Search Results: Titles starting with E from The Manhattan Rare Book Company

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

Indianapolis: n.p., 1945. First edition. Custom folder. Very Good. UNPUBLISHED SHORT STORY, TYPESCRIPT DRAFT; WITH FRAGMENT OF SECOND STORY. These two short stories survive from Kurt Vonnegut's early attempts to become an author, after the end of the Second World War in 1945 and years before the publication of his first piece of fiction, yet alone novel, in 1950. The period between Kurt Vonnegut's return from war-torn Europe and the publication of his first piece of fiction "Report on the Barnhouse Effect" in 1950 is replete with rejected short stories by the fledging fiction writer. And the two unpublished stories present here could easily sit themselves among the numerous works from this unhappy time in Vonnegut's early adulthood which have only posthumously received public attention. However, the Indianapolis address given at the bottom of "One for 'A'" helps to locate the story to a narrow timeframe after the war but before Kurt and his newly-wed wife Jane commenced their graduate studies at… Read More

Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1970. 1st Edition. Hardcover. Fine/Very Good. FIRST EDITION, ASSOCIATION COPY, SIGNED AND INSCRIBED BY DAVIDSON: "To Lee Witkin / Bruce Davidson". Witkin was the enormously influential gallery owner who helped introduce the public to the masterpieces of contemporary photography. "Davidson returned to this blasted stretch of East Harlem regularly for nearly two years (always bringing prints for the people he photographed) until he and his bulky view camera began to be a part of the block's daily life... The published results are wrenching and revelatory. Davidson's strobe doesn't dispel the gloom or glamorize the ruin of the apartments, storefronts, and rubble-strewn lots where people stopped to pose for him, but the rapport he established allows those people to surrender to the camera with their humanity intact. The book's glossy duotone reproductions -- all face-to-face on spreads with wide white borders stripped of captions and page numbers -- give the grimiest… Read More

Zurich and Leipzig: Orell Fussli, 1931. 1st Edition. Hardcover. Very Good. FIRST EDITION, illustrated with 65 images of the Jewish ghetto in the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius. With preface by poet Zalman Chneour in Hebrew and German. "In the same year that his Paris was published, Moï Ver - under his real name of Moshé Vorobeichic- produced Ein Ghetto im Osten (A Ghetto in the East). The book, with both Hebrew and German text, featured his photographic record of the Jewish ghetto in the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius, documenting a way of life that would soon disappear under terrible circumstances. Even more so than Paris, Ein Ghetto im Osten was ostensibly a documentary book, but as he had done in his view of the French city, Moï Ver could not resist pushing the envelope of the documentary form. Once again, he used a variety of New Vision strategies, the most obvious being to take many images from upstairs windows looking on to the narrow streets of Vilnius's old Jewish quarter. This… Read More

Berlin and Leipzig: S. Fischer Verlag, 1922. First edition. Original wrappers. Very Good. FIRST PRINTING IN ORIGINAL WRAPPERS. "One of the most highly regarded literary and cultural journals in the German language, Die neue Rundschau, which is still published today, first appeared in 1890. In Kafka's time it was the major periodical publication of one of the leading German literary presses... it published literary works by some of the most significant authors of the time, including Herman Hesse, Thomas Mann, Rainer Maria Rilke. Kafka was a regular reader of Die neue Rundschau throughout his life." After Kafka's submission of "Die Verwandlung" ("The Metamorphosis") was rejected due to its inordinate length, "Kafka was disappointed not to be able to count himself among the authors represented by this respected journal. However he did eventually join their ranks in October 1922, when the story "Ein Hungerkünstler" ("A Hunger Artist")… Read More

