she enjoyed as evoked by the certificate was soon to be altered dramatically, as she subsequently served as a Red Cross nurse during WWI. After the war she was employed by the Essex County Council as a milk recorder, but was fatally injured in some sort of accident near a street corner, probably after being struck by a car. She subsequently died on Aug. 14, 1926 at the hospital in Saffron Walden.

1754.]. 8vo, pp. [ii], 5-138, with engraved title-page vignette; pp. 7, [1]; aside from some light spotting and foxing, clean and bright; abridgement loosely inserted, with some dust-soiling and light wear along fore-edge; Separate edition, issued with a general title the year after it had received Royal Assent, of the act which saw the inception of the British Museum, the ‘Act for the purchase of the Museum, or collection of Sir Hans Sloane, and of the Harleian collection of manuscripts; and for providing one general repository for the better reception and more convenient use of the said collections; and of the Cottonian Library, and of the additions thereto’ (p. 5 and known formerly as Public General Act 1753 26. Geo. II. c.22).
Sir Hans Sloane died on January 11th 1753, aged 83, leaving behind a magnificent collection consisting of around 71000 objects, including 50,000 printed books and manuscripts, natural history specimens including 337 volumes of dried plants, coins and medals, prints and drawings, and antiquities, acquired from around the globe. Like many of the great collections and cabinets of curiosities of the time, Sloane had used developing global networks created by European imperial expansion to collect these materials, some of his income partly derived from Jamaican sugar plantations and enslaved labour. His will had placed the collection in the care of several trustees who were entrusted to ensure that his wishes that it be bequeathed to the nation were achieved. They were instructed to approach king or parliament with an offer for the collection in return for the payment of £20,000 - not the full value of the collection which was nearer 80,000 - to be paid to his executors for his daughters. Further, it was his wish that they secure an act of Parliament to vest the collection in their care, with all necessary property, powers, and money to ensure its preservation and accessibility by creating a new and freely accessible public museum to house it. So confident was Sloane over the collection’s scientific and educational value, that should this offer be declined it was to be offered in turn to four academies - St. Petersburg, Paris, Berlin, and Madrid - where Sloane held honorary memberships. Should this fail, the collection was not to revert to the daughters, but rather was to be sold at auction, with his heirs receiving the cash.
As chair of the executors, the Earl of Macclesfield presented a petition to King George II to purchase the legacy, but being famously uninterested in championing either the arts or sciences, he dismissed it as being too expensive. This rebuff led the executors to approached parliament, and whilst some did not fully embrace the idea of purchasing a museum, others, notably Henry Pelham, recognised that such a valuable bequest should not slip through its hands. After deliberation, parliament took the opportunity to combine Sloane’s museum with the great Cottonian and Harleian libraries, to create a larger institution than originally envisaged. The Act set in place the rules of governance for the museum, with a new body of forty-two Trustees appointed, and which included holders from some of the greatest offices in church and state. The Act was passed and given Royal Assent on June 7th 1753, the collections thus becoming the foundation not only of the British Museum, but subsequently of the Natural History Museum and the British Library.
The King having refused to pay the £20,000, the Act provided for the establishment of a national lottery to raise £300,000 to build the museum. It proved to be a scandalously run affair, with virtually all of the tickets sold before they were put on offer to the public. The market was covered especially by a rich financier, Sampson Gideon, and also by one of the four receivers of the lottery money, Peter Leherpe. They managed to sell the tickets in large chunks before the lottery opened. The Act had specified that no one person should have more than 20 tickets. Leherpe, however, allowed people to submit a list of fictitious names so that they could buy many more. After two days, the British Museum lottery tickets were said to be selling for a premium of 16 shillings, with various financiers reselling them at a profit. Gideon himself had more than 5,000 tickets. When he died he left an estate worth more than half a million pounds, and during his lifetime was so rich that he bankrolled the Government. The identity of the eventual lottery winner is not known, but the winning ticket number was 46885. The British Museum, after the payment of expenses, received £95,194 8s 2d, some of which went towards buying Montague House, the house on the present site into which the various collections were sent. It was eventually opened as a museum on January 15th 1759. ESTC; T116418; for further discussions on Hans Sloane and the formation of the British Museum see James Delbourgo, Collecting the World: Hans Sloane and the Origins of the British Museum (2017); Marjorie Caygill, The Story of the British Museum (2009); and David M. Wilson, The British Museum: A History (2002).

