The Foundations of the Origin of Species. Two essays written in 1842 and 1844. Cambridge: University Press, 1909

This volume, published on 100th anniversary of Darwin’s birth and the 50th anniverary of On the Origin of Species, prints Darwin’s unpublished essays from the 1840s in which he first formulated his ideas about natural selection. The short 1842 essay was also issued in a limited edition earlier in 1909. This volume uses that same setting of type and adds the much longer 1844 essay. In the 1844 essay Darwin laid out the arguments for evolution based upon natural selection, sharing it with a few friends, notably Charles Lyell and Joseph Hooker. He continued to gather evidence until 1858, when the appearance of Wallace’s paper forced Darwin to publish.

$1,200

“Plancks Gesetz und Lichtquantenhypothese” in Zeitschrift fuer Physik, vol. 25-26. Braunschweig and Berlin, 1924

“With their work Bose and Einstein established the field of quantum statistics one year before the appearance of quantum mechanics” (Brandt, The Harvest of a Century)

$800

Horse-Hoeing Husbandry: or, An Essay on the Principles of Vegetation and Tillage. Designed to Introduce A New Method of Culture; whereby The Produce of Land will be Increased, and the Usual Expense Lessened. Together with Accurate Descriptions and Cuts of the Instruments Employed in it … fourth edition, very carefully corrected. London: Millar, 1762

The edition that Thomas Jefferson owned.  Jefferson wrote from Monticello in 1817, “While I was an amateur in Agricultural science (for practical knowledge my course of life never permitted me) I was very partial to the drilled husbandry of Tull.”

$600

Materials for the Study of Variation: treated with especial regard to discontinuity in the origin of species. London: Macmillan, 1894

FIRST EDITION. This was “Bateson’s major scientific work before his rediscovery of Mendel’s laws. Like many other scientists during the last decades of the nineteenth century, Bateson rejected the orthodox Darwinian doctrine of natural selection… Bateson laid great emphasis on the importance of major or discontinuous variation as the source of evolutionary change” (Norman 134).

$500

“Allgemeinen molekulare Theorie der Wärme” in Annalen der Physik, 4. Folge, Band 14. Leipzig, Annalen der Physik, 1904

FIRST EDITION of Einstein’s fifth published paper, “On the General Molecular Theory of Heat” (pp. 354-362). Weil 5.

$400

Albert Einstein: the Human Side. Princeton: University Press, 1979

FIRST EDITION. Presentation copy inscribed by Einstein’s longtime assistant Helen Dukas: “For Lisa Ben Samuel with kindest regards and Shalom Helen Dukas Princeton N.J. March 1980.”

$350

Reports Regarding Sir William Thomson’s Compass and Sounding Machine. Glasgow: University Press [for Thomson], 1877

An important early offering brochure regarding the sale of the first modern compass and early navigational aids. This is a price list and an extensive collection of reports and testimonial letters from ship captains concerning Thomson’s sounding apparatus (the first to use wire instead of hemp) and compass. “The modern compass dates from 1876, when Sir William Thomson patented his dry-card compass” (Singer, History of Technology V). Thomson was deeply interested in the application of science to industry, and he apparently prepared this rare, ephemeral publication to promote his products, which helped to make him a wealthy man. This brochure includes a detailed price list for Thomson’s navigational instruments.

$350

Die Grundlagen der Einsteinschen Gravitationstheorie. Mit einem Vorwort von Albert Einstein. Berlin: Springer, 1916

FIRST EDITION. This work on Albert Einstein’s theory of gravitation contains a foreword by Einstein. Freundlich is best known for his attempts to experimentally test the general theory of relativity using astronomical observations based on the gravitational redshift.

$250

The Psychological Portrait: Marcel Sternberger’s Revelations in Photography. Foreword by Phillip Prodger.. New York: Skira Rizzoli, 2016

First edition, one of 100 copies of the Deluxe Estate Edition, signed and numbered by the author and accompanied by your choice of one of four 8 x 10 inch archival pigment photographs (Einstein, Freud, Shaw, or Kahlo).

$165

De Maculis in Sole observatis, et apparente earum cum Sole conversione; Narratio cui Adjecta est de modo eductionis specierum visibilium dubitatio. Wittenberg: Seuberlich for Borner and Rhefeld, 1611

FIRST EDITION of Fabricius’s Account of Spots Observed on the Sun and of their Apparent Rotation with the Sun), the first printed work on sunspots. This volume is a landmark of the Copernican revolution in astronomy.

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