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Halle in Magdeburgischen, Johann Justinus Gebauer, 1740 - 1745. 4to. Bound in 15 cont. full vellum, some corners soiled, most inner-hinges cracked, so cords are showing, but not loose, most bookblocks tight. Internally overall a nice and clean set, except for vol. nine, the last about 60 leaves of which are marginally ink-soiled and stuck together in margins, but not affecting text. Vol. five lacks lower part of t-p. i.e. printer and printing-year, vol. 13 loose and lacking leaves at end. Vol. one w. engr. frontispiece. Title-pages in red and black, some woodcut vignettes. In all about 22.000 pp.

Amsterdam, M.M.Rey, 1758. 8vo. Beautiful contemporary full mottled calf with five raised bands and gilt red leather title-label to richly gilt spine. All edges Minor loss to lower capital, but apart from that an absolutely beautiful copy, internally as well as externally. Very nice, clan and fresh. Printed on good paper, with good margins. Engraved title-vignette. XVIII, 264, (8) pp. The rare first edition of this important work, which inaugurated one of the most significant intellectual debates of the 18th century.The letter is Rousseau's answer to the article on the city of Geneva, which his friend d'Alembert had written for the French "Encyclopédie". In the article, d'Alembert had suggested that the citizens of Geneva establish a theatre which - so d'Alembert - would lead to a refinement of the mores and ways of the Genevans, not to mention adding a bit of sparkle to a city which he described as dreary and sad. The response by Rousseau opened up what was one of the most important intellectual polemics of the 18th century.Rousseau, a citizen of Geneva by birth, uses the article by d'Alembert as a springboard for a reflection on the place of culture in society. He relates the institution of the theatre to the question of political morality and attempts to define boundaries between the morally innocuous and corruptive forms of entertainment. The letter is permeated by a pronounced Platonism. The arguments which Rousseau advances against the theatre closely recall those advanced by Plato in the Republic against the poets. As Plato, Rousseau focuses his attention on the artificial nature of the theatrical spectacle, which leads the mind astray, away from the concerns of an industrious and fulfilled life. For anybody with an interest in the work and life of Rousseau, the "Lettre à d'Alembert" is an invaluable document. Not only does it connect Rousseau's earlier writings - the Discourse on the Arts and Sciences (1750) and the Discourse on the Origin and Basis of Inequality among Men (1754) - to his later major work; it also offers an insight into the differences of opinion that would lead Rousseau to break with the circle around the encyclopaedists. The present edition is unknown to Dufour and Tchmerzine, but recent research has determined that this is the actual first printing (see for instance: Azers, "Histoire de l'Impression et la publication de la "Lettre à d'Alembert"", Sénelier).

Lüneburg, Johan und Heinrich Sternen, 1634. 8vo. In contemporary full calf with four raised bands and gilt lettering and ornamentation to spine. With two clasps, missing one of the catches. Small paper-label pasted on to top of spine. A few scratches to boards and leather on spine cracked. Internally nice and clean. (12), 480, 76, 115 pp. + double-page frontispiece. The exceedingly rare early (second?) German translation of Bishop Bayly's seminal "The Practice of Piety". The book became immensely popular during the 17th century, particularly among Puritans and other Protestant groups and was “the most popular English book in Germany in the seventeenth century. At least sixty-nine German editions were published before 1743” (Damrau, Early Puritan Literature in Germany). We have not been able to trace a single copy of the early edition in the trade. “Lewis Bayly was born around 1575 at Carmarthen, Wales, where Thomas Bayly, who probably was his father, was serving as curate at that time. Lewis and his first wife, who was probably Judith Appleton, had their first son in 1595, followed by four additional children. Bayly secured the living of Shipston-on-Stour, in Worcestershire, in 1597, and three years later was presented to the crown living of Evesham in the same county, where he served as headmaster of the grammar school. Bayly soon became known for his preaching and was appointed a chaplain to Prince Henry within a few years of King James’s accession. In 1606, he was presented to the rectory of Llanedi, Carmarthenshire, but remained largely at Evesham. Though he was a conformed Calvinist who respected the authority of the church, Bayly emphasized Puritan-like piety. Shortly after his wife passed away in 1608, he began to work on turning some of his sermons into what would become a Protestant classic, The Practice of Piety.”(Beeke, Meet the Puritans). Provenance: Valdemar's Castle, Denmark

