Search Results: Titles starting with B from Rootenberg Rare Books & Manuscripts

Two volumes. 4to. xiv, 258; xix, 268, xiii pp. With 124 full-page hand-colored lithograph plates. Contemporary red cloth, gilt title on spine, edges speckled; interior clean and crisp. A gorgeous copy, an important set for any natural history lover.
First edition of Volume I, later edition of Volume II. Striking full-page illustrations of moths and caterpillars in their natural habitat, along with scientific descriptions of each. Humphreys became more interested in moths following publication of his work on butterflies. "I became more acquainted with the night-flying tribes of this beautiful class of insects. The British moths are not perhaps so gaily coloured as their more gaudy rivals, the butterflies; but when we consider the splendid sphinges, or twilight fliers, by which they are linked to the day-flying butterflies, they can scarcely be deemed less beautiful." It is impossible not to feel his passion for these insects through the pages of this magnificent work.
Humphreys… Read More

[Philadelphia]: [College of Physicians of Philadelphia], 1920. FIRST EDITION. Original green boards, gilt lettering to upper cover and spine, some light spotting to upper cover; a fine, uncut copy from the library of Alfred Heacock Whittaker, with his bookplate. First edition of this oration which was delivered before the College of Physicians of Philadelphia on November 19, 1919. The oration was established by the College of Physicians of Philadelphia to be given triennially and to have as its subject any aspect of the life or work of S. Weir Mitchell. Burr (b.1861) was a physician and professor at the University of Pennsylvania.

Iowa City, Iowa: [n.p.], 1926. FIRST SEPARATE EDITION. Original printed wrappers. Wrappers soiled, otherwise near fine. Number 72/100 copies.

London: C.J. Clay and sons, 1904. FIRST EDITION. Complete with errata leaf and additional errata slip bound in. Numerous text illustrations throughout. Original cloth, somewhat worn, possibly rebacked with the original laid on, gilt on upper edge; interior in good condition. First edition of this series of lectures in which the author attempts to formulate a physical model for the aether, an extremely valuable medium that would support the electromagnetic waves that were becoming increasingly import to the explanation of radioactive phenomena.Thomson was one of the foremost among the small group of British scientists who helped lay the foundation of modern physics. His contributions to science included a major role in the development of the second law of thermodynamics; the absolute temperature scale (measured in Kelvin's); the dynamical theory of heat; the mathematical analysis of electricity and magnetism, including the basic ideas for the electromagnetic theory of light; the geophysical… Read More

London: Printed for Tho. Newcomb, 1675. FIRST EDITION. Frontispiece in Volume 1, genealogical charts. Contemporary full speckled calf with blind panel and gilt floral border, spine with 6 raised bands with gilt compartments and morocco labels, rebacked preserving original spines, extremities rubbed, boards scuffed; marbled endpapers, all edges red, light soiling, dampstain to top margin of 50 pages in second volume, scattered neat underlining and notes. From the libraries of noted Shakespeare scholar Charles Tyler Prouty with his signed book label and the printed bookplate of Marianne Ford. First edition of Dugdale's history of English aristocracy from Saxon times. It is considered an important work of genealogical scholarship. Dugdale (1605-86) was an English antiquary and medieval scholar. In addition to this work, his most important writings include Monasticon Anglicanum; Antiquities of Warwickshire; and The history of St. Paul's Cathedral in London.

London: Clifton Books, 1970. FIRST EDITION. Original green cloth, dust jacket in pristine condition. A perfect copy.

Rochester: Published for the authors, 1880. Later printing. Engraved frontispiece and inserted leaf with raised letters for the blind. Original publisher's cloth with gold decoration and embossing.

Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1888. FIRST EDITION. Original publisher's white and greed decorated cloth. First edition, first printing, binding Aa. The poems At my fireside and The angel-thief are both printed here for the first time. All but four, To James Freeman Clarke; Benjamin Pierce, Boston to Florence, and Post-prandial, are collected here for the first time. BAL, 9012; C&T, p. 217.

Halle: H.W. Schmidt, 1867. FIRST EDITION. Complete with 14 hand colored plates. Later cloth boards, gilt lettering on spine; a very good copy from the Library of Dr. James M. Dolan Jr. with his blind stamp on the title page. First Edition of the most valuable contribution to the avifauna of Polynesian. Hartlaub prepared the preface, the introduction, and the diagnoses, with the remaining part of the text being written by Finsch. The work is based chiefly on material collected by Dr. E. Gräffe but deals with all birds known from the area in question, altogether 99 species as well as ten doubtful ones (Anker). The work is dedicated to the Hamburger merchant Johann Cesar Godeffroy (1813-1885), founder of the Museum Godeffroy, which began as a personal collection of birds, fish, shells and other animals. The authors have described all previously recorded information from the naturalists who acceompanied Cook on his first voyage and enlarged it to include specific areas of Central Polynesia, including… Read More

London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1896. Limited printing. With frontispiece and 11 engraved plates. Original navy buckram, gilt lettering to spine; end-papers browned and spotted, but a very nice uncut and mostly unopened copy with a presentation inscription from the author's wife on the fly-leaf. Limited edition, number 279 of 415 copies printed on large paper. A collection of seven stories about Scottish rural life, the last entitled A doctor of the old school. The book was enormously popular in both Great Britain and America, and went through several translations into the majority of the European languagesWatson (1850-1907) was a Scottish presbyterian who wrote literature under the pseudonym Ian Maclaren, and theological works under his true name. In Liverpool, he established one of the foremost congregations of the Presbyterian church. Because of the popularity of his books in America, he made two lecture tours. It was after delivering a lecture at Yale that he was awarded from them an honorary D.D.

