Science & Philosophy *Cover art from Audubon’s Birds of America [#2]
B A U M A N R A R E B O O K S S C I E N C E & P H I L O S O P H Y 2 0 2 3 1 1. ARENDT, Hannah. The Jew as Pariah: A Hidden Tradition. New York, 1944. Slim octavo, original printed tan wrappers. $3800 First separate edition of one of Arendt’s first publications in English, delivered at New York’s 1944 Conference on Jewish Relations, published the same year, barely three years after escaping imprisonment in Germany and France, containing foundational ideas developed in her three-volume Origins of Totalitarianism, a fine copy in original wrappers. In 1933 Arendt was arrested on a Berlin street and imprisoned for over a week. “Upon her release she packed her bags… like others before her, and more after, Arendt fled to Paris.” Following her subsequent escape from Gurs internment camp, Arendt finally made it to New York in May 1941, where she remained, for nearly two decades, “a refugee, a stateless person, a pariah” (Adelman, Pariah). In her war years in New York, Arendt “understood her tasks as a Jew to be to speak to the European emigrant Jews about Jewish identity… she called upon the Jews to resist new forms of the old assimiliationist mentalité.” To Arendt, who long considered herself a “pariah,… the pariah’s task… was to be alert to the unexpected, to look at how things and events appear without preconceptions about history’s course or pattern… the personal ideal of pariahdom which Arendt framed in her youth was transformed in her later years into a political ideal” (Young-Bruehl, From the Pariah’s Point of View, 11, 4). Not long after news of Nazi death camps reached New York, Arendt published this pivotal if over-looked work, developing concepts she explored further the same year when she began her three-part Origins of Totalitarianism, “written against a background of both reckless optimism and reckless despair” (Arendt, Preface, Antisemitism). In Jew as Pariah, Arendt writes: “the status of the Jews in Europe has been not only that of an oppressed people but also what Max Weber has called a ‘pariah people’… out of their personal experience Jewish poets, writers and artists… have been able to evolve the concept of the pariah as a human-type—a concept of supreme importance for the evaluation of mankind in our day.” She looks closely at Heinrich Heine’s “schlemihl,” Bernard Lazare’s “conscious pariah,” Charlie Chaplin’s “little man”—a “suspect” schlemihl with a “worried, careworn impudence—the kind so familiar to generations of Jews,” and Franz Kafka’s exhausted “man of good will”: driven “into isolation like the Jewstranger in the castle.” First separate edition: preceded by same year’s April 1944 serialization in Jewish Social Studies. Written while Arendt served as research director at the Conference on Jewish Relations, which was “a creation of the American Jewish Congress and of the World Jewish Congress” (Gorman, Holocaust in American Historical Writing, 253n). Tiny, barely visible checkmark in the margin of one page. Staples with just a bit of rust. A fine copy. “THE TRUTH HAS COME HOME: THERE IS NO PROTECTION IN HEAVEN OR EARTH AGAINST BARE MURDER”
B A U M A N R A R E B O O K S S C I E N C E & P H I L O S O P H Y 2 0 2 3 2 AUDUBON’S BIRDS OF AMERICA, ROYAL OCTAVO EDITION WITH 500 HAND-COLORED PLATES: “ONE OF THE FINEST ORNITHOLOGICAL WORKS EVER PRINTED” 2. AUDUBON, John James. The Birds of America from Drawings Made in the United States and Their Territories. New York: V. G. Audubon, 1856-57. Seven volumes. Royal octavo, publisher’s full brown morocco, elaborately decorated in blind, raised bands, marbled endpapers, all edges gilt. $58,500 Second octavo edition, the first edition with fully colored backgrounds, containing 500 superb hand-colored plates. One of the most spectacular series of ornithological prints ever produced and a landmark attempt to document the birds of North America. Identical to the first octavo edition, printed in 1840-44, except that the prints have tinted lithographic-wash backgrounds. The royal octavo edition, which Audubon referred to as the “petit edition,” contained new species of birds and plants not included in the folio edition, with the birds grouped in an orderly scientific manner. “His first objective was to observe birds in their native habitat, to see their behavior, their ways of standing, walking, flying, their feeding and nesting habits, seasonal plumage and all the rest. He traveled up and down the Mississippi and Ohio River areas, and up and down the Atlantic seaboard from Maine to Key West. He spent a winter near Charleston, South Carolina… traveled to Labrador, Newfoundland, and Nova Scotia… and Texas” (Gifts of Genius, 137). “The Birds of America exemplifies man’s ability to accomplish an almost impossible task through sacrifice and persistence. Audubon set out to paint and publish an example of every bird on the North American continent… He was the first artist-naturalist to illustrate American birds, life-size, in natural poses; the backgrounds, or habitats, are more natural looking than those of his predecessors” (Handbook of Audubon Prints, 17-18). “The most splendid book ever produced in relation to America, and certainly one of the finest ornithological works ever printed… He insisted on drawing from life, never from stuffed specimens, and was much in advance of his time in portraying the birds (in many cases unrecorded species) in their natural surroundings… The courage and faith of the Audubon family is breathtaking… This immense undertaking, this unparalleled achievement, was not the production of a great and long-established publishing house, nor was it backed by a wealthy institution. It was the work of a man of relentless energy, with no private fortune, who supported himself by hack painting… It is a story without equal in the whole history of publishing” (Great Books and Book Collectors, 210-13). Without half titles in last two volumes. Bookplates, early gift inscriptions. Some foxing to text, as often; plates bright and lovely, with only occasional instances of very faint foxing. A few volumes with expert repairs to text blocks and inner hinges. A beautiful set.
