Featured on Instagram

A fabulous and very rare portfolio of fifteen pochoir prints of plants and animals in the Art Nouveau style. WorldCat locates a single institutional set, at the Wissenschaftliche Stadtbibliothek in Mainz, and only one appears in auction records, at Hauff and Auvermann in 2011.

The remarkable plates in this portfolio are described in the title as “sample sheets” for nature drawing and painting, presumably for designers, though they would certainly have been useful to students and amateurs. Of particular interest are the subjects depicted. While the usual ornamental plants, fruit, butterflies, and beetles are present, Godron has chosen to depict animals that are less traditionally decorative: a hoopoe, woodpecker, salamander, crayfish, and some decidedly un-ornamental fish. Most of the plates sport multiple designs, sometimes as a vignette including several species and in other cases as specimen sheets. One plate, for instance, offers the salamander, crayfish, and tree frog each repeated in different presentations. There is also a plate of mock-up commercial designs featuring animals: a bird on a cherry branch for kirsch and a pelican by spilled paint for “Pelikan Farben”, which supports the idea that this portfolio was intended for graphic designers or design students. A few plates feature a single image; among the most striking being a large and brooding magpie.

There is little documentation of this portfolio or its creator in the historical record. It is cited in R. Fischer’s 1907 book on art pedagogy, Erziehung und naturgefühl ein beitrag zur kunsterziehung, and also the 1992 bibliography Illustration und Illustratoren des Kinder- und Jugendbuchs im Deutschsprachigen Raum 1871-1914, by Hans Ries and Theodor Brüggemann. One reference source, Die Entwicklung des Vegetabilen Ornaments in Deutschland vor dem Jugendstil, published in 1988 by Sabine Thümmler, simply states “life details uknown” for Godron. Some contemporary sources in Google Books, however, may indicate that he was an art professor. This is certainly supported by his four publications, two of which were designed for teaching or beginners: Modern-Stilisierte Blumen und Ornamente: Zwanzig Tafeln nach der Natur (Flowers and Ornaments in the Modern Style: Twenty Plates from Nature); Mal- und Zeichenbuch für die Jugend (Colouring and Drawing Book for Young People); Farbige Flachornamente: Dreissig Vorlageblätter für den Anfangsunterricht (Colored Flat Ornaments: Thirty Template Sheets for the Beginner Class); and Neuzeitliche Vorlagen für das Linearzeichnen (Modern Templates for Linear Drawing).

An elegant and substantial 114-page “schatkamer” educational manuscript produced by a student of navigation in Georgian England.

As historian Margarette E. Schotte explains in Sailing School: Navigating Science and Skill 1550-1800 (2019), between the 16th and 18th centuries northern European navigation developed from a craft learned by practice aboard ship to a profession taught in specialised schools. Central to this pedagogy was the creation of “manuscript ‘treasure chests’ (schatkamers) – in which members of the maritime community puzzled through lessons related to their profession” (Schotte, p. 9).

As is typical for schatkamers, the present manuscript comprises both notes and practice problems, and combines traditional nautical knowledge with trigonometry. It opens with the compass rose, “perhaps the most fundamental of all navigational devices. One early seventeenth-century English maritime writer likened the ability to recite the thirty-two points to mastering the rudiments of alphabet... Mariners used this framework not only to orient themselves geographically – with the help of a simple magnetic compass and the stars – but also as a type of notional clock, to keep track of tides in various ports” (Schotte, p. 31). Another set of traditional skills was determining tides. The required pieces of information were the Golden Number, the epact, the Sunday letter, and the Moon’s age in the current month, which could be determined by calculations on the knuckles and then combined with times from local tide tables for the final result. Explanations of the method and calculations for determining all these numbers, as well as the Moon’s “southing” or angle above the horizon, are recorded here.

Much of the manuscript addresses different techniques for reckoning, including notes, practice problems, and diagrams. Eleven pages are on plane sailing, a simplified form of trigonometric reckoning used over small ranges of latitude and longitude; fourteen cover middle latitude sailing, a method of determining departure by assuming that a course is steered at the middle latitude; and eleven are on Mercator sailing, which utilises a Mercator projection to solve navigational problems. Oblique sailing, in which a course oblique to the meridian is charted, and current sailing, the technique of predicting the current’s effect on a vessel’s course, also make appearances.

Of particular interest are the five pages on traverse sailing, including two completed traverse course diagrams with charming illustrations of ships. As Schotte explains, these diagrams were not generally used aboard ship, but in the classroom they helped students develop the skill of precisely tracking a ship’s location. “Once a day, at least, the navigator added up the numerous legs from the preceding twenty-four hours to determine a vessel’s current position. Navigators were accustomed to tracking their progress on traverse boards, but these pegboards could document only the barest essentials of the course. As expectations increased about the accuracy of the day’s records, sailors were taught how to record their motion in geometric terms and then to analyze the resultant shapes with trigonometry. Textbook authors devoted whole chapters to the ‘traverse course’, explaining the fairly straightforward process of converting a day’s travel into a form compatible with a tabular logbook. Instructors walked students through the construction of a right-angled triangle that represented the ‘difference of latitude’ and ‘course’ for a single trajectory and then demonstrated how to add together multiple triangles’... Teachers believed in the pedagogical value of drawing such courses and included set examples in their teaching. Although publishers chose to conserve paper rather than print these sprawling diagrams, students frequently produced them in class” and “regularly pushed beyond the printed text. When it came to traverse courses, teachers took opportunities to make exercises more interesting and memorable” by using both real and fanciful place names and designing courses in “witty shapes” like hearts, anchors, spirals, and fortifications (Schotte, pp. 127-129). In this manuscript, one of the traverse charts includes a delightful drawing of a three-masted sailing ship, remarkably detailed for its diminutive size.