Paris, de Bure, 1756. 8vo. Beautiful cont. full mottled calf w. five raised bands on richly gilt spine, gilt red title-label. A very nice copy w. only minor occasional brownspotting. xxviij, 483, (2, -errata & Approbation) pp. The rare first edition of Bordeau's important investigations on the pulse which has caused the pulse to be taken by applying the tips of the four fingers to the hollow of the radius.The work was later printed in Diderot's "Encyclopédie".Théophile de Bordeau (1722-1776) was an important French physician of the 18th century. Due to his great abilities and interest in his patient, Bordeau attracted a large practice as an attending physician at La Charité in Paris. This aroused jealousy with many of his colleagues, and due to a conspiracy his name was removed from the list of Paris physicians in 1761; he defended himself vigorously, however, and was reinstated in 1764, allowing him to care for his many devoted patients, among which many impotant persons of the 18th century were to be found, e.g. Madame du Barry.Bordeau is considered the founder of modern hydrotherapy, and it was through him that the baths of the Pyrenees became known throughout the south of France and Paris. He wrote a number of important an influential works on medicine. He is considered a precursor in what was later called endocrinology, and he demonstrated that secretion is the active elaboration of a new product separate from the constituents of the blood. "Semeiology also interested Bordeu. His "Recherches sur les crises" appeared in Diderot's "Encyclopédie", as did his "Recherches sur le pouls par rapport aux crises." Both mark him as a clinician of the first order who knew how to obtain a large number of diagnostic and prognostic facts from an examination. Since Bordeu, physicians take the pulse by applying the tips of the four fingers to the hollow of the radius."

Washington, 1963-64. 8vo. The two complete volumes 50 and 51 of the 'Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences' in contemporary half cloth bindings + original printed wrappers. First editions. In this work Cohen established the independence of the Axiom of Choice (AC) from ZF and the independence of the Continuum Hypothesis (CH) from ZFC. This result is among the most outstanding achievements in 20th century mathematics. For this work Cohen was awarded the Fields Medal in 1966 and the National Medal of Science in 1967; the 1966 Fields Medal continues to be the only Fields Medal to have been awarded for a work in mathematical logic.

Kjøbenhavn (Copenhagen), 1853. Nice cont. black hcalf w. richly gilt back. Hinges and capitals neatly restored. Back w. signs of use. Some leaves somewhat brownspotted, and many plates evenly browned as usual. Some heavier staining to about 10 leaves and three plates. W. all 48 full-page wood-engr. plates, including the frontispiece. First Danish edition, printed the year after the first edition (Boston, 1852), of one of the most important works in American literature, "Uncle Tom's Cabin; Or Life Among the Lowly". Uncle Tom's Cabin was the best-selling novel of the 19th century, the only book that sold better that century was the Bible. 300.000 copies of the novel were sold within the first year of its appearance in America alone, and it was not less successful in England. The work has had an immense impact on the history of slavery in America, and no other book has done as much to influence the way slavery and African-Americans were viewed by the rest of the world. It is said that Lincoln's first words after he met Harriet Beecher Stowe were: "So this is the little lady who made this big war.""Though she offered no practical solution to the slavery problem, Mrs. Stowe, with her scenes from "Life Among the Lowly", added the fuel of righteous anger to a fire already kindled; it was her misfortune to see it spread until it involved the whole nation in civil war." (One Hundred Influential American Books Printed before 1900, No. 61). "[...] the social impact on the United States was greater than that of any book before or since." (PMM 332).(PMM 332 - first edition).

St. Petersburg, Carl Ricker, 1891. Royal8vo. Contemporary half calf with spine lettering. (2),1126,(1) pp. and 3 tables (1 folded). A fine fresh copy. First german edition: Dibner 48 - The Periodic Law.Mendeleev's milestone text book 'The Principles of Chemistry' first published in Russian 1869. In this work Mendeleev first published his great discovery that the elements exhibit an apparent periodicity of properties when arranged by their atomic mass.

