Recent Acquisitions

First edition, first impression.

Radiant Motherhood was the most explicitly eugenic of birth control advocate Marie Stopes’s books. Though most of the chapters detail the physical and emotional effects of pregnancy and parenthood for both men and women, chapter 20, “The Creation of a New and Irradiated Race”, explicitly describes the “increasing ill-health and deterioration of our race” and the “vast and ever increasing stock of degenerate, feeble-minded and unbalanced who are now in our midst and who devastate social customs” and suggests Parliament legislate sterilisation of these categories by several means, including irradiation.

Third impression, published the year after the first. At its publication Contraception, by birth control advocate, palaeontologist, and eugenicist Marie Stopes, was “widely held to be the most comprehensive volume on the subject ever published” (Exploring Women in Science Through the Lisa Unger Baskin Collection, Duke University Libraries website).

First edition, first impression of this work by birth control advocate, palaeontologist, and eugenicist Marie Stopes on problems with sexual health, including “excessive virility”, “frigidity”, premature ejaculation, and mid-life changes.

Seventh printing, originally published in 1926.

The Human Body, by birth control advocate, paleontologist, and eugenicist Marie Stopes, is an illustrated introductory text to human anatomy and physiology, covering topics such as the breath and heartbeat, the muscles, the five senses, the brain and nervous system, and reproduction. The previous owner of the copy seems to have had a medical education, or to have been a well-informed amateur, as they have made a number of notes about the quality of the contents, for instance often adding scientific names missing from the diagrams. Most amusingly, they have labelled an illustration of the uterus and ovaries as simply “poor”, and written “clitoris???” next to another diagram from which this organ has been left off. Two very emphatic question marks have been left next to a passage describing the hymen as as membrane which “should be complete at the time of marriage and which should be broken only by the husband. This... is in harmony with the social tradition that a girl, like her husband, should not have played with her sex organs before she takes upon herself the very serious and important joys and responsibilities of sex life in marriage”.

Third printing, originally published in 1926.

The Human Body, by birth control advocate, palaeontologist and eugenicist Marie Stopes, is an illustrated introductory text to human anatomy and physiology, covering topics such as the breath and heartbeat, the muscles, the five senses, the brain and nervous system, and reproduction.

First edition of this popular account of ancient plants.

Stopes’ first career was as a palaeontologist. She earned her bachelor’s degree at University College London 1905 and her doctorate at Munich in 1909. “She published her first paper on a fossil plant in 1903, and for the next twenty years palaeobotany was her major interest. Stopes became a lecturer in palaeobotany at Manchester University, the first woman on the scientific staff, In 1907 she went to Japan to spend two years collecting fossil plants in the less frequented parts of the country... When she returned to Manchester, she a published a popular account entitled Ancient Plants” (Ogilvie, Biographical Dictionary of Women in Science, p. 1242).

Stopes later did fieldwork in the United States and Canada, confirming the identities and ages of the continent’s Carboniferous flora, and she also studied coal, coal balls, and the plants they contained. Her most important paleontological publication was a two-volume catalog of the Cretaceous Flora in the British Museum. “She described the petrified woods form the British Lower Greensand. They were important because although they were the earliest angiosperms known from northwest Europe, they were essentially modern apparently confirming the sudden rise of the flowering plants early in the Cretaceous” (Ogilvie).

First English language edition of one of the best-selling sex manuals of all time, originally published in Dutch in 1926 under the title Het volkomen huwelijk.

Author Theodore Hendrik van de Velde (1873-1937) was a Dutch physician who served as director of the Gynæcological Institute in Haarlem. He was “one of the major writers on human sexuality during the early twentieth century” (Fraser & Whitby, Studies in Human Sexuality, p. 300) and is described in the introduction as possessing not only “all the scientific qualifications necessary to write on the subject with authority” but also “rather rare in a scientist... a clear literary style”. A 2004 piece in the National Review by Frederica Matthewes Green described Ideal Marriage as “the best-selling sex manual of all time. Over half a million copies were sold in the United States alone, and it enjoyed equal success in Europe... This is not a prude's book. Young couples who grab a used copy off the Internet may have even as much fun with it as their great-grandparents did” (from Wikipedia).

A charming, hand-coloured Victorian peepshow toy depicting Marc and Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s Thames Tunnel. This particular example is uncommon and seemingly unrecorded. The only other J. T. Wood Thames Tunnel peepeshows we can locate are double-decker examples sold by Dominic Winter in 2010 and 2017.

The tunnel under the Thames between Wapping and Rotherhithe was an engineering marvel – the first to be constructed beneath a navigable river and the first project to use the tunnelling shield newly designed by the elder Brunel. Construction was stop-and-start between 1825 and 1841, when the full 1300-foot length was finally completed, and over the next two years the shaft was fitted out before opening to the public in 1843. Though originally designed for cart traffic, the tunnel was mainly used by pedestrians and became a popular tourist attraction and underground market, with many publishers producing books, prints, and peepshows depicting the tunnel before it was closed to the public and converted into a railway in the 1860s.

