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Catalogue
78
Voyages
& Travels
History
& Natural History
Science & Technology
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71.
PARKMAN, FRANCIS. Works. France and England in North America
(Vols. I-IX), The Conspiracy of Pontiac (Vol. X-IX), and The Oregon
Trail (Vol. XII). Boston, Little Brown, 1894-95. Twelve volumes.
$2,150
Small 8vo; twelve volumes, complete; with all plates, portraits,
maps and plans; handsomely rebound, with original spines laid down;
t.e.g.; a fine, clean set.
The author (1823-1893) was author, historian and horticulturist.
He was overseer of Harvard and fellow of the Harvard Corporation,
and president of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society. His literary
gifts and careful historical research gained him much contemporary
prominence and his works were highly praised. The set consists of
the following: I) Pioneers of France in the New World; II) The Jesuits
in North America in the Seventeenth Century; III) La Salle and the
Discovery of the Great West; IV) The Old Régime in Canada;
V) Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV; VI & VII)
A Half-Century of Conflict; VIII & IX) Montcalm and Wolfe (all
of these under the general heading of "France and England in
North America"); X & XI) The Conspiracy of Pontiac and
the Indian War after the Conquest of Canada; XII) The Oregon Trail:
Sketches of the Prairie and Rocky-Mountain Life. An excellent historical
work, complete in twelve volumes.
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72.
PLUCHE, [NOEL-ANTOINE] (1688-1761) Concorde de la Géographie
des différens ages. Paris, Chez Froullé, M.DCC.LXXXV
(1785). $500
Thick 12mo; pp. lx, 511, [3]; complete with half-title, frontispiece
engraved portrait, and 13 folding engraved maps; contemporary full
mottled calf, spine gilt in compartments; marbled endpapers; binding
worn at edges and corners; text and maps in fine condition; contemporary
manuscript list of maps on rear endpaper.
Abbé Pluche, a French priest, is perhaps best known for his
"Spectacle de la nature", a very popular eight-volume
work of natural history. He was a professor of humanities and of
rhetoric in his birthplace, Rheims, before taking holy orders. After
a falling-out with the church over the papal bull, Unigenitus, he
managed to obtain private teaching positions. and his writings gained
a fair amount of attention.
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73.
POLLOK, Lieut.-Colonel F[ITZWILLIAM THOMAS]. Sport in British
Burmah, Assam, and the Cassyah and Jyntiah Hills. With Notes of
Sport in the Hilly districts of the Northern Division, Madras Presidency
... London: Chapman and Hall, 1879. Two volumes. First edition.
$900
8vo; pp. xiii, [i] (Blank), f (List of Illustrations), pp. 253,
[1], [2] (Publishers' Adverts]; pp. vi, f (List of Illustrations),
pp. 230, [8] + 32 pp. [Publishers' Catalogue]; two folding maps,
two coloured frontispieces, and eight plates (six coloured); original
gilt- and black-stamped reddish-brown cloth; binding lightly rubbed
at edges; front hinge of vol. I cracked; neat archival tape repair
to fold of one map (no loss); small ownership sticker and signature
on front pastedowns, and small bookplate on front free endpaper;
overall a very good untrimmed set, complete with half-titles.
Schwerdt IV, p. 78; Czech (Asian), p.164: "A comprehensive
account", and one of the first to describe big-game hunting
in Burma, including the hunting of elephants and rhinoceroses.
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74.
PORTA, GIAMBATTISTA DELLA (1535-1615). Natural Magick by
John Baptista Porta, a Neapolitane: in Twenty Books: 1 Of the Causes
of Wonderful things. 2 Of the Generation of Animals. 3 Of the Production
of new Plants. 4 Of increasing Houshold-Stuff. 5 Of changing Metals.