B A U M A N R A R E B O O K S S C I E N C E & P H I L O S O P H Y 2 0 2 3 3 “THE FIRST EXPLICIT AND SUSTAINED RECOGNITION IN HER PHILOSOPHICAL PROSE OF AN ISSUE… CULMINATING WITH… HER FEMINIST CLASSIC THE SECOND SEX” 3. BEAUVOIR, Simone de. The Ethics of Ambiguity. New York: Philosophical Library, (1948). Octavo, original blue-gray paper boards, original dust jacket. $850 First edition in English of Beauvoir’s pivotal second work in philosophy, issued one year after the first French edition and only five years before the French edition of Second Sex, a core argument for existentialist ethics in response to Sartre’s Being and Nothingness, with Ethics one of two works she saw as an “important starting point for any interpretation and evaluation of her oeuvre.” In Ethics Beauvoir introduced a concept of ambiguity that would prove elemental to her best known work, The Second Sex [1953; Le deuxième sexe, 1950]. “Although her major theoretical contributions were to feminism, Beauvoir’s writings, both novels and nonfiction, were also regarded as brilliant expositions of basic existential belief: that is, that man is responsible for his own destiny” (New York Times). Here she “argues for the possibility and even the necessity of existentialist ethics against those who consider it a form of solipsism and nihilism… Ethics was initially read as an application of Sartre’s L’être et le néant [1943; Being and Nothingness, 1956]. But Beauvoir suggests that if existentialism is vulnerable to such accusations, this is because Sartre failed to approach ambiguity from the proper side” (Henghold, in Companion to Simone de Beauvoir, 286). Beauvoir especially noted that she wrote Ethics “in response to requests, from Camus and others, for an essay on action.” Divided into three main areas, the section on “women marks the first explicit and sustained recognition in her philosophical prose of an issue which will loom ever larger in her work as the decade progresses, culminating, of course, with… her feminist classic The Second Sex” (Mahon and Campling, Existentialism, Feminism and Simone de Beauvoir, 35). To Beauvoir, “we are all adrift in the world together and find ourselves in ambiguous situations as freedoms constantly bumping into one another and into brute existence, but our lives are also interconnected like stones in an arch” (Cleary, in TLS). While Beauvoir was, at times, dismissive of Ethics, “when asked which of her works she considered the important starting point for any interpretation and evaluation of her oeuvre, she responded without hesitation: “Pyrrhus et Cineás [1944] and Pour une morale de l’ambiguité [Ethics of Ambiguity]… Notwithstanding Beauvoir’s own uncertainty about its merit, Ethics makes an important contribution to ethical theory with relevance in particular to questions of violence” (Lewis, Freedom, Oppression and the Ethics of Ambiguity, 48). Serialized in Les temps modernes (1946-7); first published in book form in French, Pour une morale de l’ambiguité, 1947. With the translation of Bernard Frechtman, “one of Sartre’s chief translators” (Cotkin, Existential America, 98). First edition: issued in blue-gray paper boards with 16 titles on rear dust jacket panel (this copy), along with copies issued in green cloth with 21 titles on rear dust jacket panel; no priority established. Book fine; lightest edge-wear, faint rubbing, archival tape reinforcement to verso of near-fine dust jacket.
B A U M A N R A R E B O O K S S C I E N C E & P H I L O S O P H Y 2 0 2 3 4 VERY RARE FIRST EDITIONS OF BELL’S ANATOMY OF THE BRAIN, 1802, AND SERIES OF ENGRAVINGS ON THE NERVES, 1803 4. BELL, Charles. The Anatomy of the Brain, Explained in a Series of Engravings. BOUND WITH: A Series of Engravings, Explaining the Course of the Nerves. London: Printed by C. Whittingham… for T.N. Longman et. al., 1802, 1803. Tall quarto (9-1/2 by 11-1/2 inches), contemporary three-quarter brown calf rebacked with original elaborately gilt-decorated spine and red and black morocco spine labels laid down, marbled boards, endpapers and edges; [i-v] vi-vii, [1-3] 4-87 [1]; [4] [1-3] 4-49 [3]. $17,500 First editions of two seminal early works by Scottish surgeon Bell—Anatomy of the Brain (1802) and Series of Engravings (1803), with Anatomy wonderfully illustrated with 12 stipple-engraved anatomical plates (11 handcolored)—-”engraved by Thomas Medland after Bell’s own drawings… probably Bell’s most beautiful work on neuroanatomy and one of the most beautifully illustrated in the entire literature”—and nine copper-engraved plates (three folding) in Series of Engravings, all after richly detailed and expressive original drawings by Bell, a splendid volume in contemporary calf and marbled boards. This volume brings together two exceptional early works by Scottish-born surgeon Sir Charles Bell—Anatomy of the Brain (1802) and Series of Engravings (1803). “Trained in art as well as medicine,” Bell crafted beautiful anatomical drawings in connection with lectures by his brother John Bell (Norman 168). Moving to London in 1804, Bell “developed his experimental techniques involving the peripheral nerves in order to discover how the brain functions… Bell introduced new methods of determining the functional anatomy of the nervous system… His techniques and observations led to Johannes Müller’s generalizations on the sensory functions of the nervous system” (DSB). In Anatomy of the Brain, Bell “displays both his descriptive and artistic capabilities. The 12 aquatint plates (eleven of them hand-colored) were engraved by Thomas Medland after Bell’s own drawings and constitute what is probably Bell’s most beautiful work on neuroanatomy and one of the most beautifully illustrated in the entire literature” (Heirs of Hippocrates 1297). Plate I in Anatomy is especially “important for its accurate portrayal of the cerebral gyri,” and the nine plates in Series of Engravings are exquisite renderings of the body’s nerves, muscles, arteries and veins (Norman 168). “Bell’s great discovery was that there are two kinds of nerves, sensory and motor,” and his “systems of anatomy, dissections and surgery still stand unrivaled for facility of expression, elegance of style and accuracy of description” (DNB; Chouland, 343). In Anatomy, “Plates I-X were engraved in colors as well as colored by hand” (Norman 168). Series of Engravings with nine copper-engraved plates, including three large folding plates, that reveal the body’s nerves, muscles, arteries and veins. All plates after original drawings by Bell. Series bound without rear leaf of ads. Norman 168, 169. Bookplate of American naval physician Dr. I.H. Hazelton, who served in the Civil War aboard the U.S.S. Vermont. Text and plates fresh with light scattered foxing; mild rubbing, edge-wear to boards, expert restoration to contemporary calf corners.