This peepshow was published by J. T. Wood sometime between 1845, when he moved into his premises at 33 Holywell Street, and 1858, when 78 Strand became his primary place of business. Wood initially trained as a copper-plate printer, and the earliest extant item with his imprint is an 1841 broadside celebrating the birth of Edward VII. Wood specialised in views and souvenirs, and produced enamel cards of London vistas as well as scenes of the Great Exhibition of 1851. He also published “chapbooks and populist part-works in penny numbers... acted as an agent for the toy-theatre publishers, producing several toy-theatre plays of his own. And he built up a range of stationery products, many of them intended and advertised for wholesale and export rather than simply retail sale. He offered notepaper; envelopes; foreign fancy prints; tomb cards and tablets; window and show cards; poetry cards (in gold, silver, satin, and gelatine, embossed and perforated, and in envelopes); puzzle, toy and conversation cards; embroidery, knitting and crochet books and patterns; children’s books; and almanacks” (Worms, “J. T. Wood of the Strand”, The Bookhunter on Safari blog, July 30th, 2013).

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 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).

Second, revised edition of this “extraordinarily detailed and prescient scientific study of the nature of worlds that might support life in the universe”, for many years the standard authority on the subject (Scharf, “The Habitable Planets”, Life, Unbounded Blog, Scientific American, September 13, 2011).

Between 1959 and 1968 Dole was head of the Human Engineering Group at the Rand Corporation, where he “carried out studies on the physical and physiological requirements of human beings in the spacecraft environment, the use of inorganic reactions for recovery of oxygen in life-support systems and assessments of the radiation environment in space. He also directed a number of studies sponsored by NASA, including reports on contingency planning for spaceflight emergencies. Dole also contributed to the NASA Life Sciences Date Book and the Bioastronautics Data Book and was a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science” (LA Times obituary).

Habitable Planets for Man explores the “intrinsic properties of planets, which are mass, rate of rotation, and age; and positional properties, which are distance from the primary star, orbital eccentricity, inclination of equator, satellite relationships, and properties of the primary star” and he also discusses ways of estimating and determining the number of potentially habitable worlds. “In the final chapters, Star Hopping, An Appreciation of the Earth, and Human Destiny, the author outlines those classes of data required for unequivocal knowledge that a habitable planet exists elsewhere. He discusses the characteristics of such planets and speculates on the alterations men may experience in these new environments... The closing chapter is a treatment of the little likelihood of utilizing space colonization as a solution to terrestrial population problems” (Tyson, review of Habitable Planets for Man in The Quarterly Review of Biology, vol. 40, no. 2, June 1965).

First and only edition of this uncommon talk by one of the giants of neuroscience.

“There are very few scientists whose discoveries have marked the advent of a new discipline. Berta Scharrer was one of these pioneers. Her scientific career was crowned with great success. The concept of neurosecretion (the storage, synthesis and release of hormones from neurons) developed by Ernst and Berta Scharrer between 1928 and 1937 formed the foundation for contemporary neuroendocrinology... Today we know that secretory nerve cells are widely distributed over the whole nervous system” and “serve to maintain the organism and preserve the species” (Ogilvie, Biographical Dictionary of Women in Science, p. 1158).

First edition, first printing. The rare offprint of the first major work by prominent cell biologist Honor B. Fell (1900-1986). We can locate only one institutional copy of this offprint, at the University of Southern California.

Fell’s childhood interest in animals and nature was encouraged by her parents, and she received what was at the time an unusually science-focused education. She earned four degrees at St. Andrews and the University of Edinburgh, and then went to Cambridge “to learn a new technique pioneered by T. S. P. Strangeways in his research hospital. Tissues culture was a relatively new art at this time, and he had developed it to the extent that he could study the behavior of living cells on a warm stage. Fell was impressed, and when Strangeways offered her a job as scientific assistant with a grant from the Medical Research Council, she accepted. Her first major study was on chick embryos, examining their cartilage and bones. This work culminated in her first important paper from the Strangeways in 1925, a study of the histogenesis of bone and cartilage in the long bone of embryonic chicks. From this beginning, she used techniques of organ culture to analyze the actions of various agents upon the cells of bone, cartilage, and associated tissues. The preliminary study was continued, and in 1926 she and Strangeways demonstrated that cartilage would not only grow but would differentiate in culture” (Ogilvie, Biographical Dictionary of Women in Science, p. 440).

When Strangeways died in 1926 Fell was appointed director of the institute, a position she held for the next forty-one years, performing important research on vitamin A and rheumatoid arthritis, and producing research that led to the discovery of interleuken-1, an important agent of the immune system. Fell was made a fellow of the Royal Society and Dame Commander of the British Empire, and received honorary degrees from Harvard, Cambridge, and Smith College.

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.

Offprint of this important paper correcting the long-held assumption that most of the carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere was absorbed by the oceans, among the earliest work of Roger Revelle (1909-1991), one of the founders of modern climate change science.

Oceanography was a young field and the Scripps Institute of Oceanography at La Jolla still a small marine station when Revelle arrived as a research associate in 1931. The following year he was engaged in cataloguing samples of marine sediments when he became interested in calcium carbonate and the “buffer mechanism” of seawater, its ability to regulate C02 in the atmosphere. He and his co-authors “found that only half of the carbon dioxide released by fossil fuel and other anthropogenic activities went into the ocean, not ninety-eight percent as had previously been thought. Revelle later cited this work as the beginning of his interest in the carbon cycle which eventually led him to an interest in measuring atmospheric carbon dioxide” (Day, Roger Randall Dougan Revelle Biography, Scripps Institution of Oceanography Archives).

