Search Results: Authors starting with F from The Manhattan Rare Book Company

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

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

New York: np, 1966. First edition. Very Good. FEYNMAN GIVES ADVICE TO LECTURE SERIES COMMITTEE CHAIR OFFERING REVEALING AND QUINTESSENTIALLY FEYNMAN ADVICE: "A good man interested in his work, and not a quack trying to sound important is what you need." Background: "No one can do anything alone, and all the influences of parents, teachers, and friends add up to make a success. In my case, I have always been conscious of the very large contributions given me by my school." -excerpt from Richard Feynman's 1965 telegram to the Far Rockaway High School Science Chairman American theoretical physicist and Nobel laureate Dr. Richard P. Feynman was a descendant of Eastern European immigrants who settled in Far Rockaway, Queens. The world knows him for his work at California Institute of Technology, his contributions in Quantum Electrodynamics, the Manhattan Project, and the Challenger Shuttle Commission but he never lost the curiosity that he developed as a student at Far Rockaway High School. After… Read More

np: np, 1983. First edition. custom folder. Very Good. FEYNMAN OFFERS ADVICE AND ENCOURAGEMENT FOR A SCIENTIFIC ENDEAVOR. An exceedingly rare two-page autograph letter from Richard Feynman from 1983, signed once in full cursive, once with a printed last name, once with his initials, and once with a printed "alias" "DR. -". Background: The recipient of the letter - Stephan Arnold Mascari - has provided (in an included letter of provenance) the context of the letter: "Here's the story behind the letter: It was in the middle of 1983 that I decided to give up being a lawyer in Washington, DC, and devote my life to resolving the greatest mystery in science-the nature of the conscious mind. I had been studying the issue since my undergraduate days at Georgetown and became convinced that the mind must have some other basis than the neural machinery of the brain. And several eminent neuroscientists had convincingly argued for a dualistic mind-a soul if you will.  "But I had no illusions about the… Read More

Lancaster: American Physical Society, The Physical Review, 1950. FIRST EDITION OFFPRINTS. Original wrappers. Very Good. EXTREMELY RARE OFFPRINTS OF FEYNMAN'S FINAL TWO PAPERS ON QUANTUM ELECTRODYNAMICS, DESCRIBING THE MATHEMATICAL FOUNDATIONS FOR HIS PATH-INTEGRALS AND FEYNMAN DIAGRAMS. Feynman himself stated about these papers: "In these two papers, I put everything that I had done and thought should be published on the subject [i.e., quantum electrodynamics]. And that was the end of my published work in this field" (quoted in Mehra, The Beat of a Different Drum, p. 325). We are not aware of any other offprints of any of Feynman's papers on quantum electrodynamics having appeared on the market; no copies on OCLC. "While Feynman made many original and imaginative contributions to theoretical physics, it may well be that his place in the history of science will be largely based on his approach to renormalizing quantum electrodynamics, and especially on the tools that he invented to accomplish that… Read More

Lancaster, PA: American Physical Society, 1948. First edition. Original wrappers. Very Good. First edition, first printing, of Feynman's path integral formalism, his revolutionary approach to solving the fundamental equations of quantum mechanics and the basis for his later famous formulations of "Feynman rules" and "Feynman diagrams".. "In mid-1947 friends of Feynman persuaded him - threats and cajoling were required - to write for publication the theoretical ideas they kept hearing him explain. When he finally did, he used no diagrams. The result was partly a reworking of his thesis, but it also showed the maturing and broadening of his command of the issues of quantum electrodynamics. He expressed the tenets of his new vision with unabashed plainness. For some physicists this would be the most influential set of ideas Feynman ever published. "He said he had developed an alternative formulation of quantum mechanics to add to the pair of formulations produced two decades before by Schrodinger and… Read More