B A U M A N R A R E B O O K S S C I E N C E & P H I L O S O P H Y 2 0 2 3 5 FIRST EDITION OF BERKELEY’S INFLUENTIAL ALCIPHRON: OR, THE MINUTE PHILOSOPHER, 1732 5. BERKELEY, George. Alciphron: Or, the Minute Philosopher. In Seven Dialogues. Containing an Apology for the Christian Religion, against Those Who Are Called Free-thinkers. London: J. Tonson, 1732. Two volumes. Octavo, contemporary full tan speckled calf, elaborately gilt-decorated spines, raised bands, red morocco spine labels. Housed in a custom cloth clamshell box. $2200 Rare first edition of Berkeley’s important anonymously published philosophical defense of Christianity, bound together with (as issued) a later edition of his Essay Towards a New Theory of Vision, handsomely bound. Berkeley “was an important link… between the period of Descartes and Locke and that of Hume and Kant… He also anticipated many of the ideas of 20th-century philosophers of science” (DSB). Berkeley also “formulated views that Ernst Mach and his 20th-century followers have advocated. Furthermore, although he did not himself adopt it, he briefly formulated the theory of the physical world known as phenomenalism” (Encyclopedia of Philosophy). Alciphron is “a set of dialogues located notionally in England, but drawing much of the landscape description from Rhode Island [Berkeley lived and preached in New England for three years], which was to sell well and stimulate controversy after his return [in 1731]. In this, theist and immaterialist combine their defenses against a medley of intellectual trends (derived primarily but not exclusively from Locke, Bernard Mandeville, and the third earl of Shaftesbury) that Berkeley regarded as obstructive to religion. The work includes Berkeley’s second foray into moral philosophy” (ODNB). “The principle which underlay all Berkeley’s philosophical writing was based on a rejection of all speculation, such as Locke’s, about the meaning and necessity of matter as a primal necessity to any theory of human understanding. Briefly, Berkeley maintained that no existence is conceivable or possible which is not conscious spirit or the ideas of which such a spirit is conscious. This presupposes complete equation of subject and object: no object can exist without a Mind to conceive it. Without the pre-existence of the Mind, matter and substance, cause and effect, can have no meaning… it is a measure of Berkeley’s greatness that the difficulties in his theory have been the subject matter of later philosophical thinking… In 1732, he published Alciphron, a series of dialogues in which he applied his principles to refute the current forms of free-thinking, and in the following year he became Bishop of Cloyne. Here he occupied himself with pastoral work and continued his controversial writing. He died at Oxford while on a visit to England” (PMM). Berkeley’s New Theory of Vision, first published in 1709 and appended here at the end of Volume II, as issued, certainly signaled the authorship of Alciphron. “Reckoned by Brett’s History of Psychology to have been ‘the most significant contribution to psychology produced in the 18th century,’ being ‘the first instance of clear isolation and purely relevant discussion of a psychological topic’” (DSB). Interiors clean and fine, bindings with only faint discoloration, fine and quite handsome.
B A U M A N R A R E B O O K S S C I E N C E & P H I L O S O P H Y 2 0 2 3 6 6. BERKELEY, George. A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge. Wherein the Chief Causes of Error and Difficulty in the Sciences, with the Grounds of Scepticism, Atheism and Irreligion, are Inquir’d into. First Printed in the Year 1710. To which are added Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous, in Opposition to Scepticks and Atheists. First Printed in the year 1713. London: Jacob Tonson, 1734. Octavo, contemporary full brown calf rebacked, red morocco spine label, raised bands. $3000 First combined edition of Berkeley’s Principles of Human Knowledge together with his Three Dialogues, the last appearance of both works in his lifetime, with Principles—”his most important work”—and Three Dialogues profoundly anticipating the ideas of Hume, Kant and later scientific thinkers such as Ernst Mach. Berkeley “was an important link… between the period of Descartes and Locke and that of Hume and Kant… He also anticipated many of the ideas of 20th-century philosophers of science” (DSB). His Principles of Human Knowledge is widely “regarded as his most important work” (Dictionary of 18th-Century Philosophers). “The essence of Berkeley’s philosophy, as expressed in his Principles of Human Knowledge, is a rejection of the notion that abstract ideas… constitute a primal and absolute necessity to any theory of human knowledge.” Over time, as the importance of his ideas was seen, “Hume used them as the foundation of his theory of the function of general terms” (Norman 196). Berkeley also “formulated views that Ernst Mach and his 20th-century followers have advocated. Furthermore, although he did not himself adopt it, he briefly formulated the theory of the physical world known as phenomenalism” (Encyclopedia of Philosophy). “The principle which underlay all Berkeley’s philosophical writing was based on a rejection of all speculation, such as Locke’s, about the meaning and necessity of matter as a primal necessity to any theory of human understanding… No object can exist without a Mind to conceive it. Without the pre-existence of the Mind, matter and substance, cause and effect, can have no meaning. In the Principles of Human Knowledge, externality absolutely independent of all mind is shown to be an unreal, impossible conception:… it is a measure of Berkeley’s greatness that the difficulties in his theory have been the subject matter of later philosophical thinking” (PMM). Principles first appeared