Search Results: Authors starting with B from The Manhattan Rare Book Company

London: John Murray, 1864. First edition. Original wrappers. Very Good. EXCEPTIONALLY SCARCE FIRST EDITION IN ORIGINAL WRAPPERS; PRECEDING THE APPEARANCE IN "PASSAGES FROM THE LIFE OF A PHILOSOPHER". "Lady Lovelace wrote that Babbage hated music. He tolerated its more exquisite forms, but abhorred it as practiced on the street. 'Those whose minds are entirely unoccupied,' he wrote with some seriousness in Observations of Street Nuisances in 1864, 'receive [street music] with satisfaction, as filling up the vacuum of time.' He calculated that 25% of his working power had been destroyed by street nuisances, many of them intentional. Letters to the Times and the eventual enforcement of 'Babbage's Act,' which would squelch street nuisances, made him the target of ridicule. "The public tormented him with an unending parade of fiddlers, Punch-and-Judys, stilt-walkers, fanatic psalmists, and tub-thumpers. Some neighbors hired musicians to play outside his windows. Others willfully annoyed him with… Read More

London: W. Bulmer & Co. 1st Edition. Soft cover. Fine. FIRST EDITIONS, journal issues, of Babbage's two most important contributions to mathematics, essentially founding the general theory of the calculus of functions. Babbage began work on the calculus of functions as early as 1809 and continued during his studies at Cambridge. In 1815, at just 23 years of age, Babbage published the results of his work in two long papers in the Philosophical Transactions. "Babbage believed that his new scheme would serve as a generalized calculus to include all problems capable of analytical formulation, and it is possible to see here a hint of the inspiration for his concept of the Analytical Engine. While the work on the engines and his other scientific, social and political activities caused him virtually to abandon mathematical research at the age of thirty, the calculus of functions was the area he often yearned to continue. In fact the calculus of functions was not taken up by other workers, and… Read More

London: Thames and Hudson, 1975. First edition. Original stiff paper covers. Very Good. FIRST EDITION OF BACON'S MOST REVEALING BOOK, INSCRIBED BY BACON ON HALF-TITLE: "To Carlos Peacock / with all very best wishes / Francis Bacon. / London 22/11/77". Interviews with Francis Bacon is the most important source we have for understanding Bacon's art and philosophy. Through Bacon's responses to the influential art critic and Bacon scholar David Sylvester's provocative questions, we gain invaluable insight into the one of the greatest artistic minds of the twentieth century. This copy was inscribed by Bacon to the influential art critic Carlos Peacock, author of several books on artists. Complete with 94 black-and-white illustrations. London: Thames and Hudson, 1975. Quarto (8x11 in; 20.5x27.5 cm), original pictorial stiff covers; beautiful custom half-leather box. A little peeling of the glossy surface at top edge of front panel, some toning to rear panel (as often). Rare signed.

1912. 1st Edition. Soft cover. Fine. FIRST EDITION OF ALL 79 ISSUES, WITH 186 HAND-COLORED PLATES by some of the most famous artists of the era. Number 884 (each issue from the same set) of only 1250 sets on Holland paper (out of a total edition of 1279). IN ORIGINAL WRAPPERS IN FINE CONDITION. "The Journal des Dames et des Modes lasted only two years (the first issue appeared on 1 June 1912, and the last on 1 August 1914). This stylish periodical was issued regularly three times a month, and ceased publication upon the outbreak of the First World War. With its expensive layout, its society columns, its poetic texts, its colourful annotations, and its fashion reports, it represented the last brilliant, refined, impartial, and aestheticizing impulse of a happy and optimistic society occupying the centre of the stage in the period that has aptly been called the 'belle époque'... It was essentially the testimony, the history--illustrated, or rather 'clothed' and narrated--of the customs, ideas, and… Read More

New York: American Telephone and Telegraph Company. 1st Edition. Hardcover. Fine. FIRST EDITION of two landmark journals documenting the revolutionary invention of the transistor: the April 1949 issue of The Bell System Technical Journal containing the first description of the invention (published simultaneously in The Physical Review), and the famous July 1949 "Semiconductor Issue" dedicated entirely to the discuss of the transistor and semiconductor devices. The entire 1949 volume offered. "In the 1930s, Bell Labs scientists were trying to use ultrahigh frequency waves for telephone communications, and needed a more reliable detection method than the vacuum tube, which proved incapable of picking up rapid vibrations... John Bardeen, Walter Brattain and William Shockley spearheaded the Bell Labs effort to develop a new means of amplification," developing, by 1948, a novel device that would effectively amplify and control electric signals. "At roughly half an inch high, the… Read More