6 Of counterfeiting Gold. 7 Of the Wonders of the Load-stone. 8
Of strange Cures. 9 Of Beautifying Women. 10 Of Distillation. 11
Of Perfuming. 12 Of Artifical Fires. 13 Of Tempering Steel. 14 Of
Cookery. 15 Of Fishing, Fowling, Hunting, &c. 16 Of Invisible
Writing. 17 Of Strange Glasses. 18 Of Statick Experiments. 19 Of
Pneumatick Experiments. 20 Of the Chaos. Wherein are set forth All
the Riches and Delights Of the Natural Sciences. London, Printed
for Thomas Young, and Samual Speed; and are to be sold at the three
Pigeons, and at the Angel in St. Paul's Church-yard, 1658. First
edition in English, first issue. $5,000
Folio; pp. [8], 384, 381-388, 393-409, [7] (including Table of Contents).
Signatures: C2, D4-3I4. Additional engraved and signed title (R.
Gaywood fecit London: 1658); title printed in red and black; woodcut
vignette, head-pieces and initials; diagrams throughout text, particularly
in Book XVII on optics; contemporary full calf, very worn; ruled
border on front and back; hinges and joints loose; small hole on
front board; backstrip partially detached; tear on lower margin
of additional engraved title repaired with tape; small tear in upper
margin of one leaf, no loss; some age-browning in margins; small
hole in one leaf, loss of two letters; top corner of rear paste-down
removed. Errata: pp. 113, 120 and 129 misnumbered 120, 113, and
131 respectively (indicating first issue - Brown Univ. Lib.); pp.
385-392 misnumbered 381-388.
ESTC R33476; Wing 2982. Giambattista della Porta was a Renaissance
man, born into a noble family and well-educated in mathematics as
well as the arts. Although he became a respected playwright, he
was chiefly interested in magic and the sciences, particularly in
combining substances found in the natural world to create improvements
in daily life. In Natural Magick, his most famous work, Porta describes
methods of hunting and preparing food, making cosmetics and perfumes,
as well as performing ground-breaking scientific experiments. "His
Magicae naturalis libri XX combines an insatiable desire for the
marvelous with a serious attempt to describe and define natural
magic and to make use of mathematical and experimental techniques;
book XVII, on refraction, is the basis of the attribution of priority
to Porta in inventing the telescope." - DBS. "He is remembered
for his pioneer work on optics and vision, for his treatise on steganography
or secret writing, for his early work on physiognomy, and for his
fanciful Phytognomonica." - Osler 3712. Magicae naturalis was
first published in Latin in 1558 and was reprinted many times in
the 16th century. This edition is the first translation into English.
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75.
PRADT, [DOMINIQUE-DUFOUR] de. Du Congrès de Vienne.
Paris, Deterville & Delaunay, 1815. Two volumes. "Seconde
édition". The second volume is bound with the first
part of the author's "Congrès de Carlsbad", 1819.
$300
8vo; 2 ff, pp. xix, [1] (Blank), 274; 2 ff, pp. 267, [1] (Blank);
2 ff, pp. 88; original quarter calf, pink sprinkled paper over boards;
two leather labels per spine (one wanting on vol. II); light foxing
throughout, and a light waterstain at bottom corner of first signature
of vol. II. A very good set.
The author (1759-1837) was archbishop of Mechelen (Malines) and
Poitiers, chaplain to Napoleon, French ambassador to Warsaw, and
a prolific political author. The Congress of Vienna, chaired by
Metternich, was a conference of ambassadors of the various European
countries and states, and was held in Vienna from November, 1814
to June, 1815. The object of the Congress was to discuss and try
to settle the various issues that had arisen following the French
Revolution, the Napoleonic Wars, and the dissolution of the Holy
Roman Empire. The Congress virtually re-drew the map of Europe;
it established the boundaries of France and the Netherlands, the
duchy of Warsaw, Saxony, the states that had formed the Confederation
of the Rhine, and various Italian territories. It came about because
of France's defeat and surrender in May, 1814, which brought an
end to a quarter-century of nearly continuous war, and it could
be said to have been the model and precursor to the League of Nations
and the United Nations in its goal to bring peace to all parties
involved. Its settlement was signed on June 18, 1815, nine days
before Napoleon's final defeat at Waterloo and, despite some later
changes, formed the framework for European politics until the outbreak
of the First World War a century later. De Pradt's work on the Congress
of Carlsbad, which was a German anti-revolutionary meeting, was
published in two volumes in 1819 and 1820; only the first is present
here, bound in at the end of vol. II.
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