as “Part I” in Dublin in 1710; Part II, lost in manuscript form, was never issued. This volume contains the second and last edition of Principles published in Berkeley’s lifetime. It is, as well, the first collected edition to contain his Three Dialogues, first issued in 1713. After that work’s disappointing sales, “in 1725 a new title-page was printed for the old sheets, and the remaining issues were sold.” As with Principles, this volume contains the last edition of Three Dialogues issued in Berkeley’s lifetime (Dictionary of 18th-Century Philosophers). With woodcut-engraved initials head- and tailpieces; continuously paginated with separate title pages. Only occasional light spotting, chiefly marginal, expert paper restoration to excised owner signature on front free endpaper. Light expert restoration to extremities of contemporary calf boards. A very good copy. “NO OBJECT CAN EXIST WITHOUT A MIND TO CONCEIVE IT”
B A U M A N R A R E B O O K S S C I E N C E & P H I L O S O P H Y 2 0 2 3 7 “AT CERTAIN DISTANCES, DANGER AND PAIN ARE DELIGHTFUL”: RARE FIRST EDITION OF BURKE’S INFLUENTIAL TREATISE ON THE SUBLIME 7. (BURKE, Edmund). A Philosophical Enquiry Into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful. London: R. and J. Dodsley, 1757. Octavo, contemporary full dark brown calf rebacked with original spine and spine label neatly laid down, raised bands. $5200 First edition of Edmund Burke’s influential work on “themes that dominated Burke’s thinking,” a touchstone in the development of British Romanticism and the theoretical foundation for his celebrated 1790 work, Reflections on the Revolution in France, scarce in contemporary calf. Edmund Burke’s Philosophical Enquiry “might well be said to signalize the point at which aesthetic taste in England changed from the classical formalism of the earlier years of the 18th century to the romanticism of the later years” (Encyclopedia of Philosophy I, 430). One of the single greatest influences on British Romanticism and the rise of the Gothic, Burke’s landmark essay propelled by debates surrounding a 17th-century translation of the classical essay “On the Sublime.” His analysis of pleasure and fear became the first to carefully explore “the imaginative power of the unbounded and infinite, and the unstated and unknown” (Blackburn, 52). The Philosophical Enquiry much “anticipates the themes that dominate Burke’s political thinking throughout his career” (Yolton I, 144). Influential thinkers such as Mary Wollstonecraft saw that Burke’s most celebrated work, Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790), “was largely based on aesthetic positions he developed 30 years earlier in On the Sublime and the Beautiful… Wollstonecraft saw that Burke was appealing in politics to the same kind of refined taste by which he claimed we ultimately perceive the beautiful in art or nature” (Shiner, The Invention of Art, 163). This first edition, issued anonymously, was “a rather small edition, possibly like the Vindication limited to 500 copies.” First issue first state with the uncorrected “SECT. IV” on page 179, corrected “SECT. VII” on page 180: both corrected late in the printing. No priority established as “most copies exhibit one mixture [of formes] or another” and none exist in a completely uncorrected state (Todd 5a). Bound with half title. Engraved armorial bookplate; owner ink signatures, including one on title page. Interior quite clean, light restoration to extremities. A nicely restored copy, desirable in contemporary calf.
B A U M A N R A R E B O O K S S C I E N C E & P H I L O S O P H Y 2 0 2 3 8 “ONE OF THE GREATEST NATURE WRITERS IN AMERICAN LETTERS 8. CARSON, Rachel. Silent Spring. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1962. Octavo, original green cloth, patterned endpapers, original dust jacket. $950 First edition of Rachel Carson’s pioneering work in environmental pollution, a lovely copy in the original dust jacket. “The first work to address the larger issues of environmental pollution” (The Book in America, 133). “Silent Spring became a runaway bestseller, with international reverberations… It is well crafted, fearless and succinct… Even if she had not inspired a generation of activists, Carson would prevail as one of the greatest nature writers in American letters” (Mattheissen, Time). First edition: with “First Printing” on copyright page. Containing numerous in-text illustrations. Book fine; mild edge-wear to bright near-fine dust jacket.
B A U M A N R A R E B O O K S S C I E N C E & P H I L O S O P H Y 2 0 2 3 9 CAVENDISH’S EXPERIMENTS ON AIR, IMPORTANT 1784 FIRST APPEARANCE 9. CAVENDISH, Henry. Experiments on Air. ISSUED WITH: Remarks on Mr. Cavendish’s Experiments on Air. In a Letter from Richard Kirwan. ISSUED WITH: An Answer to Mr. Kirwan’s Remarks. ISSUED WITH: Reply to Mr. Cavendish’s Answer, by R. Kirwan. BOUND WITH: Experiments on Air [Part II]. Read June 2, 1785. EXCERPTED FROM: Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Volume 74. [London: Lockyer Davis and Peter Elmsly, 1784-85]. Small quarto, modern marbled wrappers; pp. 119-53, 154-69, 170-77, 17880, 372-84. Housed in custom portfolio. $7500 First edition of Cavendish’s experimental proof that water is composed of oxygen and hydrogen and therefore not a separate element unto itself, with a folding plate. As issued in Philosophical Transactions for the year 1784. “Cavendish was the first to prove experimentally that hydrogen (‘inflammable air’) and oxygen (‘dephlogisticated air’), when mixed in the proper proportions and fired, produce their own weight in water” (Norman). This paper, along with the short supplement he published in Philosophical Transactions the following year, disclosed the compound nature of water and thereby destroyed the elemental status of “water” in the Aristotelian system. Fine condition.