1847. 4to, pp. xxix, [i] blank, 268, with smaller 8vo four page publisher’s catalogue tipped in; with numerous diagrams, symbols and letters printed in four colours (red, blue, yellow and black), wood engraved initials and decorations, printed in Caslon using long s’s on wove paper; as usual, foxed and marginally browned throughout with some offsetting, foxing quite prominent in places; upper edge untrimmed, with a couple of very small nicks in places; First edition of this renowned and remarkable Victorian four-colour printed book, the innovative conception of the mathematician, educator, civil engineer, and Her Majesty’s surveyor of the Falkland Islands, Oliver Byrne (1810-1880). The familiar Euclidian diagrams are transformed into Mondrian-like designs and the text is littered with little coloured symbols representing angles, lines and points. Byrne hoped that by replacing the identifying letters with colour coded symbols he could simplify Euclid and make the theorems stick in the memory more readily. Ruari McLean, in Victorian Book Design, calls it ‘one of the oddest and most beautiful books of the whole century... a decided complication of Euclid, but a triumph for Charles Whittingham’. It was one of a very small number of British books displayed at the Great Exhibition of 1851 - no surprise perhaps, since Whittingham was on one of the Juries of the exhibition.
Each proposition is set in black Caslon italic, with a beautifully engraved four-line initial vignette: ‘the rest of the page is a unique riot of red, yellow and blue: on some pages letters and numbers only are printed in colour, sprinkled over the pages lke tiny wild flowers, demanding the most meticulous register: elsewhere, solid squares, triangles and circles are printed in gaudy and theatrical colours, attaining a verve not seen again on book pages till the days of Dufy, Matisse and Derain’ (McLean). This innovative graphic design and style ‘anticipates the pure primary colors, asymmetrical layout, angularity, lightness of plentiful empty space, and non-representational (abstract, “denaturalized”) shapes characteristic of 20th-century Neo-Plasticism and De Stijl painting’ (Tufte), so typified by Piet Mondrian and later Bauhaus.
The work was published by William Pickering and printed by Chiswick Press, who as McLean notes, was at the time ‘the foremost name in Victorian book design’, and ‘synonymous with good typography and printing’. Chiswick Press was operated at that time by Charles Whittingham, nephew its founder, and Pickering and Whittingham collaborated in a number of innovative publications around that time. The initial letters for this edition were made by Mary Byfield, noted for her ornamental wood-blocks in particular, and who worked regularly at wood-engraving for the firm, together with Whittingham’s daughters Charlotte and Elizabeth. Extremely difficult and expensive to produce, requiring exact registration of the pages in order to print each colour, the typeface, and the vignettes, only 1000 copies were originally published. Seen at the time as something of a curiosity, the book was sold for an extravagant price, placing it out of reach of the very audience whom Byrne hoped to reach. Consequently, it did not sell well, and led to financial hardship for the Chiswick Press. Whether or not Byrne’s efforts complicate or simplify Euclid has long been a point for some debate amongst mathematicians. What is unquestioned, however, is that Byrne’s depiction of Pythagoras is a classic, rightly feted as one of the most innovative and visually stunning renderings of Euclidean geometry ever produced and a landmark of Victorian colour printing. Keynes, Pickering, p. 37 & 65; McLean, Victorian Book Design, p. 70; Tufte, Envisioning Information, pp. 84-87; see the Mathematical Association of America website for Susan Hawes and Sid Kolpas’ biography of Oliver Byrne, https://www.maa.org/press/periodicals/convergence/oliver-byrne-the-matisse-of-mathematics-biography-1810-1829; see Julie L. Mellby’s online article ‘Euclid in Color’ https://www.princeton.edu/~graphicarts/2008/05/euclid_in_color.html.