(Paris), Les Éditions de Minuit, (1973). 8vo. Original printed wrappers. Minor soiling to front wrapper, otherwise a very nice and clean copy. 317, (3) pp. First edition of one of Jakobson's late works, in which he summarizes many of his fundamental theories and makes them accessible. The work is inscribed "To Van from Roman" and bears the ownership signature of "W.V. Quine" to the half-title. As such, the present copy constitutes a magnificent link between two of the greatest theoreticians of language of the 20th century, on the one hand Roman Jakobson, the pioneer of the structural analysis of language and the linguist who most profoundly altered the field in the 20th century, and Willard Orman Van Quine, the great philosopher of logic and language, who altered the way that all Anglo-American philosophy of language and logic is conducted. Roman Osipovich Jakobson (1896 - 1982) was a famous Russian linguist and literary critic, who became one of the most influential linguists of the 20th century. He is probably most famous as the pioneer of structural analysis of language and as the co-founder of structuralism.Jakobson was born into a Russian Jewish family. Early on, he showed a great interest in the theory of language, and already as a student he became a leading figure of the Moscow Linguistic Circle. He was very much influenced by Husserl's phenomenology and the work of Saussure, and he developed a deep interest in the question of how language, the human speech, functions and is possible.Due to political troubles in Russia, in 1920 Jakobsen moved to Prague, where he was to become even more influential. He here, in 1926, co-founded the Prague School of linguistic theory, together with the Copenhagen School, the most influential school of linguistics of its time and of decades to come. When the Second World War broke out, Jakobson moved to Scandinavia, where he met the Copenhagen School of linguistics and its main figure, Louis Hjelmslev. Later he fled to America, where he met Quine, Claude Lévi-Strauss, Bloomfeld and many other important thinkers within the field of language theory. There is no doubt that many of the thinkers that he met here, including Quine, were greatly influenced by the seminal thoughts of the man who had altered all linguistic thought and research. Jakobson's structuralist theories of language differentiate much from other parts of the structuralist movement in that he constantly bases them on knowledge from other sciences, from mathematics, philosophy, psychology etc., and as such, Jakobson's theories are among the most influential and wide-ranging in the history of linguistics, as they come to also affect and profoundly influence several other scientific fields.

London, aux depens de la Compagnie, 1742. 12mo. Uniformly bound in seven nice contemporary full marbled calf binding with four raised bands. Blind-tooled ornamentation to boarders of boards. Light wear to extremities, a few scratches to boards. Internally nice and clean. (2), XLVIII, 382, (12) pp.;(2), 382, (16) pp.; (2), 428, (16) pp.; (2), 347, (13) pp.; (2), XVI, 451, (13) pp.; (2), 372, (10) pp.; (12), 350 pp. + 24 plates (out of 25?) and 7 frontispieces. A nice set of the fifteenth edition of this work, being a collection of fictitious letters containing observations on contemporary European affairs by an Ottoman agent in Paris. The first edition of this work began publication in 1684 when a volume in Italian titled "L'esploratore turco" and a French version entitled "L'espion du grand seigneur" were published in Paris by C. Barbin. Authorship is disputed, but it is generally agreed that the first fifty letters (the original four volumes)--were written by Marana. Barbier ascribes two volumes which appeared in 1696 under title, "Suite de L'espion turc", to C. Cotolendi. (Barbier. Dictionnaire des ouvrages anonymes, v. 2, col. 176-178).

K., 1852-57. 2 hldrbd.Det ene nyere og lidt afvigende. (6),202,(4),(4),218,V,416,172 pp. 10 litograferede tavler i farver samt 4 litograf.foldekort. Originaludgaven.