B A U M A N R A R E B O O K S S C I E N C E & P H I L O S O P H Y 2 0 2 3 10 “THE FATHER OF MODERN LINGUISTICS” 10. CHOMSKY, Noam. Aspects of the Theory of Syntax. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The M.I.T. Press, (1965). Octavo, original blue cloth, original dust jacket. $4200 First edition of Chomsky’s elusive first book, “the first concerted approach to investigating the human mind through a systematic study of how people produce and understand sentences… equated with Darwin’s theory of evolution and Freud’s theory of the unconscious in terms of its importance in the history of ideas”—a very nice copy in the original dust jacket. Noam Chomsky is “the father of modern linguistics and remains the field’s most influential practitioner… Mr. Chomsky’s introduction of his theory of language in 1957 [in his monograph “Syntactic Structures,” which he developed into the present book, his first], often called the Chomsky revolution, has been equated with Darwin’s theory of evolution and Freud’s theory of the unconscious in terms of its importance in the history of ideas: it was the first concerted approach to investigating the human mind through a systematic study of how people produce and understand sentences… Mr. Chomsky was by nature a questioner—and, where he deemed necessary, an exploder—of received truths. Over the years, this trait became evident in his political work, including his early opposition to the Vietnam War, his outspoken condemnation of United States policy in Central America, East Timor and elsewhere, and his castigation of the mainstream news media for what he describes as complicity with governmental and business interests… Language, Mr. Chomsky came to believe, was rooted not in behavior but in biology, in an inborn set of principles that speakers unconsciously draw on whenever they produce or understand sentences. The goal of linguistics, he argued, should be to reproduce these principles. Since one couldn’t go mucking around in people’s brains, the linguist would attempt instead to mirror the workings of these inborn principles with a set of abstract, quasi-mathematical rules intended to generate the range of possible sentences in a given language—in other words, a generative grammar” (New York Times, Dec. 5, 1998). Owner signature. Book fine, dust jacket with a few short closed tears and tiny chip to rear upper corner, near-fine. A lovely copy of this scarce title.
B A U M A N R A R E B O O K S S C I E N C E & P H I L O S O P H Y 2 0 2 3 11 THE FIRST SYNTHESIZED ORAL CONTRACEPTIVE: ORIGINAL U.S. PATENT OFFICE PRINTING OF PATENT #2,744,122 11. DJERASSI, Carl; MIRAMONTES, Luis and ROSENKRANZ, George. United States Patent Office 2,744,122. Patented May 1, 1956. Delta4-19-NOR-17alpha-ETHINYLANDROSTEN-17beta-OL-3-ONE and Process. [Washington, DC: United States Patent Office, 1956]. Quarto (7-1/2 by 11 inches), single leaf of wove paper printed on recto and verso for two pages; custom card portfolio. $12,500 Rare original United States Patent Office printing of patent number 2,744,122, the patent for norethisterone, the first synthesized oral contraceptive, developed from Mexican yams by a team of chemists led by Carl Djerassi in 1951, and one of three synthesized oral contraceptives used by Gregory Pincus—with whom Djerassi shares the title of “the father of birth control pill”—in early clinical trials. Djerassi started working at the small pharmaceutical company Syntex in Mexico City in 1949. There he established how to synthesize cortisone from a natural product derived from the Mexican yam. He then found that the same starting compound could yield norethisterone, a mimic of progesterone, which controls the female menstrual cycle. Norethisterone was the first highly active oral progestogen to be synthesized, followed soon after by noretynodrel (1952) and norethandrolone (1953), which were synthesized by Frank B. Colton at Searle in Skokie, Illinois. In early 1951, reproductive physiologist Gregory Pincus obtained a small grant with the help of Abraham Stone (medical director of Planned Parenthood) and Margaret Sanger (founder of the American birth control movement) to begin hormonal contraceptive research. Unbeknownst to Pincus, Sanger and Stone, the actual chemistry of the Pill had already been invented, but Djerassi had not yet tested the orally effective form of synthetic progesterone as a contraceptive. Pincus’ research started on April 25, 1951, with reproductive physiologist Min Chueh Chang continuing the 1937 experiments of Makepeace, et al. which showed that injections of progesterone suppressed ovulation in rabbits. Progesterone was abandoned as an oral ovulation inhibitor following these clinical studies in favor of synthetic chemical compounds with progestogenic activity. Chang found Djerassi’s norethisterone [the present patent] among the most promising compounds, and it was developed into the second progestin after Enovid to be used in an oral contraceptive. While both Pincus and Djerassi have alternately been called “the father of the birth control pill,” Djerassi was among the earliest of scientists to pioneer the chemical bases of what would become the Pill, and he would be the first to gain national recognition for his contribution. He was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 1978 for patent #2,744,122 (this one). Djerassi’s conviction that the Pill made the sexual liberalization of the 1960s possible is widely shared, and chemical control of the fertility cycle was a key ingredient in subsequent advances in reproductive technologies, beginning with in vitro fertilization (IVF) in the late 1960s. This is an original Patent Office printing, contemporaneous with the issuance of the patent. Later printings would be a photocopy; the present document is printed and thus original. Fine condition.