Revelle went on to a distinguished career, serving as director of the Scripps Institution between 1950 and 1964 and as a scientific advisor to the Kennedy administration, though he also supported nuclear weapons testing in the Pacific and anti-Communist loyalty oaths. He was instrumental in creating the International Geophysical Year and was founding chairman of the first Committee on Climate Change and the Ocean.

Presentation copy of a rare offprint by the biochemist who was the first to produce purified tuberculin for use in studying and treating tuberculosis. Inscribed by the author on the upper wrapper, “Best wishes, Florence B. Seibert”. In this research paper Seibert investigates the presence of bacteria in tumors and the best methods for isolating and identifying them.

Biochemist Florence Seibert (1897-1991) was a productive and highly regarded scientist who worked in a number of areas and received numerous awards, including a Guggenheim Fellowship. As a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Chicago during the early 1920s she made her first breakthrough, “a method of eliminating bacterial contamination that was known to occur during the creation of solutions meant for vaccinations and injections. Patients could experience sudden fevers or illness during or after an injection or intravenous treatment. Such afflictions, Seibert discovered, were most often caused by bacterial contamination of the distilled water used to make the solutions. She was able to eliminate this contamination using a special apparatus and procedure she created for this purpose. This would be a great boon later not only for administering drugs but also for making blood transfusions safer during surgery” (Lemelson-MIT biography).

But Seibert’s most significant work was on tuberculosis, particularly her improvements to Robert Koch’s skin test for the infection. “Koch’s method was notoriously inaccurate, for the evaporated solution used in the test contained numerous impurities. Even people with a serious case of tuberculosis sometimes failed to get a positive test. Seibert worked for ten years on methods of isolating pure tuberculin by filtration, by using a guncotton membrane of a specific thickness. The result was a creamy white powder which was the purified protein from the tuberculosis bacillus, known as PPD. Never patenting the process (which would have made her rich), she furnished the National Tuberculosis Association with a large quantity of pure tuberculin” (Ogilvie, Biographical Dictionary of Women in Science, p. 1173).

An uncommon offprint by noted endocrinologist Grace E. Pickford (1902-1986). An attractive and fresh copy, the contents unopened.

Pickford was educated at Cambridge and Yale, and taught at Albertus Magnus College, Yale, and Hiram College. Taking advantage of the Yale Peabody Museum’s extensive natural history collections, she became an authority on cephalopod systematics and in 1951 joined the Galathea deep-sea expedition to study rare octopods in the Indo-Malayan region. During the 1940s she began researching the killifish, and it became the organism “on which she established her outstanding work on fish endocrinology. She became interested in the growth rings on fish scales, and the examined effects of the newly developed growth hormone upon the endocrine system of the fish. In the process, she developed a number of techniques adapted from paediatric research and her earlier work on invertebrates. Pickford published a seminal monograph, The Physiology of the Pituitary Gland of Fishes (1957), which soon became the bible for scientists working on the endocrinology of lower vertebrates” (Ogilvie, Biographical Dictionary of Women in Science, p. 1021)).

First edition, first impression of this uncommon and important monograph on bacterial genetics. An exceptional presentation copy signed by author François Jacob, with whom Brenner would partner only a year later to perform one of the most elegant experiments in the history of biochemistry, proving the role of messenger RNA and elucidating a key mechanism in the cell’s process for decoding DNA. Cheekily inscribed by Jacob’s co-author, Elie Wollman (1917-2008), “To Sydney Brenner, to disgust him / a good of bacterial sex” (possibly missing the word “dose” or similar before “bacterial sex”). And with Brenner’s ownership signature in pencil on the upper cover.

Wollman and Jacob were bacteriologists at the Pasteur Institute who, by investigating bacterial reproduction, made groundbreaking discoveries in genetics. They published one of the first examples of a gene regulatory mechanism; discovered plasmids (portions of genetic material independent of the chromosomal DNA); and created the first model of gene mapping in a living organism” (Dantzer, “Elie Wollman 1917-2008: A Biographical Memoir, National Academy of Science, 2008). The present volume covers the breadth of contemporary knowledge of bacterial reproduction, including conjugation and the resulting genetic recombination. Jacob was later awarded the Nobel Prize for work on the regulation of enzyme levels in cells, and Wollman received several awards, including the French Legion of Honour.

Recipient Sydney Brenner (1927-2019) was a leader in the field of genetics almost from the moment he received his doctorate at Oxford in 1954. He joined Francis Crick’s Cambridge laboratory in 1956, and they performed innovative research on how DNA is decoded by cells. Brenner proposed that the nucleotides which comprise DNA (adenine, guanine, thiamine and cytosine) are read by the cell in groups of three called codons, with each codon representing an amino acid (for example, three adenines in a row is the codon for the amino acid lysine). A gene is therefore a string of codons that directs the production of a specific protein molecule from individual amino acids. He would later win the Nobel Prize for his work establishing the nematode c. elegans as a key model organism for genetics, neurobiology and developmental biology research.