Paris, Didot, 1821 + Paris, Plassan, 1825. 8vo. Bound uncut in one nice cont. red hcalf with gilt back. Bdg. w. a few traces of use. Some brownspotting. Printed on good paper. Woodcut vignettes to all three title-pages and several text-vignettes in the last work. First editions of both parts of Beranger's "Chansons". Béranger's famous and influential song appeared in five parts in all, beginning with the "Chansons morales et autres" in 1816. The two present collections constitute part two and three. The first part from 1816 is extremely scarce, but this second part, merely called "Chansons", is probably the most interesting and noteworthy off all the song-collections, as well as being the most comprehensive. "Une édition plus complète parut en 1821, 2 vol. in 18, Paris, Firmin Didot. Cette édition, résultant d´une souscription patronnée par le banquier Laffitte et A.-S. L- Bérard, fut tirée à 10,000 exemplaires; elle fut pursuivie, et l´auteur, quoique habilement défendu par M. Dupin l´aîné , fut condamné á trois mois de prison et á 500 fr. d´amende." (Brunet 1, pp. 781). The author was prosecuted and condemned to imprisonment for three monts because of the appearance of this edition. The two last parts, "Chansons inédites" and "Chansons nouvelles et dernières" appeared in 1828 and 1833. These two collections contain some of the most important of Béranger's songs, among these the influential Napoleonic ones. His songs develloped from being joyous odes into strong satirical and political songs; -"le gouvernement clérical et rétrograde de la Restauration fut particulièrement visé avec une verve mordante et caractéristique. C'est pour cela peut-être qu'il est un des plus grands créateurs de la légende napoléonienne, car il oppose l'époque glorieuse de l'Empire à la mesquinerie qui lui succéda." (Lafont-Bompiani, I:368). His obvoiusly satirical tone partly explains his great political influence at the time, -he is a master of portraying the Bourbon government, clericalism, the old reactionary nobility, and as a contrast the glorious souvenirs of Napoleon. "Voltairienne, sentimentale mais frivole, politique et satirique mais avec simplicité, évitant toute complication de doctrine et toute morale tragique, la poésie de Béranger est la représentation typique de cette première partie du XIXe siècle où la société est encore imbue des moeurs et des idées du XVIIIe et où le romantisme a peine à effacer complètement les formes littéraires et l'esprit de l'ancien régime." (Bompiani I, pp. 368.).Carteret I:134.

Uppsala, Kongl. acad. tryckeriet, 1758. 8vo. In contemporary half calf with five raised bands. Ex-libris (Nils Personne) pasted on to verso of front board. Wear to extremities, boards with scratches and leather on spine cracked. Internally with light marginal miscolouring but generally nice and clean. (12), 144, (5) pp. Uncommon first edition of Belin’s vivid and at times very humorous account of his rather rambunctious travels to Canton. Johan Brelin (1734-82) embarked on a voyage to China in January 1755 aboard the ship Sophia Albertina, commanded by Captain Carl Gustav Lehman. The return trip from China was filled with challenges. Brelin became disoriented, suffered a foot injury, and was stranded on the uninhabited island of Ascension west of Africa, where he feared facing an extremely difficult death. Fortunately, he was rescued by a French ship just in time. Despite facing further hardships, including being briefly suspected of espionage in Portugal and enduring poverty during a winter in Amsterdam, Brelin eventually managed to return to Sweden in April 1757. Upon his arrival in Stockholm, he discovered that he had been presumed dead and that his family still mourned him, yet his written account of the journey reflects a positive and somewhat happy-go-lucy attitude. This travel-account was published in facsimile in 1973.

Leipzig, Industrie-Comptoir, 1810. 4to (330 x 265 mm). Two hefts both uncut in the original printed wrappers with publisher's titel-label pasted on to front wrapper. Wear to extremities and Heft 11 missing spine and front wrappers detached and back wrapper partly detached. Internally with light brownspotting throughout. [Heft 10:] 1 pp. + 10 plates; [Heft 11:] 1 pp. 9 plates. First edition, Heft 10 and 11, being the last two in the series, of this exceedingly rare work with illustrations on furniture of all kinds. Only one complete copy is known (In the Victoria and Albert Musem)

Madrid, Tipografia de Archivos, 1935. Large 4to (285 x 370 mm). In the original blank wrapper. Wrappers with a few nicks and light soiling. Tear to upper part of front hindge and foot of spine. Internally very fine and clean. VII, 223 pp + 52 plates and 183 figures. Both black & white photographs and full color plates reproducing Breuil's original drawings of the animals in the Altamira frescoes. Several of the color plates are double pages. All are protected with tissue guards with printed text. Extensively revised with much better reproductions of Breuil's famous work from 1906 on The Altamira caves. The Altamira caves were the first caves in which prehistoric works of art were found. Breuil, a French archaeologist, visited the site and made drawings of some of the animals depicted on the cave walls for the 1906 monograph. Three decades later, he updated and expanded his work, benefiting from better access to the cave and improved lighting. The discovery of the caves at Altamira was one of the most important archeological discoveries of the 19th century.