1804. 4to, pp. [ii] title-page, 135, [1] blank; with four folding copper engraved plates; aside from some minor spotting and soiling, clean and fresh, printed on thick paper; First edition, and most attractively printed, of this collection of memoirs presented before the Paduan Academy, by the noted anatomist Leopoldo Marco Antonio Caldani (1725-1813). Caldani succeeded Morgagni in the chair of anatomy at Padua, where he was already professor of theoretical medicine. Best remembered for the monumental Icones Anatomicae (1801-1814) published in conjunction with his nephew Florian Caldani (1772-1836), Caldani was the author of a number of works on anatomy and pathology, and announced several anatomical discoveries in various academic publications. The present collection includes seven memoirs on a variety of topics: a comparative examination of the structure of human and bovine bones (19 Marzo 1795); on the composition of the teeth (9 Febbraro 1797); some special remarks on the lymphatics and veins of the mesentery (23 Aprile 1789); research on the causes of the force and duration of the constant motion of the heart and the extreme susceptibility of its internal walls (28 Febbraro 1799); a singularly monstrous foetus (2 Marzo 1787, and accompanied by a striking plate); and a dissertation on a child with missing arms (2 June 1796, and also accompanied by an engraving); and finally a memoir on respiration.

1765. Two works in one volume, first work in two parts, small folio; pp. [x], 10, 152, 151-8, [159] part title dated 1761, [160] blank, [161]-200, with attractive woodcut head- and tail-pieces and initials, with one half page copper engraving on p. 163, and 20 copper engraved plates (of which four folding, plate XII particularly large): pp. [iv], 316, with woodcut headpieces, and with 28 copper engraved plates (of which three folding, plate IV another large and striking image); pp. [x], vi, 254, [2] errata and blank, with attractive woodcut head- and tail-pieces and initials; paper a little browned throughout due to quality, with some occasional faint marginal dampstaining, with some slightly more prominent staining in a couple of places in part II of the Acta at pp. 120-124 and p. 141-3, small stamped monograph of ‘G.D.’ on verso of both main title-pages, and some occasional neat pencil annotations and ink corrections in text; overall clean and crisp; First editions of two classic late eighteenth century works on mining technology and the history of mining in Germany, attractively illustrated with a number of detailed copper engravings, the work of Hans Calvör (1686-1766), a teacher at Clausthal and pastor at Altenau.
The ‘Acta historico-chronologico-mechanica’ is one of the most impressive and important German works on mining technology of the 18th century. “A valuable record of mining machinery and mining operations, as practised in Germany during the middle of the XVIIIth century. It was intended as a supplement to Schlüter’s Gründlicher Unterricht von Hüttenwerken” (Sotheran 1st supplement 6384). The attractive plates depict machinery, tunnels, and metallurgical apparatus. It is here bound together with Calvör’s invaluable historical companion volume, and which prints for the first and only time much original material which is now lost concerning the most important mining area of Germany. Mining had been carried on in the Harz mountains since the middle of the 10th century and Clausthal and St Andreasberg in the Upper Harz were the chief centres, and were sources of a number of metals and minerals including silver, lead, gold, copper, iron, sulphur, alum, and arsenic. The two works thus provide an important and invaluable insight late eighteenth century mining practices. Ferchl p. 82; Poggendorff I, 364; Roller/Goodman I, 196; OCLC locates copies Yale, Harvard, the Library of Congress, Columbia, Linda Hall, Lehigh, Oklahoma, Chicago, Stanford, Manchester, Cambridge and the British Library.