Brenner met Jacob and Wollman at a symposium on microbial genetics in Copenhagen in 1959 (it was almost certainly on this occasion, or shortly afterwards, that this copy was presented), where Jacob hoped to discuss new evidence for the existence of an intermediary molecule responsible for transporting information from DNA in the nucleus to the site of protein production in cellular structures called ribosomes, located outside the nucleus. It was known that ribosomes contained an analogue to DNA, ribosomal nucleic acid (RNA), but it was not clear whether there were intermediaries between DNA and RNA. Though nothing concrete came of the Copenhagen symposium, the following spring Jacob again brought up the subject during a meeting with Brenner, Crick, and other biochemists at Cambridge. As Jacob later recalled, when he pointed out recent experimental results suggesting that, unlike normal RNA, the messenger molecule was unstable, “Francis and Sydney leaped to their feet. Began to gesticulate. To argue at top speed in great agitation. A red-faced Francis. A Sydney with bristling eyebrows. The two talked at once, all but shouting. Each trying to anticipate the other. To explain to the other what had suddenly come to mind” (Jacob, The Statue Within, p. 312). What Brenner and Crick had suddenly remembered was another experiment showing that when a certain virus attacked bacterial cells it blocked the creation of new ribosomes, and the only RNA then manufactured by the cell was both unstable and had the same base composition as DNA, strongly suggesting that it was the messenger molecule.

That afternoon Brenner and Jacob also learned that they had both been invited to spend the month of June as visiting scholars at Caltech, the perfect opportunity to collaborate and prove that there was an intermediary in the DNA decoding process and that it was the previously discovered unstable RNA. Most importantly, the colleague who had invited Jacob, Mat Meselson, had just developed a new method for marking bacterial macromolecules with heavy isotopes. Brenner and Jacob developed a plan “to distinguish whether, after phage (virus) infection, new RNA went to new ribosomes, or whether there were no new ribosomes, just the preexisting ones ‘for hire’ – Brenner’s phrase at the time – to the new message when it came along. So that old ribosomes could be labelled, the bacteria would be grown with heavy carbon and nitrogen, the bacteria switched to a broth containing normal, lighter isotopes and simultaneously infected with phage, and new RNA labelled with radiophosphorous. Then ribosomes would be separated from bacteria, put into a cesium-chloride solution, and spun at thirty-seven thousand revolutions per minute for thirty-six hours... in this enormous centrifugal force... the cesium chloride in the solution became distributed in a gradient that was denser towards the bottom of the tube; anything of like density in the tube would sink or float to the level that exactly corresponded with it. Thus, ribosomal particles grown heavy before infection would form a band farther down the centrifuge tube than any made after infection when the isotopic labels were light. Radioactivity could then be checked in each band of ribosomes” (Judson, The Eighth Day of Creation, p. 423).

With only four weeks to complete the experiment, Brenner and Jacob worked at speed and had to overcome numerous setbacks, from the difficulty of acquiring radioactive phosphorus to problems caused by a lack of magnesium in their culture medium. But the final result was “spectacular. Eyes glued to the Geiger counter, our throats tight, we tracked each successive figure as it came to take its place in exactly the order we had been expecting. And as the last sample was counted, a double shout of joy shook the basement at Caltech. Followed immediately by a wild double jig. This was merely one experiment, performed in extremis… But we now knew that we had won. That our conception explained the transfers of information in the synthesis of proteins… Scarcely was the experiment over than we gave a seminar at Caltech to demonstrate the existence of X and its role as magnetic tape. No one believed us. The next day we left, each to his own home. The bet had paid off. In the nick of time” (Jacob, p. 317).

First edition, first impression. Presentation copy inscribed by the author to Nobel Prize-winning biologist Sydney Brenner on a loosely inserted compliments slip, “For Sydney, with many thanks and best wishes, Saraye”.

Sydney Brenner (1927-2019) was a leader in the field of genetics almost from the moment he received his doctorate at Oxford in 1954. He joined Francis Crick’s laboratory in 1956, and they did groundbreaking research on how DNA is decoded by cells. Brenner proposed that the nucleotides which comprise DNA (adenine, guanine, thiamine and cytosine) are read by the cell in sets of three called codons, with each codon representing an amino acid (for example, three adenines in a row is the codon for the amino acid lysine). A gene is simply a string of codons that directs the production of a protein molecule from individual amino acids. He also correctly predicted the existence of messenger RNA, the molecule that carries the genetic code from the nucleus to the ribosomes, where the translation process occurs.

Following this work, it was Brenner’s efforts to establish a new laboratory organism for the study of genetics that led to his Nobel Prize. “Beginning in 1965, he began to lay the groundwork to make C. elegans, a small, transparent nematode, into a major model organism for genetics, neurobiology and developmental biology research. As a direct result of his original vision, this tiny worm became the first animal for which the complete cell lineage and entire neuronal wiring were known. Today, more than 1,000 investigators are studying C. elegans, and Brenner’s work was further honored when a closely related nematode was named Caenorhabditis brenneri” (Salk Institute biography).

First edition, first printing. From the library of Nobel Prize-winning biologist Sydeny Brenner, with his ownership inscription, “Sydney Brenner, La Jolla, 2007” on the front free endpaper. 

The present volume, by Nobel laureate Gerald Edelman, is a popular treatment of consciousness and the physiological mechanisms that underpin it.

