Search Results: NEW Winter 2023-24 offerings from Reginald C. Williams Rare Books

First American Edition, First printing. Octavo, Original blue cloth, spine and front cover lettered in red. With dust jacket. A near fine copy in a slightly worn Very Good dustwrapper showing Slight rubbing to spine and corners and nicks, 8vo - over 7Âľ" - 9Âľ" tall. 125pp. This is the first book on machine learning. An Approach to Machine Intelligence provides a detailed examination of cybernetic, psychological, and physiological systems. The first part explores abstract machine intelligence and the second suggests mechanisms that could allow for its realization. It is "the first work (other than conference proceedings) to do more than merely examine the question 'can machines think?' Indeed, it is our earnest hope that this book may represent a first stepping stone toward dispelling the doubts which have so recently been raised as to whether a general theory of machine intelligence can ever exist" (p. 1). A very uncommon book, and a copy which displays no previous signs of ownership. This is the… Read More

First American edition. Hardcover. Near Fine. Hardcover, original red cloth with gilt titles. Top Edge Gilt, internally tight & unmarked. Slight wear to head & foot of spine. Overall, in near fine condition. 551 p. Includes: illustrations, maps, index, bibliography. Henry Morton Stanley (1841-1904), journalist and African explorer, was famous for finding Dr. Livingstone in 1871. With 16 tissue guarded photogravures, a large, fold-out map at the rear. A very pleasing copy.

Octavo. 1st edition thus, 1962. A Near Fine book in a near fine dust jacket. 8vo., 412 pp., bound in publishers red cloth with red dust jacket, $10.00. Jacket has some light rubbing along the edges and tips. Spine is very slightly faded. Previous owners name inside front cover, otherwise clean and unmarked. Dust jacket now protected in mylar sleeve. Perhaps Popper's most wide-ranging and popular work, gathering together his articles and lectures to chart the growth of scientific understanding, and its influence on history and thought. 'The essays and lectures of which this book composed are variations upon one very simple theme - the thesis that we can learn from our mistakes'(preface). Popper dedicated the work to Friedrich von Hayek. Originally published earlier in the same year in the UK by Routledge

Not dated (1858), from the original copy communicated by Richard M [Monckton] Milnes. Octavo, original blind-stamped cloth, rebacked, with remnant of original spine laid-down, [5] pp.6-303 untrimmed. Board edges slightly worn, very minor soiling at cloth, text block edges darkened, internal foxing at a minimum, some tanning at endpapers and prelims. Strain at joint following title page, similar at rear hinge, no danger of detachments, still overall very good and sound. Illustrated bookplate at front paste-down endpaper, and inscription facing title, With the Editor's/ best regards. Now housed in a custom quarter morocco slipcase with chemise. Demonologia is a historical text written by Edward Fairfax, a 17th-century English poet and translator. The book is a discourse on witchcraft, specifically focusing on the events that occurred in Fairfax's own family. He writes about the experiences of his wife, who was accused of witchcraft and put on trial, as well as the beliefs and practices of witches during… Read More

Octavo, 184pp. Original dark blue pebble-grain cloth, spine and cover with gilt lettering, blue endpapers, top-edge stained blue. No bookplates or previous signs of ownership. A near-fine copy now mylar protected. With explanations of telepathy, clairvoyance, magical achievements of the subconscious, etc. First edition, first impression of the German chemist's attempt to formalize the scientific study of magic. Staudenmaier's experimentation with automatic writing and auditory and visual hallucinations intersected with the burgeoning psychoanalytic movement; Jung owned a copy of this work, and the hallucinations detailed within likely influenced his own visions as recorded in the "Black Books" and the "Red Book" between 1913 and 1930.