As important as these mathematical techniques was the navigator’s ability to keep accurate records and to correct dead reckoning while at sea, to which twenty pages of the manuscript are devoted. These lessons culminate in a remarkable 17-page exercise charting in detail a ship’s progress from London to Madeira, based on a sailing of the Nancy, commanded by “A. B.” with the log kept by the mate T. Weir. The exercise includes elaborate calculations as well as notes on the weather and astronomical information. A second exercise, based on the sailing of the Frances of London, commanded by William Johnson, from London to Madeira and Tenerife was begun but seems to have been left incomplete. There are also sixteen pages on surveying coast and harbours, including two carefully drawn charts of fictional coasts. Finally, the manuscript ends with a short chapter on the curvature of the earth and its effect on one’s view of objects at a distance.

Schatkamers like this one could have a long life, and might be returned to for reference, or plumbed for practice questions when the mariner needed to take tests to advance in their career. Today they are an important and under-utilised historical source on the ways that individuals learned their craft, as well as how the teaching and practice of navigation adapted to the new realities of long-distance voyages (Schotte). This is a superb example, comprehensive, complete, and neatly written, with great care taken in preparing the charts and drawings.

First English language edition of this important and copiously illustrated account of the major Polish-Mongolian Palaeontological Expeditions by their leader, Zofia Kielan-Jaworowska (1925-2015). Originally published in Polish under the title Polowanie na Dinozaury, and translated by the Israel Translation Society.

As a teenager in occupied Poland, Kielan-Jaworowska enrolled in clandestine classes at the University of Warsaw and served as a medic in the Polish resistance. In 1945 she began volunteering at Warsaw’s Zoological Museum where she met leading vertebrate palaeontologist Roman Kozłowski, who supervised her master’s and doctoral research on the fossils of marine invertebrates.

The Polish-Mongolian expeditions, three of which Kielan-Jaworowska led between 1963 and 1971, resulted in the excavation of thirty-five tons of fossils. They “added greatly to our understanding of the diversity of dinosaurs. The material collected in those few years provided material for major portions of the careers of five or six Polish scientists” and “the scientific descriptions of dinosaurs that soon began to flow from the expeditions were almost exclusively written by Polish women, women who up to then had published on Paleozoic invertebrates” (Dodson, ”Polish Women in the Gobi – In Loving Memory of Halszka Osmólska”, American Paleontologist, Vol. 16, No. 3, Fall 2008).

Among the “spectacular discoveries” were “Late Cretaceous vertebrates (about 80 million to 75 million years old) in the Nemegt Basin, including the 'fighting dinosaurs' (a kick-boxing Velociraptor locked in a death pose with a plant-eating Protoceratops), the awesome forelimbs of Deinocheirus (an ostrich dinosaur) and the mammal specimens she would go on to study. Nothing stood between Kielan-Jaworowska and her work: in 1971, having suffered a ruptured eardrum during a Gobi sandstorm, she travelled back to Warsaw for surgery, and then returned immediately to resume field work. As fossils from the expeditions came pouring in, she navigated cold-war roadblocks to establish ties with leading Western scholars, notably those in Britain, France and the United States, anticipating political glasnost (openness) by a good two decades. She built a science network from her hub in Warsaw, with spokes running to research programmes worldwide. For a discipline built mainly on the study of fossil teeth and jaw fragments, Kielan-Jaworowska's discoveries were a game-changer. Because of their stunning completeness, the species she painstakingly collected and described have become points of reference in the study of early mammals” (Cifelli, “Zofia Kielan-Jaworowska (1925-2015)”, Nature volume 520, number 158, 2015).

Hunting for Dinosaurs is a detailed account of the expeditions, from preparation to travel, the day-to-day work of the palaeontologists, and their interactions with locals. It is particularly well illustrated, with numerous photos of the excavations in progress, landscapes, team members, and Mongolian people and historic sites.

First English language edition, first impression of this vibrantly illustrated work, originally published in Prague under the title Tiere der Urzeit in the same year. Rare in the dust jacket in such nice condition.

Between the 1930s and 1960s “the foremost painter of dinosaur restorations was Zdeněk Burian (1905-1981). His canvasses were used to illustrate a number of popular books on prehistoric life by Joseph Augusta, and in the late 1950s and 1960s these were translated into English and widely circulated. So the Burian illustrations offered an alternative to those of Zallinger [responsible for the Peabody Museum mural], or of the late Charles Knight. But there was not much of a difference. Apatosaurus and Diplodocus stand quietly by their respective swamps, accompanied by partially submerged relatives. A T. rex besets a pair of Trachodon, but none of the three lifts a leg off the ground, or even seems to be moving at all” (Ashworth, Paper Dinosaurs 48). Though his dinosaurs are no longer considered anatomically accurate, Burian was highly respected in his time and his paintings were widely reproduced and copied, often without acknowledgement. In 2017 the first dinosaur discovered in the Czech Republic was named in his and Augusta’s honour, Burianosaurus augustai.