Sydney Brenner (1927-2019) was a leader in the field of genetics almost from the moment he received his doctorate at Oxford in 1954. He joined Francis Crick’s laboratory in 1956, and they did groundbreaking research on how DNA is decoded by cells. Brenner proposed that the nucleotides which comprise DNA (adenine, guanine, thiamine and cytosine) are read by the cell in sets of three called codons, with each codon representing an amino acid (for example, three adenines in a row is the codon for the amino acid lysine). A gene is simply a string of codons that directs the production of a protein molecule from individual amino acids. He also correctly predicted the existence of messenger RNA, the molecule that carries the genetic code from the nucleus to the ribosomes, where the translation process occurs.

Following this work, it was Brenner’s efforts to establish a new laboratory organism for the study of genetics that led to his Nobel Prize. “Beginning in 1965, he began to lay the groundwork to make C. elegans, a small, transparent nematode, into a major model organism for genetics, neurobiology and developmental biology research. As a direct result of his original vision, this tiny worm became the first animal for which the complete cell lineage and entire neuronal wiring were known. Today, more than 1,000 investigators are studying C. elegans, and Brenner’s work was further honored when a closely related nematode was named Caenorhabditis brenneri” (Salk Institute biography).

First edition, first impression. Presentation copy from the author, Nobel Prize-winning biologist Sydney Brenner (1927-2019), to his wife, May, inscribed on the front free endpaper, “To May, from Sarha October 1997”. Sarha was presumably a nickname. Brenner had a long-running column in the journal Current Biology, and this volume collects thirty-eight of his pieces covering his own life and career and a variety of other topics in molecular biology and related fields.

Brenner was a leader in the field of genetics almost from the moment he received his doctorate at Oxford in 1954. He joined Francis Crick’s laboratory in 1956, and they did groundbreaking research on how DNA is decoded by cells. Brenner proposed that the nucleotides which comprise DNA (adenine, guanine, thiamine and cytosine) are read by the cell in sets of three called codons, with each codon representing an amino acid (for example, three adenines in a row is the codon for the amino acid lysine). A gene is simply a string of codons that directs the production of a protein molecule from individual amino acids. He also correctly predicted the existence of messenger RNA, the molecule that carries the genetic code from the nucleus to the ribosomes, where the translation process occurs.

Following this work, it was Brenner’s efforts to establish a new laboratory organism for the study of genetics that led to his Nobel Prize. “Beginning in 1965, he began to lay the groundwork to make C. elegans, a small, transparent nematode, into a major model organism for genetics, neurobiology and developmental biology research. As a direct result of his original vision, this tiny worm became the first animal for which the complete cell lineage and entire neuronal wiring were known. Today, more than 1,000 investigators are studying C. elegans, and Brenner’s work was further honored when a closely related nematode was named Caenorhabditis brenneri” (Salk Institute biography).

First edition, first impression. From the library of Nobel Prize-winning biologist Sydney Brenner, presentation copy inscribed from the author to Brenner on the front blank, “With respect and warmest wishes, Alexander Todd, 24th May 1984”.

The author, biochemist Alexander Todd (1907-1997), was awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 1957 “for his work on the synthesis of nucleotides (the small units that make up the larger molecule of nucleic acids), the hereditary material of cells. This work led to many important advances in chemistry and biochemistry”, including the elucidation of the structure of DNA by Watson and Crick (Shampo, “Alexander Todd”, Mayo Clinic Proceedings, March 2012).

Recipient Sydney Brenner was a leader in the field of genetics almost from the moment he received his doctorate at Oxford in 1954. He joined Francis Crick’s laboratory in 1956, and they did groundbreaking research on how DNA is decoded by cells. Brenner proposed that the nucleotides which comprise DNA (adenine, guanine, thiamine and cytosine) are read by the cell in sets of three called codons, with each codon representing an amino acid (for example, three adenines in a row is the codon for the amino acid lysine). A gene is simply a string of codons that directs the production of a protein molecule from individual amino acids. He also correctly predicted the existence of messenger RNA, the molecule that carries the genetic code from the nucleus to the ribosomes, where the translation process occurs.

Following this work, it was Brenner’s efforts to establish a new laboratory organism for the study of genetics that led to his Nobel Prize. “Beginning in 1965, he began to lay the groundwork to make C. elegans, a small, transparent nematode, into a major model organism for genetics, neurobiology and developmental biology research. As a direct result of his original vision, this tiny worm became the first animal for which the complete cell lineage and entire neuronal wiring were known. Today, more than 1,000 investigators are studying C. elegans, and Brenner’s work was further honored when a closely related nematode was named Caenorhabditis brenneri” (Salk Institute biography).

Second printing, originally published in 1940. From the library of Nobel Prize-winning biologist Sydney Brenner, with his ownership signature and the date “14 November 1952” on the cover.

The present mathematical model, better known by its short title, The Consistency of the Continuum Hypothesis, “is a classic of modern mathematics. The continuum hypothesis, introduced by mathematician George Cantor in 1877, states that there is no set of numbers between the integers and real numbers. It was later included as the first of mathematician David Hilbert's twenty-three unsolved math problems, famously delivered as a manifesto to the field of mathematics at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Paris in 1900. In The Consistency of the Continuum Hypothesis Gödel set forth his proof for this problem” (De Gruyter blurb).