B A U M A N R A R E B O O K S S C I E N C E & P H I L O S O P H Y 2 0 2 3 12 SCARCE PHOTOGRAVURE PORTRAIT, BOLDLY PRESENTED AND INSCRIBED BY EDISON TO HOTELIER ALBERT R. KEEN AND HIS WIFE 12. EDISON, Thomas Alva. Photograph inscribed. No place, circa 1920. Photogravure, measuring 7 by 10 inches. $3900 Scarce photogravure portrait of Edison by acclaimed New York photographer Walter Scott Shinn, inscribed and signed by him with a bold flourish on the mount to a prominent hotelier who catered to early 20th century society figures: “To Mr & Mrs Albert R Keen. Thos A Edison.” This is a wonderful photogravure portrait of “the patron saint of electric light” (Stross, Wizard of Menlo Park 1:284). The “father of many new industries, including phonograph and sound recording; dictating machines; electric lighting and associated electric utilities; electrical manufacturing; and motion pictures… Edison stands tall among the pantheon of American heroes” (ANB). This image was captured by Walter Scott Shinn, a successful and talented commercial photographer, and later used for a United States commemorative stamp. Shinn recalled that “the picture was taken on one of the four spare plates he had left after taking several family-group portraits, when Mrs. Edison suggested that he take her husband’s picture alone. ‘With tolerant expression, gazing into space, he seemed so far removed it seemed as though I would not be able to get a “live” picture of him… In desperation, I said, “We do not want another picture of you which looks like a taxdermist’s job! Follow me with your eyes, and try to look as if there is ‘somebody home’”… My frankness and enthusiasm aroused his interest. One picture [this one] was a winner’” (The Rotarian). This copy is inscribed to “Mr & Mrs Albert R Keen.” Albert Keen was a prominent hotelier who maintained acquaintances with well-known early 20th century personalities such as Theodore Roosevelt and, of course, Thomas Edison. Docketed in pencil on verso. Light soiling mainly visible in margins. An extremely good signed photogravure portrait.
B A U M A N R A R E B O O K S S C I E N C E & P H I L O S O P H Y 2 0 2 3 13 SIGNED BY ALBERT EINSTEIN: TWO IMPORTANT EARLY SCIENTIFIC PAPERS, INCLUDING HIS DOCTORAL DISSERTATION, “A NEW DETERMINATION OF MOLECULAR DIMENSIONS” 13. (EINSTEIN, Albert). Annalen der Physik. Vierte Folge. Band 19. No. 2. Leipzig: [Johann Ambrosius Barth], 1906. Octavo, later drab paper wrappers, printed paper spine label; housed in a custom clamshell box. $52,000 First printing of two early and important Einstein papers: a revised edition of his doctoral dissertation, and his paper on Brownian motion, signed by Einstein in 1950 (“A. Einstein (50)”) on page 289, the first page of his dissertation. Einstein’s doctoral dissertation, “Eine Neue Bestimmung der Molekueldimensionen” [A New Determination of Molecular Dimensions] appears on pp. 289-306, while his follow-up treatise, “Zur Theorie der Brownschen Bewegung” [On the Theory of Brownian Motion] appears on pp. 371-81. Einstein’s biographer, physicist Abraham Pais, observed that “it is not sufficiently realized that Einstein’s doctoral thesis is one of his most fundamental papers,” and historian of science John Stachel, in his monograph “Einstein’s Miraculous Year: Five Papers that Changed the Face of Physics” (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998), argued that Einstein’s doctoral thesis was a landmark work. The dissertation also marked the first major success in Einstein’s effort to find further evidence for the atomic hypothesis, which culminated in his explanation of Brownian motion. By the end of 1905 he had published three independent methods for determining molecular dimensions.” Biographies of Einstein—such as those produced by Pais and Stachel—invariably refer to 1905 as Einstein’s “miraculous year” because his articles on relativity, the light-quantum, and Brownian motion appeared almost back-toback within this extremely productive period. Pais asserted that “in some—not all—respects, his results on Brownian motion are by-products of his thesis work... [There is] the impression in some quarters that the relation between diffusion and viscosity—a very important equation due to Einstein and Sutherland—was first obtained in Einstein’s paper on Brownian motion. Actually, it first appeared in his thesis” (Pais, Subtle is the Lord: The Science and the Life of Albert Einstein, Oxford, 1982). Einstein’s dissertation was first published in Bern, by Wyss, in 1905, in a very small edition, largely for Einstein’s own use to secure his doctorate and to apply for jobs. “The judges at the university in Zurich were satisfied with Einstein’s results, but Paul Drude, the editor of Annalen, was not. Einstein had submitted his treatise to Drude in August 1905, after the conclusion of the degree procedure; however, it was published not within the customary eight weeks, but only about six months later. This had never before happened with any of Einstein’s papers, nor did it ever happen afterward. Drude evidently knew of better data for sugar solutions and must have asked for a small addendum. Einstein supplied it at the beginning of the following year, with a substantially improved result for the Avogadro constant” (Fölsing, Albert Einstein, 127). With folding plate at rear depicting several tables. Weil 7a, 11. This volume was signed by Einstein for Lewis Strauss, Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission. Interior clean; closed tears to wrappers along spine, binding sound. A very good copy, very rare and desirable signed by Einstein.