The author of the text, Joseph Augusta (1903-1968) was a palaeontologist at Charles University in Prague between 1933 and 1968, and is best known for his role as a science populariser. He published around twenty books on science for the general public and served as an advisor to the hit 1955 film Journey to the Beginning of Time (Cesta do Pravěku), which combined human actors with stop-motion special effects.

The translator of the book, Greta Hort (1903-1967), was born in Copenhagen, the daughter of Vilhelm Hjort, astronomer royal. She earned her PhD at Newnham College, Cambridge and then became a research fellow at Girton College, publishing on mysticism and religious thought. In 1938 Hort was appointed principal of University Women's College (later University College) at the University of Melbourne. She was later made chair of English literature at Aarhus University, Denmark (Australian Dictionary of Biography).

First edition of the memoirs of the first Englishwoman to fly. Presentation copy inscribed by the author on the front free endpaper, “With the compliments of the author, Gertrude Foggitt, June 18 1930”.

Gertrude Bacon (1874-1949) was the daughter of the scientist and balloonist Rev. John Maczenzie Bacon, and accompanied him on most of his expeditions. "Bacon became fascinated by flying and as a journalist reported on the various airships and planes being built." In August 1904 she became the first woman to fly in an airship, being a passenger in the near-disastrous first flight of an 84-foot-long ship designed by Stanley Spencer. "From 22 to 29 August, 1909, the world's first aviation meeting was held at Rheims, France. Bacon was determined to go for a ride in one of the new machines. On the last day she was taken up in a Farman plane, squeezed between the radiator and the pilot. She described the takeoff: 'The motion was wonderfully smooth - smoother yet - and then - ! Suddenly there had come into it a new indescribable quality - a lift - a lightness - a life!' Thus she became the first Englishwoman to fly" (International Women in Science: A Biographical Dictionary, p. 15). Bacon flew on several other occasions, and became the first ever hydroplane passenger at Lake Windermere in 1912. Bacon became Gertrude Foggett in 1929, when she married fellow botanist and chemist Thomas Jackson Foggitt.

First and only edition of this uncommon and evocatively-illustrated publication on women’s contributions on the British home front during the First World War. This copy from the War Office Library, with its ink stamp on the title and upper cover.

Very quickly after the outbreak of the war it became clear that the mobilisation of the male workforce would create shortages of munitions, equipment, and food, and that large numbers of women would need to move into jobs from which they were previously restricted. Despite the hesitance of some officials, factory managers, and trade unions, “reports were conducted early on as to the suitability of women to meet the demands of such work. As early as 1915 the Ministry of Munitions Supply Committee made recommendations on the employment and remuneration of women on munitions work. This helped contribute to agreed suitable conditions by which a woman could be employed, and the War Office published several guides as to the employment of women” (”The Munitionettes and the Work of Women in the First World War”, National Records of Scotland).

Women’s War Work was one of these publications, appearing in 1916 and providing a very detailed list of roles in which women had been “successfully in the temporary replacement of men”, not only in munitions, but also the production of everyday goods such as chemicals and fertiliser, soap, candles, clothing and textiles, food and drink, and paper goods, including printing and book binding. The lists are accompanied by contact details of officials who can assist in the recruitment of women, and by an exceptional 72 large photographs of women at work. One woman is pictured modelling artificial teeth in wax for dentistry; brewery employees roll barrels and clean out vats; wagon washers pose with buckets and brushes in the middle of their messy shift; a smiling woman “stokes the furnaces of a large factory in South London”; an agricultural worker with the Women’s Volunteer Reserve sharpens the blade of a sickle, pianos are tuned, and women are photographed serving as butchers, bakers, window washers, porters, drivers, and posties. Numerous roles within heavy industry are photographed, from the manufacture of ammunition to the production of glass, radiators, tanned leather, and motorcycles. This is a fantastic record of women as home front workers, with most of the images so far having seen little to no reproduction in popular culture.

First edition, first impression and a lovely copy of "the first booklet on electronic computers separately published by a conventional publisher, and also one of the earliest discussions of how these machines could be used in scientific calculations" (Origins of Cyberspace 649).

In addition to his significant contributions to ballistics and quantum theory, British mathematician Douglas Hartree (1897-1958) was also a leader in efforts to automate scientific calculations. He was "involved in the development of the digital electronic computer, which emerged from wartime attempts to automate calculation further... In 1946 Hartree's advice was sought in the application of the United States army's ENIAC (electronic numerical integrator and computer) to the production of ballistic tables" (ODNB). This booklet was based on his experience with ENIAC, and describes in detail the machine's operation, its memory capacity, how problems are encoded for it to process, and what types of mathematical questions it is currently addressing. It also offers hints of future applications, such as research in fluid dynamics, statistics, number theory, and economics, where the burden of manual calculation was previously too great to allow in-depth analysis.

