Rare Book Monthly

Book Catalogue Reviews - November - 2010 Issue

Science and its Development from B & L Rootenberg Rare Books

Science, natural history and more from B & L Rootenberg.

Science, natural history and more from B & L Rootenberg.


By Michael Stillman

B & L Rootenberg Rare Books has published their 12th catalogue, Fine Books. Science, Medicine, Natural History, and Early Printing. This is not a catalogue to find fiction, at least not intentional fiction. Time may have turned much of what people once believed from fact to fantasy, but these works represent man (and woman's) search for knowledge in a time when so much of what everyone knows today was still a mystery. These are the books that led us from darkness to light, the steps that made today's understanding of the world possible. These books are us.

Anyone who has ever watched a train whiz by is familiar with the Doppler effect. However, Doppler's discovery has been used for far more than simply telling when a train has passed you. The shift in the frequency of sound waves also applies to radio and light rays, enabling the effect to be used to determine the movement of stars, the rotation of the sun, and more recently such things as weather radar. Item 35 is a May 1842 publication containing Johan Doppler's paper explaining his discovery, Ueber das farbige licht der doppelsterne und einiger anderer Gestirne des himmels. Priced at $16,500.

Christian Huygens was one of the leading scientists of the 17th century. He studied the cosmos, developed the pendulum clock, enunciated the wave theory of light, and much more. Item 63 is a more speculative though fascinating work of Huygens, the 1698 first edition in English of The celestial worlds discover'd: or, conjectures concerning the inhabitants, plants and productions of the worlds in the planets. Huygens believed that in the Copernican world, where the earth was no longer believed to be the center of the universe, there was no reason to believe life on earth should be something special. Therefore, he reasoned, there must be similar life on the other planets. Of course we now realize this is not true - that drastically different climates mean there is no life remotely similar to our own on our solar system's other planets. However, we are now starting to discover planets circling other stars whose position in their solar systems could mean a similar climate, and so once again we are wondering whether Huygens' logic may yet hold. $16,000.

The most popular book enunciating a theory of evolution in the 19th century was not written by Charles Darwin. It was, instead, a book published in 1844, 15 years ahead of Darwin, titled Vestiges of the natural history of creation. It was published anonymously, as well might a book bound to generate controversy. Its author was the publisher, phrenologist and geologist Robert Chambers. Chambers had viewed the fossil history and concluded that God had not made the world's creatures exactly as they are today. He realized that species had come and gone, and changed along the way. Chambers did not come up with the right mechanism, natural selection, which is why his contribution has faded while Darwin remains influential (and controversial) to this day. He believed that God had created natural laws, and it was through those laws that species changed, rather than through some type of personal Divine intervention. As it turned out, Darwin had developed his own theory of evolution at the same time, but fearing controversy, decided to sit on it while building an airtight case, while Chambers was willing to write (anonymously) on his theories without first gathering all of the details. Item 27 is a copy of the first edition of Vestiges along with a first edition of Chambers 1845 follow-up Explanations: A sequel to "Vestigies of the natural history of creation," which answered some of the objections to his work. $6,500.