Lancaster, Pa: Physical Review,,, 1957. 1st Edition. Soft cover. Fine. FIRST PRINTING in original wrappers of arguably the most important paper in the field of superconductivity. The key ideas of the theory were announced in two short letters in two separate issues of The Physical Review before the full developed theory was published in December, 1957. The issues with the original letters are also included in the original wrappers, making this a scarce complete set of the full published account of one of the defining moments in modern physics. "The basis for all later theoretical work in superconductivity" (Britannica). IN: The Physical Review, Second Series, Vol. 108, No. 5, p.1175-1204. Lancaster, PA, 1957. The complete issue in original blue printed wrappers. WITH: The Physical Review, Second Series, Vol. 104, No. 4 and Vol. 106, No.1, both in original wrappers. Custom half-leather box. In exceptional condition with only very light wear to wrappers. Provenance: from the library of the Danish… Read More

New York: np. first edition. Fine. LARGE, LIMITED VINTAGE SILVER GELATIN PHOTOGRAPH OF BASQUIAT FROM 1984. ONE OF ONLY THREE VINTAGE PRINTS PRODUCED OF AN ICONIC BASQUIAT PORTRAIT. Trained under Richard Avedon, the photographer Richard Corman has been one of the most celebrated portrait photographers of the last thirty years. Rolling Stone refers to his photographs as "iconic" and documentarian Ken Burns says Corman's versatile body of work is an "artistic vision dedicated to the highest aspirations of human endeavor... the photographs record in big moments and small, among the famous and ordinary, the gifted and challenged, larger truths relevant to all of us." Corman's 1984 photo session with the 23-year old Jean-Michel Basquiat at Basquiat's Great Jones St. studio produced wonderfully evocative images of the now legendary artist. As Corman explains: "In 1984, I was asked to photograph Jean Michel Basquiat for L'Uomo Vogue. When I walked into the… Read More

Zurich: Gallery Bruno Bischofberger, 1985. First edition. Original cloth, original dust jacket. Fine/Fine. FIRST EDITION, SIGNED BY JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT. Signed by Basquiat and numbered ("281/1000") in blue ink on the verso of title page, facing a magnificent photograph of Basquiat taken in 1982 by James van der Zee. Illustrated with 32 colored plates and beautiful color dust jacket. The illustrations are of drawings created in New York and during travels abroad during the winter of 1982/83. Although the book is numbered as one of 1000 copies, it is extremely rare on the market and it is generally understood that a number much smaller than 1000 were produced and signed by Basquiat. Housed in a spectacular box by book artist Sjoerd Hofstra, which reproduces Basquiat's "Ascent" on the front cover. Zurich: Edition Gallery Bruno Bischofberger; New York: Mary Boone Gallery; 1985. Oblong quarto (14x10.5 in), original cloth, original dust jacket. A FINE COPY. RARE.

Paris: Les Editions De Minuit. 1st Edition. Soft cover. Very Good. FIRST EDITION, SIGNED BY BECKETT on the title page; one of the most influential works of modern drama. "Voted the most significant English language play of the 20th century in a British Royal National Theatre poll of 800 playwrights, actors, directors and journalists... Beckett's naked play about two tramps waiting for Godot has tapped into our 20th-century public consciousness. It seems to express our deepest fears and our deepest knowledge of ourselves and our predicament" (Norman Berlin). Notably, the first edition of the text provided the public with their first experience of the complete play-Les Editions de Minuit published it three months before the play's debut (in French) in January 1953. "The first production of Beckett's own English translation, directed by Peter Hall, was staged at the Arts Theatre Club in London in August 1955. Kenneth Tynan's and Harold Hobson's reviews made it into an… Read More

Paris: Les Editions De Minuit. 1st Edition. Soft cover. Fine/Fine. First French edition, SIGNED BY BECKETT on title page; one of only 112 copies printed on "bouffant select marques" and reserved for the publishers. A collection of six short plays, translated from English by Beckett. Includes: Comédie, Va et vient, Cascando, Paroles et musique, Dis Joe, Acte sans paroles II. Paris: Les Editions de Minuit, (1966). Octavo, original printed wrappers; glassine. Unopened. A FINE COPY.