New York: np, 1980. First edition. Clamshell box. Fine. EXTREMELY RARE COMPLETE SUITE OF SEVEN LARGE SILVER PRINTS FROM EINSTEIN'S FAMOUS PHOTO SHOOT AT PRINCETON WITH ROMAN VISHNIAC. Each print is signed by Vishniac and dated "At Princeton 1942" in his hand below the image and numbered on the back. "One day [Vishniac] decided to visit Albert Einstein at Princeton to offer greetings from mutual friends in Berlin. Uninvited, he hoped Einstein would pose for a portrait, but Einstein had little interest. Vishniac recalled: It was a singular experience. An idea had suddenly come to him, and the room was filled with the movement of the great man's thought. I waited several minutes, and then when I saw that he did not intend to say anything more to me and that he was off in a world of his own, I started taking pictures. Einstein later admitted that a Vishniac photograph taken that day was his favorite portrait" (Encyclopedia of Twentieth-Century Photography). Vishniac provided details about this… Read More

London and New York: Macmillan and Co. 1st Edition. Hardcover. Very Good. FIRST EDITION IN ENGLISH in original cloth of Hertz's collected papers on electromagnetic waves; the foundation for wireless communication. "By inducing the waves to produce an electrical spark at a distance, with no apparent connection between the oscillator and the spark gap, and by moving the sparking apparatus so that the length of the spark varied, Hertz proved beyond question the passage of electric waves through space" (Printing and the Mind of Man, 377). Originally published in German in 1892, the collected edition gathers together Hertz's important journal publications from 1887-1892 with the addition of an introduction in which Hertz surveys and analyzes his work of the past five years. PMM (Printing and the Mind of Man), 377 (for the German edition). Translated by David Evan Jones. Preface by William Thompson, Lord Kelvin. London and New York: Macmillan and Co., 1893. Octavo, original cloth;… Read More

Pesaro: [Camillo Franceshini], 1572. First edition. Very Good. RARE HISTORICALLY-IMPORTANT EDITION OF THE WORLD'S MOST INFLUENTIAL MATHEMATICAL TREATISE: THE FIRST "COMMANDINO" EDITION. Having established himself as a noted scholar, Federico Commandino of Urbino at the behest of his pupil Prince Francesco Maria translated into Latin Euclid's Elements, configuring it into 15 books and adding extensive commentary. A gorgeously printed work, profusely illustrated with 865 in-text diagrams, Commandino's edition, first published in 1572, was "made use of by subsequent editors for centuries" (Thomas-Stanford). EUCLID; COMMANDINO, FEDERICO. Euclidis Elementorum Libri XV. Unà cum Scholijs antiquis. A Federico Commandino Urbinate nuper in Latinum conversi, commentarijsq'ue quibusdam illustrati. Pesaro: [Camillo Franceshini], 1572. First edition. Folio (8.5 x 13 in; 216 x 330 mm); *,**6, A-Z, Aa-Zz, Aaa-Sss4: [12] (title-page, papal authorisation, dedication to Prince Frederico Maria of Urbino, contents),… Read More

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

London: G.G.J. and J. Robinson. 1st Edition. Soft cover. Very Good. FIRST EDITION of one of the most important political tracts of the 18th century. "The Enquiry was, and remained, the work by which [Godwin] was best known. It was one of the earliest, the clearest, and most absolute theoretical expositions of socialist and anarchist doctrine. Godwin believed that the motives of all human action were subject to reason, that reason taught benevolence, and that therefore all rational creatures could live in harmony without laws and institutions. Believing in the perfectibility of man, he thought that our virtues and vices may be traced to the incidents which make the history of our lives, and if these incidents could be divested of every improper tendency, vice would be extirpated from the world" (Printing and the Mind of Man, 234). London: G.G.J. and J. Robinson, 1793. Quarto, early three-quarters vellum over marbled boards. Two volumes. Without half-titles. Internally clean, boards with… Read More

Leipzig and Berlin: Teubner, 1913. First edition. Original wrappers. Very Good. FIRST EDITION, COMMERCIAL OFFPRINT ISSUE, of Einstein's breakthrough work on general relativity: the famous "Entwurf" paper. "In this book, Einstein and Grossman investigated curved space and curved time as they relate to a theory of gravity. They presented virtually all the elements of the general theory of relativity with the exception of one striking omission: gravitational field equations that were not generally covariant. Einstein soon reconciled himself to this lack of general covariance through the 'hole argument,' which sought to establish that generally covariant gravitational field equations would be physically uninteresting. Einstein did not adopt the gravitational field equations until late in 1915 in his final formulations of the general theory. Here, Einstein contributed the physics and Grossman the mathematics" (Calaprice, The Einstein Almanac, 40). Weil 59a. Offprint from Zeitschrift für Mathematik… Read More