Paris, Leonard, 1676. 12mo. Uniformly bound in two contemporary full calf bindings with four raised bands and richly gilt spine. Scratches to boards, spine-ends chipped. Lower part of front hinge on vol. 2 split. Previous owner's name to title-pages in contemporary hand, otherwise internally nice and clean. (30), 266, (20) pp.; (8), 318, (32) pp. The rare first edition Houssaie’s popular and controversial analysis of the Venetian government in which he presented various arguments and causes for the decadence Venice had fallen into in the 17th century. The work was printed by the king's printer and dedicated to Louvois, which suggests that the French government did not disapprove of it. It appeared in March 1676 and the Venetian ambassador, Marcantonio Giustinian, later the doge of Venice, immediately protested. Houssaie was sent to the Bastille, where he remained for six weeks. In 1677 a second edition with an additional supplement was published. It immediately sparked new objections and the edition was subsequently suppressed. This act of persecution brought such widespread attention to the book that it underwent twenty-two editions within a span of just three years. It was translated into several languages. Notably, an English translation was done by Lord Falconbridge who was the son-in-law of Oliver Cromwell. This first edition is not often found in the trade.

Londres (London), 1789. 8vo. Cont. hcalf w. gilding on spine. Hinges and capitals repaired. Occasional minor brownspotting. Frontispiece portrait, 431 pp. Complete w. half-title. W. wookcut vignettes and 1 1/2 p. of musical notes. The not common first edition of the first biography of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, an important work of French Enlightenment, published in the year of the French Revolution.The work was published the year after Rousseau's death and is highly interesting due to its numerous anecdotes, several of which are not to be found anywhere else; Not all of them can be called fully reliable, though.The work is also interesting, not only as the first biography of Rousseau and as a contemporary source to the life of the great French philosopher, but also as a testimony to the influence and fascination of Rousseau to revolutionary France. The cult-role that Rousseau played before and during the French Revolution is difficult to overlook, and the degree of his popularity during the second half of the 18th century must be deemed no less than astonishing. This first biography of Rousseau begins with six letters that are supposed to be genuine, written by the author and dated 1788-89; one of them is to Madame de Staël, and they all contain interesting anecdotes concerning Rousseau.The author, an impoverished count who was born in 1756 and committed suicide in 1817 due to his ruin because of a punishment from the Tribunal, was an enthusiastic Rousseauphile, member of his cousin Rivarol's literary circle, and with the progress of the revolution a fervent royalist. He was imprisoned 1800-1802 under the Consulate due to his writings. As the biographer of Rousseau also his literary presence is of interest. He states in the preface that he will present the facts as they were, as they appeared to him, or at least how he thought they appeared (p. 15), and he ends the preface with the words: "Pour bien chantes Jean-Jacque il faut être un grand homme." (p. 16).

London, Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1847. Orig. red-brown full cloth. Boards and back blindtooled (Remnant & Edmonds, London). Capitals worn, especially upper capital, small nick to upper part of back. Inner hinges a bit weak. Internally nice and clean. W. half-title. VIII, 298 pp + Publisher's Catalogue (32 pp). First English language edition, being the first separate edition, of Hans Christian Andersen's first official autobiography. The English edition preceded the Danish with 95 years (!), as the first Danish edition did not appear until 1942, when it was issued by H. Topsøe-Jensen under the title "Mit eget Eventyr uden Digtning" (i.e. "My Own Fairy Tale Without Poetry"). The first German edition appeared as an introduction in the collected German edition of Andersen's works, also in 1847, under the title: "Das Märchen meines Lebens ohne Dichtung." The general idea that underlies the work is that life is like a fairy tale and that God makes curious things happen. "This True Story of his Life will not be found the least interesting of his writings; indeed, to me it seems one of the most so. It furnishes the key, as it were to all the rest [...]" (Translator's preface). The autobiography is written in the same wonderful language and with the same straightforward mystique that characterizes H.C. Andersen's other writings, and the person H.C.A. cannot be said to be less interesting or intriguing than his fairy tales. "My life is a lovely story, happy and full of incident. If, when I was a boy, and went forth into the world poor and friendless, a good fairy had met me and said, "Choose now thy own course through life [...]" (the initiating lines of Chapter one). H.C. Andresen wrote his autobiography while travelling in Europe. Numerous interruptions appeared, and Andersen sent the sheets of the manuscript off to the publisher as they were written, which meant that he did not have the earlier parts of the work with him when he wrote the latter. The work also much exceeded the length that he had intended. The manuscript was written in Danish and was translated into English and German the year after he had finished the final sheets (August 1846). For this work he only worked on one single manuscript, and made all of the numerous corrections directly in this, meaning that it was exceedingly difficult to read and that it could not be sent to a translator straight away. The publisher had been told to send the sheets of the manuscript directly to his friend and financial advisor, Edvard Collin, as they arrived, and Collin, realizing that no stranger would be able to read the manuscript, made a fair copy of the entire manuscript, correcting all of Andersen's linguistic and stylistic errors. In return he got to keep the manuscript, which is why it was still in existence almost 100 years later, when the first Danish edition of it was to be printed. Andersen borrowed his manuscript from Collin, when, some years later, he had to deliver a Danish autobiography for the edition of his collected works. He used it as the basis for "Mit Livs Eventyr" (The Fairy Tale of My Life"), which appeared in his collected works in 1854-55, but which is much different from the present and principal autobiography.