Sydney Brenner (1927-2019) was a leader in the field of genetics almost from the moment he received his doctorate at Oxford in 1954. He joined Francis Crick’s laboratory in 1956, and they did groundbreaking research on how DNA is decoded by cells. Brenner proposed that the nucleotides which comprise DNA (adenine, guanine, thiamine and cytosine) are read by the cell in sets of three called codons, with each codon representing an amino acid (for example, three adenines in a row is the codon for the amino acid lysine). A gene is simply a string of codons that directs the production of a protein molecule from individual amino acids. He also correctly predicted the existence of messenger RNA, the molecule that carries the genetic code from the nucleus to the ribosomes, where the translation process occurs.

Following this work, it was Brenner’s efforts to establish a new laboratory organism for the study of genetics that led to his Nobel Prize. “Beginning in 1965, he began to lay the groundwork to make C. elegans, a small, transparent nematode, into a major model organism for genetics, neurobiology and developmental biology research. As a direct result of his original vision, this tiny worm became the first animal for which the complete cell lineage and entire neuronal wiring were known. Today, more than 1,000 investigators are studying C. elegans, and Brenner’s work was further honored when a closely related nematode was named Caenorhabditis brenneri” (Salk Institute biography).

First edition, first impression. Presentation copy inscribed by the author to his close friend and colleague, Nobel prize-winning biologist Sydney Brenner, on the half title, “To Sydney, as ammunition, from Max”. The present volume is a short discussion of the relationship between science and public policy, and it is unclear how the contents were intended as ammunition for Brenner. Works signed by Perutz are uncommon.

Author Max Perutz (1914-2002) was an eminent molecular biologist who founded a major Cambridge research institute, the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology, and who was awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 1962 for his study of the structures of haemoglobin and myoglobin. It was at the Laboratory of Molecular Biology that the recipient, Sydney Brenner (1927-2019), spent the first twenty years of his career, and where he made major breakthroughs in genetics alongside Francis Crick.

Beginning in 1956, Brenner and Crick did groundbreaking research on how DNA is decoded by cells. Brenner proposed that the nucleotides which comprise DNA (adenine, guanine, thiamine and cytosine) are read by the cell in sets of three called codons, with each codon representing an amino acid (for example, three adenines in a row is the codon for the amino acid lysine). A gene is simply a string of codons that directs the production of a protein molecule from individual amino acids. He also correctly predicted the existence of messenger RNA, the molecule that carries the genetic code from the nucleus to the ribosomes, where the translation process occurs.

Following this work, it was Brenner’s efforts to establish a new laboratory organism for the study of genetics that led to his Nobel Prize. “Beginning in 1965, he began to lay the groundwork to make C. elegans, a small, transparent nematode, into a major model organism for genetics, neurobiology and developmental biology research. As a direct result of his original vision, this tiny worm became the first animal for which the complete cell lineage and entire neuronal wiring were known. Today, more than 1,000 investigators are studying C. elegans, and Brenner’s work was further honored when a closely related nematode was named Caenorhabditis brenneri” (Salk Institute biography).

First edition, first printing. From the library of Nobel Prize-winning biologist Sydney Brenner, with his ownership signature and the date “25th July, 1950” on the front free endpaper.

Sydney Brenner (1927-2019) was a leader in the field of genetics almost from the moment he received his doctorate at Oxford in 1954. He joined Francis Crick’s laboratory in 1956, and they did groundbreaking research on how DNA is decoded by cells. Brenner proposed that the nucleotides which comprise DNA (adenine, guanine, thiamine and cytosine) are read by the cell in sets of three called codons, with each codon representing an amino acid (for example, three adenines in a row is the codon for the amino acid lysine). A gene is simply a string of codons that directs the production of a protein molecule from individual amino acids. He also correctly predicted the existence of messenger RNA, the molecule that carries the genetic code from the nucleus to the ribosomes, where the translation process occurs.

Following this work, it was Brenner’s efforts to establish a new laboratory organism for the study of genetics that led to his Nobel Prize. “Beginning in 1965, he began to lay the groundwork to make C. elegans, a small, transparent nematode, into a major model organism for genetics, neurobiology and developmental biology research. As a direct result of his original vision, this tiny worm became the first animal for which the complete cell lineage and entire neuronal wiring were known. Today, more than 1,000 investigators are studying C. elegans, and Brenner’s work was further honored when a closely related nematode was named Caenorhabditis brenneri” (Salk Institute biography).

First paperback printing. Originally published in 1978. This copy from the library of Nobel Prize-winning biologist Sydney Brenner, with his ownership signature and the date “April 1981” on the front free endpaper.

Sydney Brenner (1927-2019) was a leader in the field of genetics almost from the moment he received his doctorate at Oxford in 1954. He joined Francis Crick’s laboratory in 1956, and they did groundbreaking research on how DNA is decoded by cells. Brenner proposed that the nucleotides which comprise DNA (adenine, guanine, thiamine and cytosine) are read by the cell in sets of three called codons, with each codon representing an amino acid (for example, three adenines in a row is the codon for the amino acid lysine). A gene is simply a string of codons that directs the production of a protein molecule from individual amino acids. He also correctly predicted the existence of messenger RNA, the molecule that carries the genetic code from the nucleus to the ribosomes, where the translation process occurs.