Amsterdam: Johanned Jansson Waesberge. 1st Edition. Hardcover. Fine. FIRST EDITION OF ONE OF THE GREAT SCIENTIFIC CLASSICS: "Describes the invention of the air pump and the famous experiment with the Magdeburg hemispheres, in which two teams of eight horses were employed in an attempt to pull apart two copper hemispheres from which the air had been withdrawn. Guericke also describes the invention of the first electrical machine, which generated the first visible and audible electric charges" (Honeyman). "In 1650 Guericke constructed the first air pump, which he used to create a vacuum in various containers. He showed that sound would not travel in a vacuum, and furthermore that a vacuum would not support combustion or animal life. In 1654 Guericke gave an impressive demonstration in front of the emperor Ferdinand III, of the force of atmospheric pressure. Two identical copper hemispheres 12 feet (3.66 m) in diameter were joined together. When the air was pumped out, 16 horses could… Read More

London: Richard and John Edward Taylor, 1839. First edition. Original cloth. Very Good. FIRST EDITIONS IN ORIGINAL CLOTH OF ALL THREE VOLUMES OF FARADAY'S MONUMENTAL EXPERIMENTAL RESEARCHES IN ELECTRICITY, THE MOST COMPREHENSIVE RECORD OF HIS ACHIEVEMENTS. PMM 308. "Faraday was both one of the greatest physicists of the nineteenth century and one of the finest experimenters of all time... He was the first to produce an electric current from a magnetic field, invented the first electric motor and dynamo, demonstrated the relation between electricity and chemical bonding, discovered the effect of magnetism on light, and discovered and named diamagnetism, the peculiar behaviour of certain substances in strong magnetic fields. He provided the experimental, and a good deal of the theoretical, foundation upon which James Clerk Maxwell erected classical electromagnetic field theory" (Printing and the Mind of Man 308; Britannica). Faraday published the results of his experiments and… Read More

London: Taylor and Francis, 1852. First edition. Original Wrappers. Very Good. FIRST EDITION IN ORIGINAL WRAPPERS of two papers containing Faraday's detailed investigations of the nature of the 'lines of force'; an extension of work he had begun in his first paper (1821) on electromagnetism. These investigations laid the foundations of field theory. "Faraday's work on electromagnetic rotations led him to take a view of electromagnetism different from that of most of his contemporaries. Where they focused on the electrical fluids and the peculiar forces engendered by their motion (Ampère's position), he was forced to consider the line of force. He did not know what it was in 1821, but he suspected that it was a state of strain in the molecules of the current carrying wire and the surrounding medium produced by the passage of an electrical 'current' (whatever that was) through the wire … It was the line of force which tied all his researches on… Read More

Paris: Crochard, 1820. First edition. Original wrappers. Fine. ONE OF THE FIRST TRANSLATIONS OF ØRSTED'S FAMOUS AND UNOBTAINABLE LATIN PAMPHLET ON THE DISCOVERY OF ELECTROMAGNETISM, PUBLISHED IN THE FOLLOWING MONTH IN FRANCE, AND IMPORTANT FOR ITS CONNECTION TO AMPÈRE'S EXTENSIONS OF ØRSTED'S RESEARCH ON ELECTROMAGNETIC PHENOMENA. A MAGNIFICENT COPY IN ORIGINAL WRAPPERS. In July of 1820 the Danish scientist Hans Christian Ørsted announced his discovery that a magnetized needle could be deflected by an electric current. The discovery created a sensation among European savants, and shortly thereafter Ampère extended Ørsted's work by showing, among other things, that parallel current-carrying wires repelled or attracted one another, depending upon the whether the two currents were in the same or opposite directions. A little over a decade later, Faraday showed that moving magnets could induce an electrical current in nearby conducting wires, and by 1865 Maxwell had developed a complete… 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