An early edition of this sumptuous chromolithographic beauty catalogue originally introduced at the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition by the California Perfume Company. The firm was founded in 1886 by door-to-door book salesman David H. McConnell and would later become Avon. This catalogue includes 31 plates depicting perfumes and air fresheners, soaps, shampoo, skin creams, shaving kits, toothpaste, gift sets, food flavourings and colours, laundry powder, detergent, and household cleaning supplies. Of particular note are the attractive Art Deco packaging designs, a key aspect of the company’s success.

These catalogues were expensive to produce but extremely successful at promoting the company’s products. Between 1915 and 1917 they were bound with screw-back posts so that pages could be added and removed, but after 1924 the use of screw-back posts was discontinued, so that salesmen were required to buy new catalogues. Price lists were originally issued separately, but this was discontinued in 1919, and this catalogue includes product details and prices interleaved on a lighter paper stock.

The seventh edition of one of the finest illustrated ornithology books ever published, the first field guide affordable to the middle class. This being the final edition to include new wood engravings, including Bewick’s last bird engraving, the Cream Coloured Plover. An attractive set, the contents fresh.

“In early May 1825, near Helpston in Northampstonshire, the poet John Clare saw a small brown bird that he could not identify. Did anyone, he asked his friend Joseph Henderson, have a copy of Bewick’s Birds? All lovers of birds in these years looked to Bewick. He spoke directly to a man like Clare, a former farm worker and lime burner who knew every inch of the fields around his home, and to Henderson, head gardener at the nearby hall. Bewick was in his seventies by then, but he came from the same world as them, growing up on a small-holding in the Tyne Valley... He was a fine naturalist himself, and his work combined keen, detailed observation with a new approach showing animals and birds in their natural settings, as part of the whole great interrelated web of nature. ‘Nature’ and God fused together in Bewick’s vision, as a rolling force that infused every aspect of life, from the habits of an ant to the vastness of the universe, ‘this sublime, this amazing, this mighty work of Suns and Worlds innumerable’. He felt its darkness as well as its beauty and his work touched the dawning Romantic age: Wordsworth was among the first to sing his praises and Charlotte Brontë placed his prints of icy seas in the hands of her young heroine, Jane Eyre” (Uglow, Nature’s Engraver, pp. xvii-xviii).

First edition, first impression, in the uncommon dust jacket.

The Electrical Handbook for Women was “the cornerstone publication” of the Electrical Association for Women, which was founded in 1924 by engineer Caroline Haslett and other members of the Women’s Engineering Society, “in part to encourage the use of electricity in the home” (ODNB). The contents are well-illustrated and include sections on the general principles underlying electrical technology, legal and regulatory issues, and the technical details of domestic electricity applications such as lighting, heating, cooking, and laundry.

Though edited by Haslett, the book’s main author was electrical engineer Margaret Partridge (1891-1967), who began her career as a munitions worker during the First World War and then founded her own firm, M. Partridge & Co., Domestic Engineers. “The new company focused on providing lighting and electric power for farm and country houses... In 1922 she put on an exhibition of electric models and machines in Exeter, including a range of labour-saving devices aimed at women in the home. It was predicted that her exhibition would ‘stir up the women of Exeter to demand the installation of electricity’ (The Woman Engineer, vol. 1 no. 17 [1923])... Her first rural electrification scheme was in Bampton, a contract gained in 1925 with the support of the electrical engineer Dr John Purves. She canvassed for shareholders among WES members, including Lady Parsons and Lady Shelley-Rolls, and the scheme was completed in 1926. She wrote to her friend Caroline Haslett from the power station, ‘My dear – for sheer exciting experience give me a town to light’ (Partridge to Caroline Haslett, n.d., Inst. ET UK0108 NAEST 092/4.9.68).” (ODNB).

First edition of the text that disproved spontaneous generation. First issue without the rare 29th plate which is lacking in most copies.

“In this scientific attack on the doctrine of spontaneous generation, Redi demonstrated, by means of a series of simple experiments involving sealed, open and gauze-covered flasks of meat, that organic matter remained free of larva when protected from insect contamination... Having shown that insect contagion was necessary before decaying substances could develop worms, redi applied the same principle to parasites found in living creatures. However, he was led astray by his observations into claiming that gall insects were spontaneously generated by the plants housing them, an error that Malphigi corrected in 1679” (Norman 1812).

References: Norman 1812, Dibner 188, Horblit 88

First edition, first printing. A lovely copy of this uncommon and attractively designed work on butterflies and moths with numerous illustrations by the author.

Ellen Bell Robertson-Miller (1859-1937) was a noted painter, naturalist, and columnist who studied at the National Academy of Design and the Art Students’ League of New York. In addition to entomology, Robertston-Miller was interested in marine life and ornithology, and often held speaking engagements and published articles on natural subjects. She was co-author of Wild Flowers of the North-Eastern States (1895) with Margaret Christine Whiting.

First trade edition, first printing. An unusually nice copy in the jacket.