Rare Book Monthly

  • Il Ponte, Feb. 25-26: ALDROVANDI, Ulisse (1522-1605) - [Opera omnia]. Bologna: Bellagamba, Benacci, Bonomi, Tebaldini, Ferroni, 1599-1668. €22.000-€28.000
    Il Ponte, Feb. 25-26: [CANALETTO] - VISENTINI, Antonio (1688-1782) da Giovanni Antonio CANAL (1697-1768, detto 'Il Canaletto') - Urbis Venetiarum prospectus celebriores. Venezia: Giovanni Battista Pasquale, 1742-51. €7.000-€10.000
    Il Ponte, Feb. 25-26: LA FONTAINE, Jean de (1621-1695) - Fables Choisies. Parigi: Claude Barbin, 1668. €7.000-€10.000
    Il Ponte, Feb. 25-26: MERCATOR, Rumold (1545-1599) - [I continenti] - Europa; Africa; America Sive India Nova; Asia. Amsterdam: S.d. [ca. 1633]. €2.000-€3.000
  • Sotheby's
    Sell Your Fine Books & Manuscripts
    Sotheby’s: The Shem Tov Bible, 1312 | A Masterpiece from the Golden Age of Spain. Sold: 6,960,000 USD
    Sotheby’s: Ten Commandments Tablet, 300-800 CE | One of humanity's earliest and most enduring moral codes. Sold: 5,040,000 USD
    Sotheby’s: William Blake | Songs of Innocence and of Experience. Sold: 4,320,000 USD
    Sotheby’s: The Declaration of Independence | The Holt printing, the only copy in private hands. Sold: 3,360,000 USD
    Sotheby's
    Sell Your Fine Books & Manuscripts
    Sotheby’s: Thomas Taylor | The original cover art for Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. Sold: 1,920,000 USD
    Sotheby’s: Machiavelli | Il Principe, a previously unrecorded copy of the book where modern political thought began. Sold: 576,000 GBP
    Sotheby’s: Leonardo da Vinci | Trattato della pittura, ca. 1639, a very fine pre-publication manuscript. Sold: 381,000 GBP
    Sotheby’s: Henri Matisse | Jazz, Paris 1947, the complete portfolio. Sold: 312,000 EUR
  • Gros & Delettrez
    Travel: Books & Cartography
    6 February 2025
    Gros & Delettrez, Feb. 6: MUNSTER (Sebastian). Cosmographiae universalis lib. VI. Basilea
    Gros & Delettrez, Feb. 6: ORTELIUS (Abraham). Typus Orbis Terrarum. [Antwerp, 1587]
    Gros & Delettrez, Feb. 6: BRION DE LA TOUR (Louis). Atlas Monde. Paris, Desnos ou Jaillot, [1783 - An XIII-1799].
    Gros & Delettrez
    Travel: Books & Cartography
    6 February 2025
    Gros & Delettrez, Feb. 6: ORTELIUS (Abraham). Theatrum Orbis Terrarum. Anvers, Christophe Plantin, 1579.
    Gros & Delettrez, Feb. 6: VISSCHER (Nicolas Joannes). Theatrum praecipuarum urbium [...]
    Gros & Delettrez, Feb. 6: DE BRUYN (Cornelis). Voyage au Levant.
    Gros & Delettrez
    Travel: Books & Cartography
    6 February 2025
    Gros & Delettrez, Feb. 6: AZARA (Félix de). Voyages dans l'Amérique Méridionale.
    Gros & Delettrez, Feb. 6: JOUTEL (Henri). Journal historique du dernier voyage que feu M. de la Sale […]
    Gros & Delettrez, Feb. 6: LA SALLE (René Robert Cavelier de) ; TONTI (Henri de). Dernières découvertes dans l’Amérique Septentrionale
    Gros & Delettrez
    Travel: Books & Cartography
    6 February 2025
    Gros & Delettrez, Feb. 6: NOLIN (Jean-Baptiste) ; CORONELLI (Vincenzo). L'Amérique septentrionale, ou, la partie septentrionale des Indes Occidentales […]
    Gros & Delettrez, Feb. 6: [Caroline du Sud]. A large draft of South Carolina from Cape Roman to Port Royal.
    Gros & Delettrez, Feb. 6: PÉRON (François) ; FREYCINET (Louis de). Voyage de découverte aux terres australes.
  • Old World Auctions (Feb 12):
    Lot 746. Speed's Dual Atlas of Britain & the World with 96 Maps (1676). Est. $70,000 - $85,000
    Old World Auctions (Feb 12):
    Lot 9. Visscher's Superb Double-Hemisphere World Map with Representations of the Elements (1658). Est. $4,750 - $6,000
    Old World Auctions (Feb 12):
    Lot 58. One of the Most Important 16th Century Maps of the New World (1554). Est. $5,000 - $6,000
    Old World Auctions (Feb 12):
    Lot 745. A Complete Example of Ortelius' Atlas of Ancient Geography (1624). Est. $12,000 - $15,000
    Old World Auctions (Feb 12):
    Lot 73. First English Map to Show California as an Island (1625). Est. $16,000 - $19,000
    Old World Auctions (Feb 12):
    Lot 156. Bachmann's Dramatic View of the Mid-Atlantic Region (1861). Est. $1,800 - $2,200
    Old World Auctions (Feb 12):
    Lot 741. Early Announcement of Continental Congress' Declaration of Independence (1776). Est. $9,000 - $11,000
    Old World Auctions (Feb 12):
    Lot 695. The First Printed Map Devoted to the Pacific (1589). Est. $8,000 - $9,500
    Old World Auctions (Feb 12):
    Lot 733. Superb Image of the Presentation of Jesus in Hand Color (1502). Est. $700 - $850
    Old World Auctions (Feb 12):
    Lot 52. Produced by the Psychological Warfare Branch to Encourage Surrender (1945). Est. $200 - $230

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