Search Results: Authors starting with R from Alembic Rare Books

London: Harrison and Sons & R. Friedländer & Sohn for the Royal Society, June 22, 1904. Octavo. Original grey-green wrappers printed in black. 2 folding graphs. Index leaves on onion skin paper loosely inserted. Contents partially unopened, leaf 2K7 clumsily opened with slight loss from the margin. Wrappers toned along the spine and edges, a little rubbing and some nicks and creases along the edges, slight loss from the head of the spine. Very good condition. First edition, the journal issue in original wrappers. Chemist Sir William Ramsay's (1852-1916) most important research was on the noble, or inert, gases. He was the first to isolate helium and discovered neon, krypton, xenon, and argon, the latter being the element for which he and John William Strutt, 3rd Baron Rayleigh, were awarded Nobel Prizes in 1905. In his Nobel lecture Ramsay described on-going spectroscopic work on radium, begun in 1903: "Much work remains to be done on these emanations. In conjunction with Dr. Collie, my colleague,… Read More

London: John Murray, 1920. Octavo. Original blue cloth, titles to spine gilt. Colour frontispiece and 10 black and white plates with tissue guards, double-page map. Errata slip at page 238, single leaf of publisher's ads at rear. Binding lightly rubbed at the extremities, faint spotting to the edges of the text block, free endpapers partially tanned. An excellent copy. First edition, first impression of the book that popularised the modern understanding of territoriality among male birds. From the library of the important conservationist Derek Ratcliffe (1929-2005), who discovered the effect of DDT-related eggshell thinning on peregrine falcon populations. With his ownership inscription on the front free endpaper, dated 24 July, 1964. Author H. Elliot Howard (1873-1940) was an amateur ornithologist whose study of warblers led him to the conclusion that male birds fight not for females, but directly for territory, which then attracts females. This was first explicated in The British Warblers: A… Read More

Washington D.C.: The Smithsonian Institution, 1896. Hardcover. Excellent. 4to - over 9¾ - 12" tall. Large octavo. Original green cloth, titles to upper board gilt, yellow coated endpapers. Corners and tail of spine bumped slightly affecting leaves, else a very fresh copy in excellent condition. First separate edition, first printing of the first publication on the discovery of argon, which led to Nobel Prizes for its co-discoverers. "Few discoveries have been as dramatic as the discovery of argon in the atmosphere by Lord Rayleigh and William Ramsay, professor of chemistry at University College, London. The discovery of argon involved a bitter public dispute concerning the legitimacy of a chemical element whose most important characteristic was its inertness, and which forced the chemists to reassess the very notion of a chemical element." Rayleigh had begun work to determine the densities of atmospheric gases in 1882. In 1892 he uncovered a strange discrepancy between the atomic weight of… Read More

Paris: [O. Doin], 1902. Folio (305 x 201 mm). Contemporary red half morocco, marbled sides and endpapers, spine titles gilt, five raised bands. 69 pages of manuscript text in black ink, rectos only. 10 photographs and 1 printed illustration mounted on card, 26 plans and technical drawings of which 8 are printed in blue. Some wear and scuffing to the boards, primarily the edges, and a little soiling and dust affecting the binding, spotting to the edges of the text block, contents lightly toned with the occasional light spot. Photograph 9 detached from its card backing and loosely inserted. Very good condition. An elegant manuscript copy, probably made for presentation, of a report on the organisation of the French military railway hospital system by the doctor in charge of it. The text was published in book form by O. Doin of Paris in 1902. Dr. Paul Redard (d. 1917) was "a well-known orthopaedic surgeon of Paris" who "took his doctor's degree in 1879... He was the author of monographs on… Read More