Atomic Energy for Military Purposes was written as the official, unclassified narrative of the development of the atomic bomb, a “remarkably full and candid account” intended for general release once the weapon was made public (Printing and the Mind of Man 422).

The first — now unobtainable — edition, was a mimeographed version stamped secret, of which all copies save Smyth’s own were destroyed. The next was a lithoprint published in an edition of only 1,000 copies distributed to project leaders and members of the press, followed by a Government Printing Office edition. This is the first trade edition, published by Princeton University Press after editors at McGraw-Hill found the text too technical for a general audience and suggested a major rewrite, which was vetoed by Smyth. They needn’t have worried: officially published on September 10, 1945, Atomic Energy for Military Purposes remained on the New York Times bestseller list until January of the following year, and would go through eight printings by 1973.

First edition first printing. An attractive presentation copy inscribed by the author on the front free endpaper, “To Claudia, for the joy and beauty of science [smiley face] Ronald E. Mickens, Feb. 20, 1989”. Rare signed and with the stylish jacket in such nice condition.

Ronald E. Mickens (1943 - ) “is a physicist who has advanced the general understanding of the role that pure mathematics can play in science. He is perhaps best known for his work on difference equations – a type of equation that is now considered fundamental to the development of chaos theory” (Krapp, Notable Black American Scientists, p. 229).

In an interview with the American Physical Society Mickens has described how, “Even at two or three years of age, I was curious about the ‘workings’ of the universe and of the human mind”. His maternal grandfather introduced him to the scientific outlook, and his childhood in a farming community provided opportunities to see science in action: “There was an implicit scientific understanding involved in all these processes, [picked up] just from working the farm”. Mickens went on to earn his bachelor’s in physics at Fisk University and his PhD at Vanderbilt in 1968, then studied particle physics as a postdoctoral researcher at MIT.

Mickens has had an extensive teaching career at institutions including Fisk, Clark Atlanta University, Howard University, MIT, and Vanderbilt. He has been the recipient of numerous grants and awards allowing him to study a wide range of topics, including “nonlinear equations, numerical analysis, mathematical biology, and the history and sociology of science” (Krapp), on which he has published more than 170 papers and five books. Mickens’s most recent research projects have focused on mathematical models for epidemiology and vibrations and oscillations in materials science. As he told the APS, “There’s really no area of physics that doesn’t have real world applications... Even if it seems like the applications for something aren’t too significant, you still have the satisfaction of dealing with a challenging problem and making progress with it”.

“Ron is also deeply involved in documenting African American contributions to science and technology. He has already written a biography of Edward Bouchet, the first African American to earn a Ph.D. in any subject—it happened to be physics. He continues to research and write a biographical work on Elmer Imes, the second African American to earn a Ph.D. in physics” (APS interview). He has served as historian of the National Society of Black Physicists and was one of the founders of the National Conference of Black Physics Students.

RESERVED First edition, first printing of an autobiography for young readers by the first Black woman to travel into space. Signed by the author on the front free endpaper in metallic blue ink. A beautiful, fresh copy and rare signed.

Born in Alabama in 1956 and raised in Chicago, Jemison was interested in science and space from an early age, but felt frustrated by the absence of female astronauts in the space program. In 1977 she graduated from Stanford with two undergraduate degrees, in chemical engineering and African and Afro-American studies, and then earned her M.D. from Cornell. During and after medical school she studied in Cuba and Kenya, worked in a refugee camp in Thailand, and served for two and a half years as a Peace Corps medical officer in Sierra Leone and Liberia (Krapp, Notable Black American Scientists, p. 177).

Though Jemison opened a private practice in 1985, she was inspired by the space flights of Guion Bluford and Sally Ride to pursue her childhood dream of becoming an astronaut. She first applied to the astronaut training program shortly before the Challenger disaster, which halted the NASA recruitment process, but on reapplying the following year she was selected as one of only 15 candidates from a pool of 2,000, becoming the first Black woman admitted to astronaut training.

“After more than a year of training, she became an astronaut with the title of science-mission specialist, a job which would make her responsible for conducting crew-related scientific experiments on the space shuttle” (Krapp). Jemison’s mission, STS-47 aboard the Endeavour, took off on September 12th, 1992 and lasted for 190 hours. During that time Jemison was responsible for research on managing motion sickness and anxiety; the production of sterile saline solution for medical use in space; bone cell studies; and an investigation of frog reproduction and development.

“After leaving NASA in 1993, Jemison established the Jemison Group, Inc., a private organisation founded to integrate socially responsible principles with technology,” (Spangenburg, African Americans in Science, Math and Invention, p. 132) and she has taught at Dartmouth and Cornell.

ON RESERVE. A very attractive copy, with the rare suite of fifteen folding plates which missing from almost all copies, of this magnificently illustrated treatise on the construction and use of astrolabes. These fifteen plates appear first in this edition. In an attractive binding incorporating a late-medieval manuscript leaf, and from the library of astrolabe collector Samuel Verplank Hoffman with what is presumably his typescript translation into English.

Franz Ritter (b. Nuremberg, d. 1640) was an astronomer and innovative cartographer, famous for his ‘sundial’ world map. He had studied under Johann Praetorius at the University of Altdorf and specialized in the design and manufacture of astrolabes, sundials, and other astronomical, horological and cartographical instruments.