Original stiff paper covers. (16)730pp Nuclear Bomb Effects Computer in rear packet, with sheet. Index. 8vo - over 7Âľ - 9Âľ". A near-fine copy now Mylar protected. In order to anticipate the physical damage and personal injuries that would result from a nuclear attack, and thus to encourage emergency responders and public officials to prepare themselves, numerous federal agencies joined together in 1957 to release information about the energy released in a nuclear explosion. An updated report was completed in 1962. Chemist and technical writer Samuel Glasstone (1897 1986) guided both efforts, as well as a third revision (with Philip J. Dolan) that appeared in 1977. This 1962 edition has a pocket at the back for a Nuclear Bomb Effects Computer, a circular slide rule that allowed users to make computations of blast effects, given various combinations of conditions based on data from the book.

Octavo, 184pp., Publisher's cloth with printed paper label on spine.. 19th c. bookplate; spine label tanned and soiled (one corner shipped); tight and sound.. A very good copy of a work notorious for surfacing in rough shape. 12mo,. Illustrated from engravings. Huxley's vigorous public support of his friend Charles Darwin's evolutionary naturalism earned him the nickname "Darwin's bulldog," while his organizational efforts, public lectures, and writing helped elevate the place of science in modern society. "His views on evolution and man's newly conceived place in the universe had a profound impact on 19th-century thought" (Drabble, 488). With frontispiece illustration of a series of primate skeletons and in-text illustrations throughout.

8vo, 420pp. FIRST BRITISH EDITION. Blue dust jacket over Publisher s black cloth boards. Gilt lettering. Black and white pictorial frontispiece. Clean pages with light tanning and mild foxing throughout. More pronounced to free endpapers and pastedowns. Pen inscription to front pastedown. Binding remains firm. Boards have mild edge-wear with bumping to corners and rubbing to surfaces. Gilt lettering is bright and clear. Book has a slight forward lean. Unclipped jacket. Panels and spine have light edgewear with tears and creases. Moderate tanning and wear marks to flaps, panels and spine. Overall, an attractive copy now brodart protected. Gandhi's nonviolent struggles in South Africa and India had already brought him to such a level of notoriety, adulation, and controversy that when asked to write an autobiography midway through his career, he took it as an opportunity to explain himself. Although accepting of his status as a great innovator in the struggle against racism, violence, and, just then,… Read More

An in-quarto volume of VII, (I), 528 pages, foxing throughout the book, more marked at the beginning and end. Illustrated with 18 out-of-text engravings, including one in frontispiece, engraved on steel by Bentley and Fischer, according to the drawings of Thomas Allom. Publisher's contemporary binding with a black grained-morocco spine, dark blue pebbles boards, spine title is gilt-lettered with raised bands. All edges of the book are gilt. Four-nerve back decorated with cold fillets forming caissons; golden title and slices. LavallĂ©e's history of the Ottoman Empire covers the rise of one of the largest and most powerful empires the world has ever seen, from ancient beginnings through the birth of Islam to the reign of AbdĂĽlmecid I, who carried out his father's modernizing reforms of the Empire. Illustrated with 18 steel-engraved plates bound at rear, depicting such subjects as views of Constantinople, the Bosphorus coast of the Black Sea, Jerusalem and Smyrna; an audience with a Sultan; Mahmud… Read More

FIRST EDITION. In-8° (21.5x13 cm), pp. 503, (11), red rigid canvas editorial binding with golden titles on the back, inside boards illustrated with the labyrinth pattern appearing on the floor of the cathedral of Reims, paratestual fins, counterplates and figurative glances. Printed price present at the rear flap of the overhead. A fine Excellent and exemplary copy now brodart protected. Original edition. The novel, of medieval setting, and starring Guglielmo da Baskerville, a Franciscan friar, and the Benedictine novice Adso da Melk, narrator of the story, was a worldwide success and was adapted for the big screen by Jean Jacques Annaud with Sean Connery as the lead actor. Cf. Spaducci, p. 120. Contursi, A021a. Italian.