London: Victor Gollancz Ltd, 1953. FIRST EDITION. Red publisher's cloth, gilt lettering to spine, in original yellow dust-jacket (spine of dust-jacket slightly soiled with a couple tiny chips, two small tears to edges of top panel, else fine). First edition. The tale of a man who discovers that the father whom he believed to be dead is actually in jail for murder. It was made into a motion picture in 1959 starring Van Johnson, Vera Miles and Emlyn Williams; it was also billed under the title Web of evidence.

Venice: Typographia Herziana, 1740. Double column, title in red and black, full-page etched frontispiece in Vol I, woodcut illustrations throughout. Contemporary stiff vellum, manuscript spine titles. Some minor dampstaining, but otherwise a remarkably good set. Folded in are a manuscript devotional poem, a letter dated 11 Nov. 1856, a printed leaflet oration to St. Felix of Nola, and an etched vignette of St. Pius X. Ownership inscription on the front flyleaf of Vol I dated 1906.

London: Longman, Hurst, Rees and Orme, 1809. FIRST EDITION. Title in black with red. Half calf over linen; preliminary and last leaves foxed, interior and text in generally excellent condition. First edition of this popular book which passed through many later editions. This work was inspired by another, published under the same title, by John Ferrier, M.D. Ferrier had extensive medical experience and did himself suffer from the disease which he named Biblio-Mania. His work, in verse, begins: What wild desires, what restless torments seize The hapless man, who feels the book-disease.Dibdin was the originator and vice-president of the Roxburghe Club, founded in 1812, the first of the numerous book clubs which have done such service to literature.

FIRST EDITIONS. Publisher's cloth, many covered in protective brown paper. From the library of Robert S. Mullikan (1896-1986), winner of the 1966 Nobel Prize for chemistry. He was primarily responsible for the early development of molecular orbital method of computing the structure of molecules. His signature appears in Volumes 29-39.

London: Chapman & Hall, 1893. FIRST EDITION. Title and half-title in red and black. Original green cloth binding illustrating birds on branches on front cover; front and back free endpapers chipped along edges with offsetting on half-title and last page. Generally, the interior is excellent, with a blind ownership stamp (W.H. Smith) on first free endpaper. First edition of Hudson's delightful account of the birds found in a village in southeast England. He compares the species and population as well as the treatment against those that would cause damage to their food and habitat. Hudson (1841-1922), author, naturalist and ornithologist, was a founding member of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. He is best known for his novel Green Mansion. Hemingway famously referred to Hudson's book The Purple Land in his novel The Sun Also Rises.

Tokyo: by the author, 1936. FIRST EDITION. Volume I with errata and addenda, 1 folding map and 14 plates; Volume II with 20 plates and 1 folding map. All tissue guards present. Contemporary half burgundy cloth over boards, gilt title on spine, with original dusk jackets, slightly torn, and preserved in the original slipcases. A very good copy. First edition of the work that remains the standard of reference for the birds of Java, the world's most populous island located in Indonesia. The author offers the most comprenshive catalogue of Java birds, describing in detail 25 families and 225 species of Passeres in the first volume and the whole non-Passeres order in the second. The images are crowded, typically ten to fifteen to a plate, and offer an excellent representation of the birds. The plate representing the Pittas and the Broadbill is by the author's fourteen year old son, Nagahisa Kuroda, while the others are by Shigekazu Kobayashi, considered the leading bird artist in Japan.Kuroda (1889-1978)… Read More

London & Toronto: J.M. Dent & Sons, 1920. FIRST EDITION. With 22 color plates after H. Grönvold. Original publisher's cloth (no dust jackets), gilt decoration on cover and gilt lettering on spine; an excellent copy from the Library of James M. Dolan, with his stamp on both title pages. First edition, one of three thousand copies printed for distribution in England and the United States. Hudson introduces new species that have been discovered since his previous work on Argentinian avifauna (Argentine ornithology written with Philip Lutley Sclater and published in 1888-89). "In the present work the classification, synonymy, &c. in the former work has been expunged, leaving only the account of the birds' habits as written by Hudson himself. The plates are new" (Wood). Hudson, as he states in the preface, believes that new species are continually being added by collectors and so his previous work was already out of date as soon as it was published. South America, according to the author, is richer in… Read More

Santa Barbara: Black Sparrow Press, 1984. FIRST BLACK SPARROW PRESS EDITION. Original black cloth-backed printed paper boards with very minimal scuffs, plain yellow dust jacket, mylar protective cover. An excellent copy of an uncommon book.

Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1976. FIRST EDITION. Brown cloth with blue lettering on cover and spine, dustjacket in pristine condition with a very small tear on the the back; a fresh and lovely copy.

Neudamm: J. Neumann, 1921. FIRST EDITION. With 176 chromolithograph plates (4 double). Original cloth, title in gilt on cover, some wear to spines; tissue covers with marginal tears, several signatures loose in Volume III, Volumes I and II signed on half-title by previous owner and dated 1916. Generally in very fine condition. EXQUISITE COLOURED PLATES OF CACTUS. First edition, from the original forty-five parts, and one of the most beautiful works on cacti. With vibrant full-page coloured plates, printed from intricate images drawn by Toni Gürke, wife of the editor, and hand-finished. A comprehensive look at almost two hundred flowering cactus species, with a strong representation of plants from Central and South America. This three volume work was presented by the German Cactus Society, drawing together prints they had made over the course of 21 years. The complete set is rarely available.Schumann (1851-1904) received his doctorate in botany from the University of Breslau. Upon publication in… Read More