The two parts of this text were first published separately in Nuremberg in 1613, and there appear to be numerous variant editions. This one conforms to that of Yale and Brown, which they date to the 1640s, but other authorities give 1659 and 1660 as the dates of publication. The plates in the first part are printed from the same coppers used in the 1613 edition. The second part of the 1613 edition was unillustrated and the publisher of this edition, Paul Fürst (1608-1666), added the suite of engravings and signed the first plate. The fourth plate is a map of the southern hemisphere.

The previous owner, Samuel Verplank Hoffman (1866-1942) studied and taught astronomy at Johns Hopkins University until his father’s business interests commanded his full attention. He was president of the New York Historical Society between 1903 and 1912 and his exceptional collection of astrolabes was acquired by the Smithsonian in 1959. The typescript translation with this volume was presumably by, or commissioned by, him.

First edition of this assembly of texts on an astronomical instrument, a ring-dial that was a precursor of the equatorial. It was intended as a navigational aid and could be adjusted for different latitudes including, according to the author, the Moluccas and Hispaniola. Dyrander had published his first account a few months earlier in 1536 (Novi annuli astronomici, Marburg 1536), but quickly reprinted it with three other related texts in order to defend himself against the charges of plagiarism. These texts describe other forms of astronomical ring-dials The first is a letter from Regiomontanus to Cardinal Bessarion, the second a short treatise by Bonetus de Latis, Jewish physician to Pope Alexander VI, and the third by an anonymous author “M.T.”.

Johannes Dryander (1500–1560) was a Marburg professor of mathematics and medicine, a noted pre-Vesalian anatomist, and astronomer. In 1536 he published his Anatomia capitis humani, the first major work on the anatomy of the head, based upon his own dissections. It was illustrated by the German artist Hans Brosamer. This was followed by an expanded anatomy of the whole human body published the following year.

First edition, first impression of this account of the development of in-vitro fertilisation by the two scientists responsible for the breakthrough. Presentation copy inscribed from author Patrick Steptoe to media presenter Bob Holness (1928-2012) on the front free endpaper, “With the compliments of Patrick Steptoe, March 1980”. Though Holness’s name does not appear in this copy, it was purchased as part of his library. Before fronting the gameshow Blockbusters Holness had an extensive career in radio, most notably as co-host of LBC’s AM Programme between 1975 and 1985, and many of his guests, like Steptoe, inscribed copies of their books for him. Copies of A Matter of Life signed or inscribed are particularly uncommon, especially in such lovely condition.

At an early stage in his medical career, Patrick Steptoe (1913-1988) developed, “a special interest in female infertility. Diagnostic techniques, particularly in relation to pelvic pathology and endocrinology, were rudimentary, but laparoscopy and culdoscopy were being introduced at centres in Europe and North America. Steptoe visited these centres and established lasting friendships and collaboration with Raoul Palmer in Paris and Hans Frangenheim in Germany. He became the first gynaecologist to develop laparoscopy in Britain, lectured at the first international symposium in gynaecological laparoscopy in Palermo in 1964, and published the first English book on the subject, Laparoscopy in Gynaecology, in 1967. He described not only the potential for accurate diagnosis in relation to problems of infertility, pelvic infection and pain, ectopic pregnancy, and endometriosis, but also explored the therapeutic aspects of surgical laparoscopy. Within a decade this led to the incorporation of laparoscopy into everyday gynaecological practice.

It was at a meeting at the Royal Society of Medicine in 1968 that Robert Edwards first approached Steptoe. A young geneticist and embryologist, Edwards had already done outstanding work on in vitro fertilization in mice, other mammals, and human beings. The collaboration between the two men lasted for twenty years until Steptoe's death. It resulted in the delivery on 25 July 1978 of Louise Brown, the first ‘test-tube’ baby born after laparoscopic oocyte recovery, in vitro fertilization, and transfer of the eight-cell embryo into the mother's uterus. Steptoe and Edwards reported the bare facts in a dramatic letter to The Lancet (12 August 1978) and gave a full account of their work at a historic scientific meeting at the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists on 26 January 1979.

Following Steptoe's retirement from the National Health Service in 1978, he and Edwards founded the Bourn Hall Clinic, near Cambridge, in 1980. Edwards was the first scientific director and Steptoe, as medical director, continued seeing patients until his death, while at the same time training juniors, lecturing worldwide, and collaborating in more than fifty scientific papers” (ODNB).

ON RESERVE. An elegant, substantial early-19th century manuscript containing practical mathematical and astronomical problems likely produced by a student of navigation.The majority of the text is from John Bonnycastle's A Treatise on Plane and Spherical Trigonometry, originally published in 1806. Bonnycastle was a respected mathematics teacher who tutored the children of the aristocracy and taught at the Royal Military Academy in Woolwich. A man of “considerable classical and general literary culture”, he was a great friend of Fuseli and also of Leigh Hunt, who included Bonnycastle in his book Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries.

