On the Sensations of Tone as a Physiological Basis for the Theory of Music. By Hermann L. F. Helmholtz, M.D. … Translated with the Author's Sanction from the third German edition, with additional notes and an additional appendix, by Alexander J. Ellis. … by HELMHOLTZ (Hermann L. F.):

London: London, Longmans, Green, and Co., 1875. FIRST EDITION IN ENGLISH. Thick 8vo, 223 x 139 mms., pp xxiv, 824,[28, 2, advertisements dated to 1877], text wood engravings, tables, index; original red-brown cloth, decorated in blind to the upper boards; the head of the spine snagged but repaired neatly; internally clean and sound; a very good copy. Hermann Ludwig Ferdinand von Helmholtz (1821-1894) was a physician and physicist, and this work, On the Sensations of Tone as a Physiological Basis for the Theory of Music, was a pioneering treatise in musicology and in acoustical physics. I am not one to be unduly Wiki-centric, but it is indicative of the significance of the book On the Sensations of Tone that the book itself has its own extensive Wikipedia page, in addition to the lengthy article on the author. Wikipedia calls the book "a foundational work on music acoustics and the perception of sound." The online Encyclopedia Britannica calls the work "masterly." The rather complex chronology of the different editions has been traced out and explained, from (Wikipedia): "The first German edition was published in 1863. The English translation by Alexander J. Ellis was first published in 1875 (the first English edition was from the 1870 third German edition; the second English edition from the 1877 fourth German edition was published in 1885; the 1895 and 1912 third and fourth English editions were reprints of the second edition). The editions translated into English contain detailed commentary and notes (titled 'Additions by the Translator:) by Ellis.'" The edition on offer is the first edition of the work in the English language, and it is very scarce in commerce in truly appealing condition. It is also rare enough in libraries to be not yet in some of the great music libraries of the world. The Library of the Royal College of Music in London has only a nineteenth-century edition printed ten years later, 1885, plus a Dover reprint from 1954. The Library of Juilliard in New York has no nineteenth-century editions, and instead has only a reprint from 2011.