First English edtion. Large Octavo ( 221mm.] Pp. xxiv, 557 plus the final bank. All edges marbled. Plates : IV maps, XXI Plans of Naval Battles. Kendal Grammar School Prize Binding (by Relfe Brothers, London) of dark green calf over boards, the upper with the, chipped, gilt school emblem in the centre, the spine with five raised bands, gilt floral decorations in the panels, and dark terracotta morocco title label. Marbled endpapers, the front pastedown with Prize label presented to 'Chorley i' for English History. A near-fine copy. [Robert Samuel Theodore] Chorley (1895-1978), first Baron Chorley, lawyer and conservationist. Alfred Thayer Mahan (1840-1914) , naval officer, historian, was born at West Point, New York. He wrote a number of books, the one offered here is the most celebrated and probably the most important. It was much praised when first published, especially in Europe in America less so. Theodore Roosevelt thought very highly of it saying -" I am greatly in error, if it does not become a… Read More

First edition. 8vo, 131pp + 6 ads. Yellow cloth boards. Corners and spine ends bumped. Small flecking to spine title. Minor rubbing along joints. Partial bubbling of front pastedown fore edge with light separation. Pastedowns and endpapers toned. Spine moderately darkened, half-title and title pages foxed with minor margin foxing on some subsequent pages. Overall a very good copy of an uncommon work. This original text from Theosophical Society President Annie Besant consisting of a description of the mystical unity behind world religions and the path to awakening the individual to higher realities. Comparing Hinduism, Christianity, and Sufi Islam, Besant places Theosophy s own interest in Ascended Masters in the context of Yogic studies and the possibility of union with divinity.

Octavo. Original printed stiff paper wrappers. Stated First Edition, Trade Issue. 213pp. near fine. Shows marginal shelf rubbing of the corners, covers lightly rubbed, spine somewhat toned and furrowed, otherwise the binding is strong and tight, the text is clean and unmarked, and the covers are bright and distinct. With the scarce original wrap-around. As pictured. First trade edition, first printing of Sartre's autobiography, preceded by the limited edition published in December 1963. Sartre's autobiographical novel, written when he was 58, covers the first ten years of his life. The work, which centres on themes of youthful alienation and the comforting power of literature, won Sartre the 1964 Nobel Prize for Literature - a prize he emphatically refused. Despite Sartre's reticence, the Nobel citation describes his work as "rich in ideas and filled with the spirit of freedom and the quest for truth". Octavo. Original printed stiff paper wrappers.

Une archéologie des sciences humaines. 8vo. (225x140 mm), 400pp., Original printed French-fold wrappers, folding plate of Las Meninas, full-page plate of diagrams. First edition, first impression of the author's magnum opus, the work which made him famous. Foucault examines the origins of the modern human sciences through an "archaeological" approach to the history of thought, analyzing how the meaning of knowledge has developed over centuries and shaped Western civilization. A splendid copy now mylar protected & housed in a custom slipcase with chemise & leather label.

First Edition. Hardcover. Large Octavo. xx + 466pp (+ iipp publisher's adverts). Very Good+. A rare copy in the original cloth boards of this fascinating work by a man better known for being the husband of Mary Wollstonecraft and the father of Mary Shelley. Housed in a matching custom slipcase with chemise wrapper. An intelligent, skeptical account of witchcraft and the occult throughout history - far broader than the modern definition of Necromancy would allow. The chapters are divided into the following sections: Introduction; Ambitious Nature of Man; Examples of Necromancy and Witchcraft from the Bible; Greece; Rome; Revolution Produced in the History of Necromancy and Witchcraft upon the Establishment of Christianity; History of Necromancy in the East; Dark Ages of Europe; Communication of Europe and the Saracens; Revival of Letters; Sanguinary Proceedings against Witchcraft; Conclusion. The work includes one of the more important early nineteenth century biographical studies of Dee, of whom… Read More

[ii], xvi, 286, [ii] pp. 8vo (14,5 x 22,5 cm.). Half grey cloth over marbled baords, spine gilt tetered (slightly faded). A very good copy. First separate edition of this curious physiological study of mystics. The author, a clinical physician, contends that the attributes of medieval and early modern mystics melancholy, meditativeness, ecstasy, hallucinations were not divinely ordained, but rather that the mystics were just very hungry. Fasting and self-denial were hallmarks in every well-known mystic s life, leading to malnutrition and deficiency in vital proteins and vitamins. Further-more, the appearance of stigmata-like wounds is consistent with malnutrition-related illnesses. The field of psychiatric research was booming in the late 19th-century, and an interesting tangential line of questioning applied its findings to religious phenomena. It is evidence of the scientific progress of the period that such reasoning would be acceptable in a largely Catholic society (Caillet I: 2205).