B A U M A N R A R E B O O K S S C I E N C E & P H I L O S O P H Y 2 0 2 3 14 EINSTEIN & STRAUS’ FORMULATION OF THE “SWISS CHEESE” MODEL OF THE UNIVERSE, RARE 1945 OFFPRINT 14. EINSTEIN, Albert and STRAUS, Ernst G. The Influence of the Expansion of Space on the Gravitation Fields Surrounding the Individual Stars. OFFPRINT FROM: “Reviews of Modern Physics,” Vol. 17, Nos. 2 and 3, April-July 1945. Princeton, NJ: Institute of Advanced Study, 1945. Quarto, five pages on two bifolios, staple-bound as issued, correction leaf laid in loose as issued; pp. 120-24; 148-49. $4200 First edition, rare offprint issue produced for the authors for distribution to colleagues, in which Einstein and Straus introduce what has come to be known as the “Swiss cheese” model of the universe. “After a decade and a half of sometimes intense work on cosmology, Einstein returned to the subject only occasionally in his later years. His most significant later contribution was a discussion of the impact of cosmological expansion on the gravitational field surrounding a star… This was an important first step in understanding the impact of global cosmological expansion on local physics” (Janssen & Lehner, 257-58). “By the spring of 1945, Einstein and Straus had found a new type of possible universe using Einstein’s equations. It described a universe which looked largely like one of the simple expanding universes of Friedmann and Lemaître containing material (like galaxies) which exerted no pressure. But it had spherical regions removed from it, like bubbles in a Swiss cheese. Each empty hole then had a mass placed at its center. The mass was equal in magnitude to what had been excavated to create the hole. This was a step towards a more realistic universe in which the matter was not smoothly spread with the same density everywhere but gathered up into lumps, like galaxies, which were spread about in empty space” (Barrow, The Book of Universes, 106-07). “By 1944, Einstein had recruited a new assistant at Princeton. His assistants were always talented young mathematicians who could make up for Einstein’s self-confessed weakness in this area. Ernst Straus (1922-1983) was something of a mathematical prodigy… He was born in Munich but after the Nazis came to power in 1933 his family fled to Palestine, where he was educated at high school and at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Straus didn’t stay to take an undergraduate degree and instead, while still a teenager, moved to New York’s Columbia University in 1941 to begin graduate research. In 1944, he found himself recruited as Einstein’s new research assistant at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. The young Straus had no background in physics and his mathematical inclinations were towards number theory and ‘pure’ mathematical topics but he lost no time in filling the gap left by the departures of Nathan Rosen (1935-45) and Leopold Infeld (1936-38)” (Barrow, 105-06). Not on OCLC; no copies in auction records. Fine condition.
B A U M A N R A R E B O O K S S C I E N C E & P H I L O S O P H Y 2 0 2 3 15 “EXTRAORDINARY ACHIEVEMENTS OF CENTRAL IMPORTANCE”: FARADAY’S EXPERIMENTAL RESEARCHES IN CHEMISTRY AND PHYSICS, FIRST EDITION 15. FARADAY, Michael. Experimental Researches in Chemistry and Physics. London: Richard Taylor and William Francis, 1859. Octavo, original blue-green blind-stamped cloth. $2800 First edition of Faraday’s collected papers in chemistry and physics, documenting important discoveries from one of the world’s greatest scientists, with three engraved plates (one folding). A very nice copy in the original cloth. “This collection of physical and chemical papers, reprinted from the Philosophical Transactions and elsewhere, includes Faraday’s account of the production of the first known compounds of chlorine and carbon (CCl and CCl), which was achieved by substituting chlorine of hydrogen in ethylene—the first substitution reaction. Also present are his announcement of the discovery of benzene, his account of the liquefaction of chlorine and other gases, and works on the composition of lime, the production of high-grade steels, and optical glass. One of the most important physical papers in this collection is the one on ray vibrations, in which Faraday tentatively put forward an explanation for the transmission of light through a vacuum without a vibrating machine; this is an embryonic form of the electromagnetic theory of light” (Norman 765). Evidence of errata slip at page 445, no longer present. Interior clean, front free endpaper with one corner renewed. Just a touch of rubbing to extremities. A near-fine copy.
B A U M A N R A R E B O O K S S C I E N C E & P H I L O S O P H Y 2 0 2 3 16 NINE PAPERS FROM FARADAY’S GROUNDBREAKING EXPERIMENTAL RESEARCHES IN ELECTRICITY SERIES, 1850-57 16. FARADAY, Michael. Experimental Researches in Electricity… From the Philosophical Transactions. Twenty-third, Twenty-fourth, Twenty-fifth, Twenty-sixth, and Twenty-seventh, Twenty-eighth, Twenty-ninth Series, Thirtieth Series. WITH: Bakerian Lecture. London: [R. and J.E. Taylor], 1850-57. Nine papers bound in two volumes. Quarto, modern marbled paper wrappers. Housed in a custom clamshell box. $6800 First appearances of nine papers from Faraday’s important Experimental Researches in Electricity bound in two volumes, the 23rd through the 30th Series—laying the foundations for the origins of Field Theory—along with his 1857 Bakerian lecture, extracted from the journal Philosophical Transactions where they originally appeared, with all related engraved plates and illustrations. The electrical research of Faraday, “one of the greatest physicists of the 19th century and one of the finest experimenters of all time… was the starting point for the revolutionary theories of Clerk Maxwell and later of Einstein… It laid the foundation of the modern electrical industry—electric light and power, telephony, wireless telegraphy, television, etc.—by providing for the production of continuous mechanical motion from an electrical source, and vice versa” (PMM 308). “Between 1832 and 1852 Faraday published 29 series of papers in the Philosophical Transactions under the title ‘Experimental Researches in Electricity’ [a 30th series was added in 1855]; it was through these papers that his major discoveries relating to electricity and magnetism were first published” (Norman 762). These two volumes contain the final eight papers of the series, from 1850-55: the 23rd through the 30th. These papers are elemental in documenting Faraday’s “decades-long quest for the holy grail of 19th-century physics: a comprehensive theory of electricity, magnetism, force and light” (Hirshfeld, xi). “Whatever the cause of magnetism, the manifestation of magnetic force took place in the medium surrounding the magnet. This manifestation was the magnetic field and the energy of the magnetic system was in the field, not in the magnet. By extension, the same could be said (and was so said by Faraday) of electrical and gravitational systems. This is the fundamental axiom of classic field theory. By the mid-1850s Faraday had gone as far as he could go. He had provided a new perspective for those who would look on all manifestations of force in the phenomenal world.... James Clerk Maxwell, in the 1850s and 1860s, built field theory on the foundations Faraday had laid” (DSB). These papers were then collected in 1855 and published as Volume III of Faraday’s book-form publication of his work, which also bore the title Experimental Researches in Electricity; Volume I was published in 1839 and Volume II in 1844. With three engraved plates, one folding, as issued, as well as in-text illustrations. Also included here is Faraday’s 1857 Bakerian lecture on the relations of gold and other metals to light. Fine condition.