“Bonnycastle was a prolific and successful writer of textbooks. Of his chief works, The Scholar's Guide to Arithmetic first appeared in 1780 and ran to an eighteenth edition in 1851… His Introduction to Astronomy (1786), intended as a popular introduction to astronomy rather than as an elementary treatise, was one of the best-selling books on the subject for many years… Besides elementary mathematical books, Bonnycastle was in early life a frequent contributor to the London Magazine. He also wrote the introduction to a translation (by T. O. Churchill) of Bossut's Histoire des mathématiques (1803) and a ‘chronological table of the most eminent mathematicians from the earliest times’ for the end of the book” (ODNB).

This manuscript, titled “Bonnycastle’s Trigonometry”, contains the practical portions of the text, including rules for solving different types of trigonometric problems (“cases”) and practice problems. The practice problems have been completed in full, including large, precise geometrical diagrams made with ruler and compass. Page numbers are given and the problems are dated, the first section having been completed on September 24th, 1813 with additions every few days until the final dated entry on March 31, 1814. The final, undated portion, about a quarter of the manuscript, comprises “Miscellaneous Astronomical Problems” from Andrew Mackay’s The Theory and Practice of Finding the Longitude at Sea or Land (first published in 1793, the second edition in 1801), an important work for which its author “received the thanks of the boards of longitude of England and France” (ODNB).

This manuscript’s focus on mathematical rules and practice problems (at the expense of the more theoretical, text-heavy portions), together with the fact that it was updated regularly between September and March, indicates that it was produced by an advanced student working through the book as part of a regular course of study. The script is elegant, clear, and controlled throughout, and pencilled guide rules indicate that the student took great pains to ensure the manuscript was attractive and readable, suggesting that it was evaluated as part of coursework rather than used as a notebook for producing rough calculations (indeed, some rough calculations are included on sheets of scrap paper loosely inserted). Mathematics of this type, focused on spherical trigonometry, astronomy, and navigational problems, would have been of interest primarily to mariners, and it seems reasonable to conclude that the student was attending a naval or military institution, or was perhaps under private tutelage with a naval career in mind. A beautiful example of a student’s efforts at practical mathematics for navigation at a time when Britain was the major power on the seas.

An original Second World War poster promoting women in the wartime workforce, produced in 1942 by the War Manpower Commission. At the time, “Women in the War” was one of the most widely distributed images of a woman labouring in war production, unlike the “We Can Do It” poster, which was produced only for Westinghouse plants during a few weeks in 1943 and did not become iconic until the 1980s.

“Among the many agencies President Roosevelt had created during the war was the War Manpower Commission, formed in April 1942 to oversee war labor issues in the military, industrial, and civilian sectors. And in June 1942, the Office of War Information was formed to manage the flows of news and propaganda about the war to the public. By 1943, when the labor shortage was most acute, the two agencies worked together in concerted campaigns, targeting employers to hire women and women to become ‘production soldiers’” (Yellin, Our Mothers’ War, p. 44). Women labouring in factories, even in the service of the war effort, was controversial, with only 30 percent of husbands giving unqualified support to the idea of their wives performing such jobs. “Despite the tide of public opinion against working wives, War Manpower Commission director Paul McNutt had a strategy for quelling opposition: ‘The money appeal will continue strong,’ he said in 1943, but we’ll concentrate on patriotism’. Sure enough, all across the country, the public was bombarded with spirited print and radio ads, magazine articles, and posters with slogans like ‘Do the Job He Left Behind’ or ‘Women in the War—We Can’t Win Without Them’ depicting noble, pretty but serious, female war workers on the job... The campaigns glamorized war work, always showing that women could maintain their femininity and still be useful” (Yellin, pp. 45-46).

Examples of this important poster are held at numerous institutions, including the Library of Congress, Imperial War Museum, MOMA, and the Pritzker Military Museum. Copies in such beautiful, unused condition are uncommon in commerce.

A superb, unused Art Nouveau chromolithographic catalogue issued by the German pharmaceutical and medical supply firm Michael Birk, probably in the 1890s.

This remarkable, 320 page catalogue catalogue contains 15 double-sided plates of elaborate chromolithographic, metallic, and embossed designs for product labels, as well as another 290 pages advertising an incredible array of other products. The chromolithographic labels could be ordered in bulk to be used on bottles and jars filled in person by the pharmacist, and some could be personalised with the shop’s name and address. The catalogue was evidently designed for international distribution, as the examples are shown in a variety of languages, including Arabic. Some of the products include lemon and orange syrup, ginger ale, Egyptian nerve tonic, quinine, toothpaste, cod liver oil, antiseptics, a wide variety of alcoholic beverages including wine, port, rum and rum punch, champagne, and gin, and cosmetics products such as eau de cologne, agua de florida and scented waters. Most of the labels are very elaborate, with colourful designs echoing the origins or contents of the products, some with an exotic or Orientalist flavour, and others using historical imagery. Some are plainer, giving only the product name or a number. Nine pages of labels incorporate fine metallic and die-cut and embossed cameo-like decoration - of note are the two pages of delicate perfume bottle labels.