Following this work, it was Brenner’s efforts to establish a new laboratory organism for the study of genetics that led to his Nobel Prize. “Beginning in 1965, he began to lay the groundwork to make C. elegans, a small, transparent nematode, into a major model organism for genetics, neurobiology and developmental biology research. As a direct result of his original vision, this tiny worm became the first animal for which the complete cell lineage and entire neuronal wiring were known. Today, more than 1,000 investigators are studying C. elegans, and Brenner’s work was further honored when a closely related nematode was named Caenorhabditis brenneri” (Salk Institute biography).

The subject of this volume, Leo Szilard (1989-1964) was the physicist who in 1934 conceived the possibility of the nuclear chain reaction, leading directly to the development of nuclear weapons and energy. He patented the idea of a fission reactor in 1934, and authored the letter which Einstein signed encouraging Franklin D. Roosevelt to initiate the Manhattan Project. Szilard was part of Enrico Fermi’s team at the University of Chicago which created the first sustained nuclear chain reaction, and continued on as a member of the Manhattan Project before drafting the Szilard petition which argued that Japan must be given the chance to surrender before the atomic bomb was used against them. Following the war Szilard switched his focus to biology. He invented the chemostat and was involved in the first cloning of a human cell.

First edition, first impression. From the library of Nobel Prize-winning biologist Sydney Brenner, with his ownership inscription on the front free endpaper, “Sydney Brenner, Ely 23 June 2014”.

Sydney Brenner (1927-2019) was a leader in the field of genetics almost from the moment he received his doctorate at Oxford in 1954. He joined Francis Crick’s laboratory in 1956, and they did groundbreaking research on how DNA is decoded by cells. Brenner proposed that the nucleotides which comprise DNA (adenine, guanine, thiamine and cytosine) are read by the cell in sets of three called codons, with each codon representing an amino acid (for example, three adenines in a row is the codon for the amino acid lysine). A gene is simply a string of codons that directs the production of a protein molecule from individual amino acids. He also correctly predicted the existence of messenger RNA, the molecule that carries the genetic code from the nucleus to the ribosomes, where the translation process occurs.

Following this work, it was Brenner’s efforts to establish a new laboratory organism for the study of genetics that led to his Nobel Prize. “Beginning in 1965, he began to lay the groundwork to make C. elegans, a small, transparent nematode, into a major model organism for genetics, neurobiology and developmental biology research. As a direct result of his original vision, this tiny worm became the first animal for which the complete cell lineage and entire neuronal wiring were known. Today, more than 1,000 investigators are studying C. elegans, and Brenner’s work was further honored when a closely related nematode was named Caenorhabditis brenneri” (Salk Institute biography).

Author Manfred Eigen (1927-2019) was a biochemist who made important contributions in a number of subjects, including the “hydrogen bridges of nucleic acids... the dynamics of code transfer... enzymes and lipid membranes” as well as “biological control and regulation processes, and the problem of the storage of information in the central nervous system” (Nobel Prize biography). He was awarded the 1967 Nobel Prize in chemistry for his work measuring fast ionic reactions.

First edition, first printing. From the library of Nobel prize-winning biologist Sydney Brenner, with his ownership inscription to the front free endpaper, “Sydney Brenner, La Jolla, 10 Sep 2011”. With a bookmark from the La Jolla shop Warwick's loosely inserted.

Sydney Brenner (1927-2019) was a leader in the field of genetics almost from the moment he received his doctorate at Oxford in 1954. He joined Francis Crick’s laboratory in 1956, and they did groundbreaking research on how DNA is decoded by cells. Brenner proposed that the nucleotides which comprise DNA (adenine, guanine, thiamine and cytosine) are read by the cell in sets of three called codons, with each codon representing an amino acid (for example, three adenines in a row is the codon for the amino acid lysine). A gene is simply a string of codons that directs the production of a protein molecule from individual amino acids. He also correctly predicted the existence of messenger RNA, the molecule that carries the genetic code from the nucleus to the ribosomes, where the translation process occurs.

Following this work, it was Brenner’s efforts to establish a new laboratory organism for the study of genetics that led to his Nobel Prize. “Beginning in 1965, he began to lay the groundwork to make C. elegans, a small, transparent nematode, into a major model organism for genetics, neurobiology and developmental biology research. As a direct result of his original vision, this tiny worm became the first animal for which the complete cell lineage and entire neuronal wiring were known. Today, more than 1,000 investigators are studying C. elegans, and Brenner’s work was further honored when a closely related nematode was named Caenorhabditis brenneri” (Salk Institute biography).

The author of the present volume, Gino Segrè, is a physicist, the nephew of Nobel prize winner Emilio Segrè, and author of four works of popular science, including the prize-winning Faust in Copenhagen.

First edition of a rare promotional booklet for the original Pershing missile system (MGM-31A). WorldCat locates only one institutional copy, at the US Army Field Artillery School in Fort Sill, Oklahoma.