B A U M A N R A R E B O O K S S C I E N C E & P H I L O S O P H Y 2 0 2 3 17 GALLEY OF THE ROGERS COMMISSION’S RECOMMENDATIONS AFTER THE CHALLENGER DISASTER, SIGNED BY COMMISSION MEMBER AND NOBEL PRIZE-WINNING PHYSICIST RICHARD FEYNMAN 17. FEYNMAN, Richard P. Recommendations. No place: No publisher, circa 1986. Five sheets of mimeographed paper, each measuring 8-1/2 by 14 inches, stapled at top corner; pp. 5. $22,500 Mimeograph of the galleys of the Recommendations of the Rogers Commission tasked with investigating the Challenger disaster, signed on the front page by Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman with his additional note: “PRIVATE (CLOSE HOLD).” The Rogers Commission was formed in the aftermath of the Challenger disaster to investigate the reasons behind the space shuttle’s explosion. Richard Feynman was in the final months of his life and reluctantly accepted the appointment to the Commission, despite believing it would “ruin [his] life.” Feynman was consumed by the investigation, painstakingly analyzing the evidence and eventually reaching a conclusion that exposed systemic problems at NASA that extended well beyond the Challenger. Feynman harshly criticized the culture of NASA, from its poor decision-making to its excessive risk tolerance. This galley of the Commission’s ultimate recommendations, ironically, takes a more moderated approach. It begins by recommending that the design of the Solid Rocket Motor joint and seal (the infamous O-rings) be improved and goes on to suggest changes to NASA bureaucracy and oversight. This report, unlike Feynman’s minority report, “strongly recommends that NASA continue to receive the support of the Administration and the nation.” Small notation in an unidentified hand above Feynman’s signature reading: “1st gally [sic] 9:45 5/26.” This item was formerly the property of the Feynman family. Original folding creases. Fine condition.
B A U M A N R A R E B O O K S S C I E N C E & P H I L O S O P H Y 2 0 2 3 18 “THE MOST IMPORTANT [PAPER] ON RELATIVITY SINCE MY OWN ORIGINAL PAPER APPEARED” (EINSTEIN): FIRST PRINTING OF GODEL’S FAMOUS 1949 “TIME TRAVEL” PAPER 18. GODEL, Kurt. “An Example of a New Type of Cosmological Solutions of Einstein’s Field Equations of Gravitation.” IN: Reviews of Modern Physics, Volume 21, Number 3, pp. 447-50. Lancaster and New York: American Institute of Physics, July, 1949. Octavo, original orange paper wrappers sympathetically respined. $4500 First printing of Godel’s groundbreaking work on relativity introducing the possibility of time travel. This special issue of Reviews of Modern Physics—a celebration of Einstein on his 70th birthday—also includes articles by many of the 20th century’s most distinguished scientists including Feynman, Born, Millikan, De Broglie, Gamow, Dirac, and over twenty others. “In [the offered paper] Gödel presented a rotating solution that was not expanding but was the same at all points of space and time. This solution was the first to be discovered that had the curious property that in it was possible to travel into the past. This leads to the paradoxes such as ‘What happens if you go back and kill your father when he was a baby?’ It is generally agreed that this cannot happen in a solution that represents our universe, but Gödel was the first to show that it was not forbidden by the Einstein equations. His solution generated a lot of discussion of the relation between general relativity and the concept of causality” (Stephen Hawking, Gödel’s Collected Works). Small typed label reading “Einstein Godel 1949” affixed to front wrapper; similar label reading “Special Issue July 1” affixed to rear wrapper. Nicely respined, near-fine condition.
B A U M A N R A R E B O O K S S C I E N C E & P H I L O S O P H Y 2 0 2 3 19 “HUME AIMS TO BE THE ‘NEWTON OF THE PASSIONS”: FIRST EDITION OF ENQUIRY CONCERNING THE PRINCIPLES OF MORALS, 1751 19. HUME, David. An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals. London: A. Millar, 1751. Small octavo (4 by 6-3/4 inches), contemporary brown calf rebacked, raised bands, later red morocco spine label; pp. (viii), 1-253, (3). $10,500 First edition, first state, of what Hume considered “incomparably the best” of all his work, his corollary to Treatise of Human Nature and a key work within the Utilitarian school of political and moral philosophy, one of the most important traditions in English-speaking philosophy, including such eminent thinkers as Adam Smith, Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill. Hume’s Treatise of Human Nature (1739-40) was the first attempt to apply principles of Locke’s empirical psychology to a theory of knowledge. In this and his Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals, Hume stands as a leading voice in the school of Utilitarianism, “the most influential and longest continuing tradition in English speaking moral philosophy… marked by a long line of brilliant writers” that includes Adam Smith, Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill. Hume’s Enquiry importantly explores “how we make moral judgments… the ‘mechanism’ of moral judgments. How are they made and what accounts for their content? Hume aims to be the ‘Newton of the Passions.’ In contrast to Locke, he does not present a normative system of principles founded on the Laws of Nature… [but] the role it plays in social life and in establishing social unity and mutual understanding… What Hume is trying to do is explain the fact that we agree… On Hume’s view there is only one possible basis, and that is one that appeals to our principle of humanity… the psychological tendency we have to identify with the interests and concerns of others when our own interests do not come into competition with them” (Rawls 162, 177-87). An Enquiry was, in Hume’s own opinion, “Of all my writings incomparably the best” (Autobiography). The influence of Utilitarianism as furthered by Hume was immense: “He may be regarded as the acutest thinker in Great Britain of the 18th century” (DNB). First state, with leaf L3 uncancelled. Mispagination (p. 64) without loss of text. With rare half title. With errata leaf and rear advertisements. Small numerical notation to preliminary blank. Text expertly cleaned, contemporary calf boards expertly restored.
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