Collection de mémoires sur la locomotion aérienne sans ballons. 6 parts; original wrappers bound in

The Helicopter

Ponton d'Amécourt, Gustave, Vicomte de (1825-88), ed. Collection de mémoires sur la locomotion aérienne sans ballons. 6 parts (continuously paginated). viii, 152pp. Text illustrations. Paris: Gauthier-Villars, 1864-67. 275 x 217 mm. 19th or early 20th century boards, cloth backstrip, original printed wrappers bound in. Bound with: Gerardin, M.A. Études sur les moteurs. 10, [2]pp. Paris: Gauthier-Villars, 1866. Original printed wrappers bound in. Light foxing, but very good. Laid in is a printed open letter from Ponton d'Amécourt to M. Nadar [i.e., Gaspard Félix Tournachon (1820-1910)]; 4pp.; Trilport, 12 January 1864 (soiled, edges frayed, a few tears along center fold).

First Edition. In 1863, after the failure of the 6000 cubic-meter balloon Le Géant, Jules Verne, aerial photographer Félix Tournachon (known by his nickname "Nadar"), and engineers Ponton d'Amécourt and Gabriel de la Landelle formed the "Society for the Encouragement of Aerial Locomotion by Means of Heavier-than-Air Machines." In that same year Ponton d'Amécourt constructed a model helicopter with counter-rotating propellers and a steam engine, using "what was then a new material, aluminum . . . The steam engine drove two rotors, each of two blades, mounted one above the other. While this model did not fly successfully, the inventor exhibited and patented the idea in both France and England" (Boyne, How the Helicopter Changed Modern Warfare [2011], p. 304). Ponton d'Amécourt coined the term "helicopter" to describe his new machine, forming the term from the Greek words "helicoeioas" (spiral) and "pteron" (wing). The machine is described in his "La conquète de l'air par l'hélice," which appears on pp. 1-18 of the Collection.

This collection contains the six parts of the "Collection of memoirs on aerial locomotion without balloons" edited by Ponton d'Amécourt, together with a separate offprint of Gerardin's "Études sur les moteurs," which appeared in the sixth part of the Collection. Also included is a printed letter from Ponton d'Amécourt to Nadar Tournachon regarding the formation of the Heavier-than-Air Society.