The remainder of the catalogue details a variety of products, all depicted in large and well-executed engravings. They include bottles, pots, boxes, tubes and dispensers, including decorative bottles and perfume atomisers, and display units. For the use of the pharmacist are moulds, rollers, mortars and pestles, scales, laboratory glassware, bunsen burners, alembics, and ovens. And there are sections for medical dressings and devices, generators of therapeutic electricity, and all types of surgical and dental tools, including large items such as chairs, tables and boilers. A superb catalogue encompassing all of late-19th century pharmacy and medicine.

An attractive, early 20th-century advertising booklet for Crusader Bicycles by the Mead Cycle Company of Chicago. It includes two wonderful chromolithographs, including a double page spread depicting the Advance Model Crusader de Luxe for $19.85 and the Crusader Coaster-Brake Special for $17.80. The upper cover advertises their policies, including free shipping, a free 30 day trial, and five year guarantee, and there are also ads for a variety of accessories. “What more do you want in a wheel? What greater assurance could you ask in buying a bicycle? We are putting our priceless reputation behind these two latest Crusader Models and behind the unqualified statement that when you buy one you are making the best bicycle selection and the wisest bicycle investment that anyone could possibly make”. Mead was one of Chicago’s first bicycle manufacturers, beginning operations in 1889 and selling nationally through mail order catalogues such as this one.

Second edition, enlarged, of the authoritative guide of the period. From the library of dragonfly specialist Peter L. Miller, with his ownership signature and bookplate, two manuscript notes in ink in the text, notes and sketches of dragonfly nymphs on a blank postcard, and a dragonfly wing loosely inserted.

Miller was a lecturer in zoology at Oxford who made significant contributions to a number of fields. “At Oxford he soon became widely respected for the excellence of his research on insects, being awarded the prestigious Medal of the Zoological Society of London in 1972. Until the early 1980s he explored physiology and neural control, primarily of respiration but also of rhythmic and motor behaviour, ventilation and learning. His international standing at that time is reflected in the authorship of more than a dozen chapters on these topics in different definitive textbooks on insect physiology. During those years he also published on insect behaviour in the field and edited two symposium volumes on cell biology.

From the early 1980s Miller focused his research on dragonflies, a group of insects for which he had developed a strong affection while in Uganda. His highly developed skills - for interpreting subtle elements of behaviour, for micro-anatomical dissection and for quantifying neural processes - allowed him to reveal much of the structural and behavioural framework on which dragonfly reproduction is based. This work has far-reaching comparative value and provides a definitive reference point for future contributions to the field.

Other products of his interest in dragonflies have been his stimulation and training of postgraduate students, authorship of two editions of a book on British dragonflies - a model of its genre - and active participation in the British Dragonfly Society, as Vice President and as member of the Dragonfly Conservation Group. Increasingly in later years Miller's energies were directed towards conservation of dragonflies and their habitats, especially through facilitating involvement of young people and non-specialists.” (Peter Miller obituary, the Independent, May 6, 1996.)

In this copy Miller has made two notes in the text: On page 126, under the entry for the Downy Emerald, he wrote, “2 emerged c. 25/5/58 from [?] F. B. A. Windermere”. On page 139, under the entry for the Black-lined Orthetrum, “Nymph from F. B. A. Windermere... emerged c. 25/5/58”. The most extensive notes are on a blank postcard loosely inserted at page 181. Ink manuscript notes describe the larva (nymphs) of four dragonfly species, with pencilled drawings of three. On the back of the card are additional notes about the effect of temperature on dragonfly development, including a small bar graph showing a two-year larval cycle for a species.

The author of this guide, Cynthia Longfield (1896-1989?), was one of Britain’s leading dragonfly specialist. She spent her career as an unpaid worker at the British Museum of Natural History, where she played a major role in collecting and systemising the records of British dragonflies (Ogilvie, Biographical Dictionary of Women in Science, p. 802), and she also served as president of the London Natural History Society. The Dragonflies of the the British Isles, originally published in 1939, was “accepted immediately as the authoritative guide” (Ogilvie).

A striking, oversized panoramic postcard photomontage depicting one of the most important aviation events prior to the First World War, the August 1911 International Aviation Meet at Grant Park in Chicago.

The Chicago meet was the largest airshow held up to that time, only eight years after the first powered flight by the Wright Brothers. Over the course of nine days thirty-three amateur and professional aviators competed for cash prizes totalling just over $100,000, watched by an estimated 300,000 spectators. Lincoln Beachey, the world’s premiere stunt pilot, set a world altitude record of 11,642 feet and two pilots, William R. Badger and St. Croix Johnstone, died in crashes.

This postcard is a fantastical composite image depicting the airshow, incorporating photographs of the lakefront buildings, Grant Park, railway tracks, and crowd shots, and all merging into painted backdrops and “crowds”. Fourteen planes are visible in the sky, and while most are painted, a few may have originally have been photographs. Another three are depicted on the ground or taking off, surrounded by people. This copy of the card was posted by “Laurie” of 1859 Sedgwick St, which is adjacent to Lincoln Park on the north side of town, and the recipient was “Miss Florence Ort” of Defiance Ohio. Laurie has additionally annotated the image, labelling for her friend Michigan Avenue, the famous Blackstone Hotel, opened just two years previously, the Auditorium theatre, and the Art Institute of Chicago.