Original publisher s wrappers. A fine fresh copy which appears to have never been read. Rare first edition of the highly elusive first collectible book devoted exclusively to the now legendary model, actress and sex symbol, with 39 black & white photographs of her in the early stages of her career. While her husband served in the merchant marine during World War II, Monroe found a job inspecting parachutes at the Radioplane Company. Army photographers who had arrived at the plant to take commercial and military pictures of female war workers discovered her. From this first successful posing arose Monroe s fabled love affair with the camera (particularly with still photography). She was sensual and at ease before the camera, and her direct sexuality mingled with her beauty, her innocence and her now lightened blonde hair accounted for her popularity with photographers and filmmakers (ANB). This book appeared in the early days of Monroe s fame; at the young age of 27, she had already appeared in such… Read More

Publishers Cloth. 12mo. Stated third edition. 347 pp. + ads. Very good. Small repair at crown of spine. Some light foxing. SIGNED in ink by the author on the front free end paper: "presented by Mr. Wm. L. Stone." rare third edition of this unusual account, involving sojourner truth ('isabella'). In 1832, Isabella Baumfree, who had freed herself from bondage in upstate New York and later renamed herself 'Sojourner Truth,' met Elijah Pierson, prophet of a religious sect. She joined with her infant child and met Robert Matthias, another member of the sect, who vied for leadership, claiming to be Jesus Christ incarnate. Matthias was accused of killing Elijah Pierson with some poisoned blackberries. Isabella, his servant, was of course implicated. In the end, Isabella was not only cleared, but awarded a sum of money after she sued the court for slander--the first black person to win such a suit. Not in the Blockson Collection. A rare inscribed coy now housed in a custom clamshell box with leather label.… Read More

Octavo, 9-3/8 inches high by 6-1/8 inches wide. Light blue cloth titled in gilt within a black rectangle on the spine. 363 pages, with a frontispiece illustration of a "Portable microwave transmitting and receiving installation" and several diagrams throughout. FIRST EDITION. An excellent bright near-fine copy in a very attractive unclipped ($8.75) dustwrapper displaying slight wear on the cover hinges. Classic comprehensive text presents detailed topics dealing with the history and fundamentals of modulation theory, including coverage of types of modulation; sampling principle; quantization, code transmission, and multiplexing; speed of signaling and channel capacity; reduction of signal power through the use of redundant codes; amplitude modulators and demodulators; amplitude-modulation systems; frequency modulation; noise and interference in FM systems; pulse-amplitude modulation; pulse-position modulation; pulse-code modulation; etc. Text stems from a revision of material used for three successive… Read More

Octavo, 273pp. Publisher's original half dark blue cloth, original unclipped ($3.00) dust jacket. A fine copy displaying no previous signs of ownership with minor edge-wear to the spine ends of the bright, near-fine dust jacket. First trade edition of David Grubb s debut novel, basis for the 1955 film classic starring Robert Mitchum. To Nelson Algren, David Grubb s Night of the Hunter was as compelling a story as I ve come on in some time and to Walter Van Tilburg Clark, this debut novel by Grubb contained much achievement and great promise There is power, poetry, imagination here. This widely acclaimed haunting story about two children pursued by a psychopathic killer was made into a critically successful movie that starred Robert Mitchum in 1955, the only film fully directed by Charles Laughton (New York Times). A nicer than usual copy now Mylar protected.