Pershing was conceived during the late 1950s as a nuclear weapon system to be deployed in defense of NATO countries on the European continent. Testing occurred during 1960 and 1961, and production began in 1962. “As the successor to the Redstone [ballistic missiles], the Pershing inherited the Redstone’s mission of acting as a forward-based SRBM [short-range ballistic missile] that could strike critical targets in Warsaw Pact nations from U.S. bases in NATO-aligned nations. Unlike the Redstone, the Pershing 1 used solid fuel which could be stored indefinitely inside the missile, eliminating an otherwise lengthy fueling process prior to launch. Additionally, the missile’s size and weight made it easier to transport. Due to these factors, the missiles were valued for their survivability and short launch time. The only significant factor that slowed launch time for the Pershing 1 was that, due to the missile’s length, the warhead was carried on a separate vehicle and attached once a launch order had been received” (”MGM-31 Pershing 1”, Missile Threat website, the Missile Defense Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies).

This booklet describes and illustrates the technical aspects of the Pershing system, describing it as “containing all the elements necessary to complete a deep penetration, nuclear fire mission... a missile, automatic checkout and pre-flight programming equipment, an electrical power station, a small portable launch platform, and communications equipment” that would allow it to be a self-sustaining and highly responsive in unstable battlefield conditions. Eight glossy photographs depict a Pershing missile in the launcher, at the moment of launch, the equipment carrier, erector-launcher, programmer and power stations, and the separate warhead vehicle. They are accompanied by stylish technical drawings and blueprints that give an idea of scale and functioning.

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 edition, large-paper copy, of this fundamental work which “placed the study of embryology on a sound basis, surpassing in accuracy all other contemporary work on the subject and foreshadowing some of the more important general lines of research in embryology” (Garrison & Morton 469).

”As with his investigations in comparative anatomy, Malpighi was led to embryological research as a means of understanding more highly developed structures. His study of the development of the chicken in the egg went far beyond the work of Harvey and Fabrici, dealing with the internal structures to an unprecedented extent: his chief discoveries, illustrated in his four beautifully detailed plates, were the vascular areas embraced by the terminal sinus, the cardiac tube and its segmentation, the aortic arches, the somites, the neural folds and neural tube, the cerebral and optic vesicles, the protoliver, the glands of the prestomach, and the feather follicles. Malpighi established the paths of subsequent embryological research, making the important connection between emryogenesis and phylogenesis, and playing a formative role in the development of preformationist theory, which would pose a strong challenge to the traditional doctrine of epigenesis” (Norman 1429).

References: Garrison & Morton 469; Norman 1429; Wing M350

First edition of this rare work on the proportional compass, the first to describe both its construction and application. A very attractive copy in handsome contemporary calf. Rare, only one copy appears in recent auction records, at Sothebys in 2018, and WorldCat locates around fifteen copies.

The proportional compass, a forerunner of the Galilean compass, was one of the first mathematical calculating instruments. It allowed volumes of solids to be calculated and compared, lines to be divided according to a given proportion, circles and curves to be divided proportionally, surfaces of a given shape to be multiplied or reduced, π to be approximated, shapes to be transformed into other shapes of equal surface area, and spheres and the five regular solids to be transformed. It was invented in antiquity, and later developed by Leonardo da Vinci who referred to it specifically as a proportional compass.

The instrument described by Horcher had its genesis in the observatory of Wilhelm IV, Landgraave of Hesse, at Kassel. He employed Joost Bürgi as an instrument maker, and it is believed that Bürgi devised the instrument described by Horcher. It was first publicised in a work by Levinus Hulsius entitled Dritter Tractat der mechanischen Instrumente... Beschreibung und Unterricht dess Jobst Burgi Proportional Circkels (Frankfurt 1604). Hulsius had been a student of Galileo’s at Padua. However, Hulsius withheld details of the compass’s construction, as he was offering the instrument for sale. Horcher here gives the first account of its construction, as well as numerous examples of its use in calculating and scaling.

”Important for our purposes is how these new instruments effectively mechanized the basic processes of the geometric game: two-dimensional quadrature of the circle, three-dimensional cubature of the sphere, problems of doubling the volume of a cube or transforming one regular solid into another were now operations which could be analyzed quantitatively. They were physical, mechanical problems which could be reduced to numerical ratios and these could happen without the aid of three-dimensional representations. Hence it was paradoxically the very study of the regular and irregular solids as concrete physical models that brought about a new level of abstraction, which resembled the earlier neo-Platonic interpretation but was in fact fundamentally different because it assumed a new mechanistic view of the universe. Indeed, where the geometrical game had been an intellectual play of geometrical forms in mediaeval times, it now involved nature itself” (Kim H. Veltman, Geometric Games: A Brief History of the Not so Regular Solids).

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

Third printing, published the year after the first. With the ownership inscription, pencilled notes, and December 1944 report card of Eva Bernice Simmons, a student at the North Carolina College for Negroes, now North Carolina Central University.

Author Clara Mae Taylor (1989-?) attended Columbia University Teacher’s College and then taught at the Rhode Island Teacher’s College and at her alma mater. She earned her PhD in nutrition science at age forty after spending a year in research at Oxford. “During World War II, Taylor directed a research project under the Department of Agriculture that investigated energy metabolism in children. She also studied metabolism in women at different ages. Her animal experiments on white rats and guinea pigs included dietary studies, an investigation of different levels of ascorbic acid on reproduction, and studies on lactation and survival rates. During the war and the immediate post-war period, she served as a nutritional consultant to two popular women’s magazines, Woman’s Home Companion and Parents Magazine” (Ogilvie, Biographical Dictionary of Women in Science, p. 1269).