1860. 8vo, pp, [8], with eight woodcut illustrations, four of which have been crudely hand-coloured, and with running alphabet at the head of six pages; generally clean and crisp; An appealing and scarce chapbook, reprinting the popular tale of Jenny Wren, and issued by the noted firm of W.S. Fortey. The McGill copy has the same illustrations hand-coloured in the same style.
During the 19th century the printing industry became much more technologically advanced, resulting in a major increase in the speed and output per printing press, and a consequent reduction in the cost of printing. Literacy had greatly improved through all sections of society, and the demand for cheap newspapers, journals and novels was unparalleled at any point in British history. Printers such as WS Fortey embraced new technology such as steam printing, and were very active as the printers of cheap chapbooks, posters, leaflets and trade cards. OCLC locates copies at McGill, Pittsburgh, Cambridge and Monash, with further digitalised copies located.

1930. Small 8vo, pp. 255, [1] advertisement, and with map on verso of front free endpaper, and further advertisement on recto of final free endpaper; paper a little browned due to paper quality; A comprehensive price list of ‘special preparations, and a general run of chemicals and drugs, in consecutive order’, and issued by the famous London pharmaceutical firm of William Martindale.
The company was best remembered for its extensive compendium of pharmacy, ‘The Extra Pharmacopoeia’ first published in 1883, and by the 1930 had reached its 19th edition, as promoted on the final leaf of the present trade list.
William Martindale (1840-1902) began trading in 1873, the business being situated in New Cavendish Street, and trading as W. Martindale. In the 1890s William's son, William Harrison Martindale (1874-1932) assumed control of his father's firm and expanded the manufacturing side of the business. 1928 he rebuilt the New Cavendish Street premises and erected a factory in Chenies Mews behind University College Hospital. The business, W. Martindale, was acquired by Savory & Moore Ltd in 1933, following which the retail operation at New Cavendish Street continued to trade as W. Martindale until the mid-1970s. See http://www.histpharm.org/40ishpBerlin/P51P.pdf.

1813. Two single manuscript letters on watermarked paper, neatly written in brown ink in two separate hands, and with further additional signatures; paper little browned and dust-soiled, with some minor ink spotting, and each sheet with two or three small paper flaws. Two nice early 19th century documents relating to chimney sweeping. The first, dated Purfleet June 16th, 1813, is a copy of a report by John Davies and addressed to Captain Godfrey Esq, Storekeeper. ‘Gentlemen, You will give directions for the chimney shaft attached to Taylors shed to be enlarged as there is a check by the roof so as to prevent the Boy or a wiff of straw to go up or down which was the occasion the chimney being on fire’. The accompanying letter of instruction dated ‘Office of Ordnance, Purfleet 21st June 1813’, is addressed to Major Birch ‘Coms. Rl. Engineer’. ‘Sir, We beg to transmit to you the enclosed copy of a report made to us by John Davies employed to Sweep the Ordnance Chimnies at this place, and as the chimney of the shed therein mentioned has been on fire twice, we have to request that you will be pleased to give directions for the same to be enlarged as as to admit of its being properly swept’. This has been signed by John Godfrey, Sam[uel] Prynn and Francis Pallatte. Prynn was Clerk of the Survey, and Pellate Clerk of the Cheque. As one of the gunpowder magazines of the Office of Ordnance, the prevention of fire at Purfleet must surely have been a matter of some urgency!

1903. 8vo, 251, [1]; with seventeen halftone photographs (all but four full page) and two maps; very small rust mark at gutter of title-page, with some light soiling and marginal browning; First edition of this fervent account by Mary E. Darley, ‘A Missionary in China of the Church of England Zenana Missionary Society’ in which she reports on the activities and work of the mission, to lead souls ‘out of utter darkness into “His Marvellous Light”. Whilst inevitably focused upon the religious purpose of her stay in China, her account provides an insight into the role that women played in early 20th century missionary work, and in particular her work with local Chinese women and children, and the missions social and welfare work with lepers and the blind.