Paris: IN: Mémoirs de L'Académie des Sciences de L'Institut de France, Typographie de Firmin-Didot, 1903. 1st Edition. Soft cover. Very Good. FIRST EDITION of Becquerel's "definitive work", containing the full account of his investigations and discovery of radioactivity. PMM 393. Dibner 163. "In 1896, [Bequerel's] previous work was overshadowed by his discovery of the phenomenon of natural radioactivity. Following a discussion with Henri Poincaré on the radiation which had recently been discovered by Röntgen (X-rays) and which was accompanied by a type of phosphorescence in the vacuum tube, Becquerel decided to investigate whether there was any connection between X-rays and naturally occurring phosphorescence. He had inherited from his father a supply of uranium salts, which phosphoresce on exposure to light. When the salts were placed near to a photographic plate covered with opaque paper, the plate was discovered to be fogged. The phenomenon was found to be common to all the uranium salts… Read More

Mainz and Paris: B. Schotts Söhnen, 1826. First edition. Very Good. A MAGNIFICENT COPY OF THE FIRST EDITION, FIRST ISSUE, OF BEETHOVEN'S NINTH, ONE OF THE CROWNING ACHIEVEMENTS OF WESTERN MUSIC. "Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 was ultimately more than three decades in the making. Schiller's popular 'Ode to Joy' was published in 1785, and it is possible that Beethoven made his first of multiple attempts to set it to music in the early 1790s. He clearly revisited the poem in 1808 and 1811, as his notebooks include numerous remarks regarding possible settings. In 1812 Beethoven determined to place his setting of 'Ode to Joy' within a grand symphony. "Ten more years passed before that symphony's completion, and during that time Beethoven agonized over the composition's every note. His notebooks indicate that he considered and rejected more than 200 different versions of the 'Ode to Joy' theme alone. When he finally finished the work, he offered to the public a radically new creation that was part symphony… Read More

No Binding. Very Good. Typed letter, in Hebrew, signed "D. Ben-Gurion" as Minister of Defense on State of Israel letterhead, one page, 6" x 8", August 26, 1955. Translation of the Hebrew text: "I have no doubt that the problem of security disturbs your rest. True, the problem of security, at this time, is the principal problem of the State. Any person - just like an entire nation - can feel the danger waiting at his door. We are a small nation, and any boasting we do will only make a laughingstock out of us. But we are not powerless, not in the military sense, and certainly not in the moral and political sense. I, however, am calm and certain that, when it comes to the test, the Israel Defense Forces will be able to defend our peace and our sovereignty - the Israel Defense Forces is the army of the people, and of all its circles and factions..." File holes along right margin, otherwise fine condition. A dramatic letter with excellent content from the first Prime… Read More

Washington, DC: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 1972. FIRST EDITION. ORIGINAL WRAPPERS. Very Good. FIRST EDITION of the landmark paper marking the birth of recombinant DNA technology. Paul Berg was awarded half of the 1980 Nobel Prize in Chemistry "for his fundamental studies of the biochemistry of nucleic acids, with particular regard to recombinant-DNA." "Technical advances have played an important role in the advance of genetic understanding. In 1970, American microbiologists Daniel Nathans and Hamilton Othanel Smith discovered a specialized class of enzymes (called restriction enzymes) that cut DNA at specific nucleotide target sequences. That discovery allowed American biochemist Paul Berg in 1972 to make the first artificial recombinant DNA molecule by isolating DNA molecules from different sources, cutting them, and joining them together in a test tube. These advances allowed individual genes to be cloned (amplified to a high copy number) by splicing them into… Read More

Upsala, Sweden: Johan Edman. 1st Edition. Soft cover. Fine. EXTREMELY RARE FIRST EDITION IN ORIGINAL WRAPPERS of Bergman's study of chemical affinities, including a large fold-out table, "the finest achievement in the tradition of affinity tables," and a major predecessor of the periodic table. "Tobern Bergman published his table of chemical affinities and his accompanying 90-page Latin Dissertation of Elective Attractions in 1775, approximately three-quarters of a century before Dmitri Mendeleev and Lothar Meyer published their periodic tables of the chemical elements..." Bergman "put himself to this enormous task [of classifying chemical affinities] and produced... the most elaborate affinity table so far, comprising 50 columns and constructed for two different analytical methods: dry and wet ways.... Bergman's table represented a giant stride in chemists' capacity for analytic control. It listed 25 separate acids, 15 earths, and 16 metallic calces...… Read More