1941. Hardcover. Good. Oblong Quarto. Second World War photo album compiled by American Red Cross worker Elizabeth Ridley, with three wartime Naval yearbooks & souvenir books owned by her sister Christine, a naval air mechanic in the WAVES programme. Oblong folio (340 x 260 mm). 1941-45. Contemporary dark blue skiver elaborately embossed in grey with military motifs including an American Eagle, planes, tank, battleship, artillery, and blimp. Bound with black nylon ties that may not be original. 80 black paper pages containing 219 photographs attached with photo corners. The photos range in size, with the majority measuring 90 x 60 mm, and the largest 255 x 200 mm. A few items, including some photos, a small colour Kodachrome, several negatives, and an unused Anchor Line trunk label are loosely inserted. Elizabeth has written her name and address on the front free endpaper and annotated many of the photos with white ink. The naval books owned by Christine Ridley include We Keep 'Em Flying: A Visit… Read More

Baltimore, MD: The Association for Computing Machinery, 1965. Quarto. Original cream wrappers printed in black. Remnants of a mailing label to the upper wrapper. Just a little rubbed and creased. Excellent condition. First publication of the resolution principle, the standard of logical deduction in AI applications. The basic computational method in logic programming, the unification algorithm, was proposed by mathematician Jacques Herbrand in 1930, but its first practical use was not discovered until Robinson introduced it in this paper as the basic operation of his resolution principle. "Robinson described his resolution principle as 'machine-oriented' in that it was particularly suitable for proofs to be performed by computer, having only one rule of inference that could be applied many times. Robinson's resolution has since been used as the standard of logical deduction in AI applications" (Hook & Norman, Origins of Cyberspace 865). "Born in Halifax, England, and having served in the RAF,… Read More

London: John Murray, 1910. Large octavo. Original red cloth, titles to spine and upper board gilt, borders blocked in blind. 30 plates of which 3 are folding, tables and graphs within the text. 4 leaves of ads at rear. Ink stamps of the John Holt Company, Liverpool to the front free endpaper, pages 95, 241, 273, 289, and 481 as well as two of the folding plates. Cloth a little rubbed at the extremities, spotting to the edges of the text block and the early and late leaves, and scattered spotting throughout the contents. Very good condition. First edition of this significant work by the doctor who identified the transmission pathway of malaria. Ronald Ross (1857-1932) was a physician in the Indian Medical Service who became interested in malaria during the 1890s. He was mentored by Patrick Manson, the leading British specialist in tropical diseases, and set out to prove Manson's mosquito hypothesis. Ross's first breakthrough was proving that the parasite in question could be transmitted to mosquito… Read More

London: Collins, 1952. Octavo. Original green cloth, titles to spine gilt. With the dust jacket. 20 plates, illustrations within the text. Cloth very slightly faded along the edges of the boards, gilt spine titles dulled, light partial toning of the free endpapers. A very good copy in the rubbed and dulled jacket with two closed tears and associated creasing at the top of the upper panel, as well as a few other small nicks and a crease along the fold of the upper flap. First edition, first impression of this classic by a leading British parasitologist. Miriam Rothschild (1908-2005) was a member of the prominent banking family and was introduced to zoology by her father, an amateur naturalist, and her physician uncle. Though Rothschild had only a limited formal education, she was intellectually self-directed and was recommended for study at the Naples Biological Station, where she "developed a strong interest in parasitology, noting that the molluscs with which she was working were infected with… Read More

Stockholm: Kongl. Boktryckeriet. P. A. Norstedt & Söner, 1890. Tall quarto (300 x 230 mm). Recent burgundy quarter morocco, marbled boards, titles to spine gilt. Title page just a little toned. Excellent condition. First edition of this significant work in which Rydberg lays out the empirical formulae governing the frequencies of spectral lines, a precursor to Bohr's development of the quantum theory. A handsomely bound copy in excellent condition. Johannes Rydberg (1854-1919) was a Swedish physicist at Lund University who studied atomic masses and electromagnetic radiation; inspired by Mendeleev's periodic table, he was convinced that the electromagnetic spectra emitted by atoms could provide insight into atomic structure and theory. "Notwithstanding the imperfect spectroscopic tables then at his disposal, Rydberg discovered most of the important properties of series spectra, including the relation between corresponding series in the spectra of related elements, and foreshadowed discoveries which… Read More