Stockholm, Lars Salvius, (1746) (+) Stockholm (Peter Momma) 1743. 8vo. In contemporary full calf with richly gilt spine. Wear to extremities, boards with scratches and some loss of marbled paper. Previous owner's name to front free end-paper. Second work (Resa genom Wäster-Norrland) closely trimmed in upper margin with minor loss of text. (20), 271, (13); 144 pp. (wanting the map). First edition of these two important works on Swedish exploration and natural history being some of the earliest descriptions solely dedicated to Lapland and northern Scandinavia.These books provided valuable insights into the geography, flora, fauna, and the indigenous Sami culture of the Lapland region at a time when little was known about this area outside Nothern Scandinavia.

Perth, Robert Morison, 1784. 8vo. contemporary full calf with red leather title-label and gilt lines to spine, forming 6 compartments. Signed by Robert Morison. Extremities with wear; back board with nicks and discolouring. Internally fine and clean. (16), 349, (2), 302-317 pp. Scarce first edition of this popular work, containing extensive conversion tables including those for interest, for commissions and exchange, primarily for converting to British money.The work was intended to be a support for merchants, traders and bankers for whom it was necessary to quickly be able to look up interest- and exchange-rates. Similar works had been published previously, but this was the most extensive work published at the time. It was reprinted several times.

Stockholm, P.A. Norstedt, 1884. 8vo. (215x145 mm). No.13+14, Vol.8 of 'Bihang till K. Svenska Vet.Akad. Handlingar'. 63,(1);89,(1) pp. and 1 lithographed plate. Fine and clean. Uncut and mostly unopened. Custom cloth box. Papers from this supplement series to the 'Proceedings of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences' are often mistakenly identified as offprints or 'first separate edition' because they have their own title page with the publishers named and their own pagination, but they are not - all publications from this series were printed separately in this way and issued in a wrapper mentioning number and volume (not present here). First edition of Arrhenius' famous dissertation, in which he first presented his theory of electrolytic dissociation. Arrhenius was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1903 "in recognition of the extraordinary services he has rendered to the advancement of chemistry by his electrolytic theory of dissociation". See Dictionary of Scientific Biography, I:p.296-302 and Partington, IV:p.672-81.

Amsterdam, Par la Compagnie des Libraires, 1734. 4to. Cont. hcalf. Gilt back. Titlelabel on back. Back slightly rubbed. Engraved frontispiece (le Pautre fecit). Title in red/black. (8),346,(2) pp. and 41 folded engraved plates (plate 3-4 on one). Small stamp on title and verso. Occasionally slightly browned. First edition. Klaus Jordan Nr. 844.

Beijing, Zhongguo shu dian, 1990. Folio (317 x 208 mm). 12 volumes, all in the original blue stitches paper wrappers (also referred to as fukuro toji-binding) with silver silk covered capitals. Housed in two very nice silk covered cases. A very fine and clean set. A luxury facsimile print of the 1606-edition of Cheng Dayue’s “Ink Garden of the Cheng Family”. Ink Garden of the Cheng Family is a catalogue of decorative designs for inkstones and ink cakes. Some of the designs were made by well-known Chinese artists of the time. It notably features three illustrations sourced from the Gospels found in the 'Evangelicae historiae imagines'.

Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1950 - 2004. 8vo. Volume 1-2 + 5-10 + 12-20 in green buckram with gilt lettering to spine. Volume 21 in orange buckram. Volume 22-30 in full buckram in different colours. Volume 32-55 in uniform blue buckram. All volumes with small library stamps to titel page and library label to back board. "For over fifty years, The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science has published the best international work in the philosophy of science under a distinguished list of editors including Alexander Bird, Peter Clark, Mary Hesse, James Ladyman, Imre Lakatos, and David Papineau. One of the leading international journals in the field, it publishes outstanding new work on a variety of traditional and 'cutting edge' topics, from issues of explanation and realism to the applicability of mathematics, from the metaphysics of science to the nature of models and simulations, as well as foundational issues in the physical, life, and social sciences. Recent topics covered in the journal include the epistemology of measurement, mathematical non-causal explanations, signalling games, the nature of biochemical kinds, and approaches to human cognitive development, among many others. The journal seeks to advance the field by publishing innovative and thought-provoking papers, discussion notes and book reviews that open up new directions or shed new light on well-known issues." (Oxford University Press).

Hermannstadt, Hochmeister, 1790. 8vo. In contemporary (original?) blue paper covered boards with gilt lettering to spine. Corners bumped and boards with scratches. Internally fine and clean. 276, (10) pp. Exceedingly rare work on the state of the Turkish/Ottoman empire. The author is anonymous but with a focus on state income, state administration, juristically aspects and visits by foreign ministers and embassies, the author was most likely a diplomat in the Ottoman Empire. The late 18th century was a dire period for the Ottoman Empire which was facing several challenges and undergoing significant changes. Here are some key aspects of its state during that time. It was in a state of decline and facing numerous challenges, both internally and externally. While efforts were made to reform and modernize certain aspects of the empire, they were often met with resistance and were insufficient to reverse the overall decline.

Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1961. 8vo. Orig. full black cloth, orig. red, white and black dust-jacket, not price-clipped. A very nice, clean, and fresh copy in an excellent dust-jacket with just a tiny bit of soiling and a few small tears to extremities (no loss). An old owner's name in pencil erased from front free end-paper. A few faint marginal notes in pencil. An excellent copy. X, 263, (1) pp. The hugely important first edition, review-copy with slip laid in, of Hart's seminal main work, a cornerstone of legal philosophy and probably the most important book in legal philosophy of the 20th century.The legal philosopher Herbert Lionel Adolphus Hart (1907-1992) is famous for his immensely influential contributions to legal philosophy, including his theory of legal positivism, which is developed on the basis of analytic philosophy. By using the tools of analytic philosophy and philosophy of language, clearly inspired by philosophers like Wittgenstein, in his attempts to solve the problems of legal theory, Hart came to revolutionize the way that jurisprudence and philosophy of law is conducted in especially America and Great Britain, and as such, his work is considered the main reason why English-language theory of law is now accepted as a natural part of philosophy. In 1952 Hart began what is now called his Holmes lecture, "Positivism and the Separation of Law and Morals", and it is from this lecture that his masterpiece work "The Concept of Law" emerged. The work was first published, as it is here, in 1961, and numerous issues of it later appeared. In 1994 a new, posthumous, edition was published, establishing the lasting influence of the work."The Concept of Law" poses the main question, whether all laws can be understood as being coercive orders or moral commands. It analyses the relation between law, coercion, and morality and comes to the conclusion that there is no logically necessary connection between neither law and coercion nor low and morality. Had one assumed such a necessary connection, Hart claims, one would have oversimplified the relation between the three and would have misunderstood the content, purpose, function and application of a number of laws.On this basis, Hart develops a distinction between primary and secondary legal rules, the primary rule being that which governs conduct, and the secondary rule being that which allows alterations of the primary one. He furthermore distinguishes between internal and external points of view of law, and not least, he developed the idea of the Rule of Recognition, a central part of his theory of logical positivism, a meta-rule that underlies any legal system and which differentiates between norms that have authority of law and those that do not. The Rule of Recognition identifies legal validity within the legal system."The Concept of Law" must be said to be the most important and original work of 20th century legal philosophy. Though Hart's contribution to the study of jurisprudence and legal philosophy has been enormous in general, "The Concept of Law" occupies a seminal place within this study and is considered his absolute masterpiece. Its influence has been enormous, and a huge growth in the quantity of scholarship of the area of jurisprudence and legal thought can be traced directly back to this work. Hart's combination of twentieth-century analytic philosophy with the jurisprudential tradition of Jeremy Bentham has had an immense influence on legal though and continues to have so. Most important legal scholars of the 20th century are influenced by Hart in one way or the other, for instance John Rawls, and Ronald Dworkin, who, however, disagrees with his theories.