Boston, 1847. 1st Edition. Original Wrappers. Very Good. FIRST EDITION, OFFPRINT, of the first announcement of the successful use of anesthesia during surgical operations, one of the greatest discoveries of nineteenth-century medicine. A visitor to Boston, Massachusetts would be well advised to take a stroll to the Ether Dome at Massachusetts General Hospital to see the amphitheater where surgery without pain began. On October 16, 1846, dentist William T.G. Morton publicly performed a painless surgery through the use of general anesthesia, thereby transforming surgical medicine, and marking one of the greatest advances in medicine, one that not only liberated patients from pain, but enabled surgeons to perform more extensive operations. Offered here is the first edition offprint of the first announcement of Morton's seminal achievement as reported by Henry Jacob Bigelow in the November 18, 1846 issue of The Boston Medical and Surgical Journal , Vol. XXXV No. 16, pp. 309-316. Interestingly, the… Read More

Wakefield, Massachusetts: np, 1888. First edition. Custom box. Very Good. ONE OF THE EARLIEST PHOTOGRAPHS OF LIGHTNING. This striking photograph by Alfred H. Binden (1837 England - 1892 United States) is among one of the earliest photographs of lightning. When Binden captured the image from his home in Wakefield, Massachusetts during a summer storm in 1888, he created a valuable tool for better understanding the natural phenomenon that was often referred to as "electric fluid" in that time. The photograph was a sensation. It was exhibited in newsrooms and bookstores throughout the country where viewers were encouraged to examine its details with a magnifying glass. Contemporary news reports describe it as "a most interesting picture as showing...the [electrical] current has a sinuous or rotary motion, being twisted like a rope or ribbon during its progress to the Earth." Articles about the photograph circulated for the next few years and in 1892 The Boston Herald wrote that Binden's lightning… Read More

London: The Royal Society, 1909. 1st Edition. Soft cover. Fine. FIRST EDITION OFFPRINT, PRESENTATION COPY, of Bohr's first published scientific paper, written while he was a 20-year-old student at Copenhagen University. Inscribed by Bohr in Danish on front wrapper to Poul Heegaard, mathematician and professor at Copenhagen University. In original wrappers. In February 1905 the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters announced a prize concerning Lord Rayleigh's 1879 theory that the surface tension of liquids could be determined from the surface vibrations of liquid jets. The problem proposed by the Academy was to perform quantitative experiments to implement Rayleigh's method. Bohr faced formidable difficulties, not least the fact that, since the university had no physics laboratory, Bohr had to perform the experiments at night (to avoid perturbations due to passing traffic) in his father's physiology laboratory. Bohr's paper was submitted on the deadline of 30 October 1906,… Read More

London: Taylor & Francis, 1913. 1st Edition. Hardcover. Very Good. FIRST EDITIONS of two critical papers in developing our understanding of the atom: 1) all three parts of Bohr's landmark work marking the definitive break from using classical physics at the atomic level, often cited as the foundation of our modern understanding of the atom; 2) both parts of Moseley's groundbreaking work providing the scientific basis for our understanding of atomic numbers and the ordering of the periodic table. PMM 407 (Moseley). BOHR: "'On the constitution of atoms and molecules' was seminally important to physics. Besides proposing a useful model of the atom, it demonstrated that events that take place on the atomic scale are quantized: that just as matter exists as atoms and particles in a state of essential graininess, so also does the process. Process is discontinuous and the 'granule' of process- of electron motions within the atom, for example- is Plank's constant. The older mechanistic physics was… Read More

1950. First edition. Original wrappers. Very Good. IMPORTANT PAPERS BY NIELS BOHR CONCERNING HIS DEBATES WITH ALBERT EINSTEIN OVER FOUNDATIONAL ISSUES IN QUANTUM MECHANICS. From the mid-1920s to the mid-1930s, at scientific conferences, in published papers and in informal discussions, two of the greatest physicists of their generation-Albert Einstein and Niels Bohr-argued about the emerging theory of quantum mechanics. Quantum theory had been phenomenally successful in explaining experimental results that had puzzled physicists for decades, and in accurately predicting new results. No one denied its predictive power, least of all Einstein who had been one of the early pioneers of the theory. However, the interpretation of the theory-the elucidation of its relationship to some (presumably) underlying physical reality-was a different matter. Quantum theory predicted only the probabilities of various experimental outcomes. Of course, probabilistic (or statistical) models of nature were nothing new to… Read More