Lancaster and New York: American Physical Society, 1950. 1st Edition. Soft cover. Very Good. FIRST EDITION IN ORIGINAL WRAPPERS of Feynman's paper providing a rigorous justification and proof for his famous "Feynman diagrams" and "Feynman rules". "Nobody but Dick [Feynman] could use his theory, because he was always invoking his intuition to make up the rules of the game as he went along. Until the rules were codified and made mathematically precise, I could not call it a theory" (Freeman Dyson, quoted in David Kaiser, Pedagogy and the Practice of Science). Particle Physics: One Hundred Years of Discoveries: "Mathematical proof of the validity of the Feynman rules for calculations of amplitudes in QED. Nobel Prize to R.P. Feynman awarded in 1965." IN: The Physical Review, Volume 80, Second Series, Number 3, November 1, 1950, pp. 440-457. Lancaster, PA and New York: for the American Physical Society, 1950. Quarto, original wrappers. A nearly invisible spot of dampstaining on the extreme outer edge… Read More

Lancaster and New York: American Physical Society. 1st Edition. Soft cover. Very Good. FIRST EDITION of Feynman's undergraduate thesis at MIT, "a fundamental discovery" published in The Physical Review when he was just twenty-one. "Forces or energy-that was the choice for those seeking to apply the quantum understanding of the atom to the workings of real materials. At stake was not mere terminology but a root decision about how to conceive of a problem and how to proceed in calculating...

 "As Feynman conceived the structure of molecules, forces were the natural ingredients. He saw springlike bonds with varying stiffness, atoms attracting and repelling one another. The usual energy-accounting methods seemed secondhand and euphemistic... [He demonstrated that] the force on an atom's nucleus is no more or less than the electrical force from the surrounding field of charged electrons-the electrostatic force. Once the distribution of charge has been… Read More

London: Macmillan & Co, 1905. 1905. Hardcover. Fine. 1905 edition of The Rubaiyat; MAGNIFICENTLY BOUND BY RAMAGE. The elaborate contemporary binding by Ramage features dark green morocco inlaid in a Padeloup-style mosaic pattern, covers bordered with thin decorative and plain gilt rules, the rest of the boards entirely covered with inlaid diapering featuring rows of pale yellow lozenges tooled with gilt fleurons, these flanked on all four sides with inlaid navy circles, the green morocco tooled with curving gilt lines attached to the dots. Spine compartments with similar inlaid pale yellow lozenges tooled in gilt and title in gilt, pastedowns framed by dark green morocco inlaid with pale yellow circles at the corners and with gilt floral tooling; cream-colored watered silk endleaves. Born in London in the mid 19th century, John Ramage worked with the distinguished Marcellin Lortic after serving an apprenticeship with John Wright. Ramage later opened his own shop in London where his bindings were… Read More

Millerton NY: Aperture. 1st Edition. Hardcover. Fine. SIGNED LIMITED FIRST EDITION, illustrated with 69 black and white images of Fink's photographs. One of 250 signed and numbered copies issued with an original photograph, "Tavern on the Green", signed and dated on the back. Millerton, NY: Aperture, 1984. Quarto (262 x 224mm), gilt-lettered brown cloth; matching slipcase. A fine copy. Rare.

Baltimore, MD: np, 1934. First edition. Framed. Very Good. IMPORTANT AND REVEALING LETTER BY F. SCOTT FITZGERALD ON HIS LITERARY INFLUENCES AND GROWTH AS A WRITER. It is rare that we get to read first hand about a writer's influences, especially during the formative years, but in answer to a letter from the scholar Egbert S. Oliver, Fitzgerald - with his characteristic wit - offers us details about his early literary education. The letter, partially quoted in Matthew Bruccoli's definitive biography, Some Sort of Epic Grandeur, reads in full: 1307 Park Avenue Baltimore, Maryland January 7, 1934 Mr. Egbert S. Oliver Willamette University Salem Oregon Dear Mr. Oliver: The first help I ever had in writing in my life was from my father who read an utterly imitative Sherlock Holmes story of mine and pretended to like it. But after that I received the most invaluable aid from Mr. C. N. B. Wheeler then headmaster of the St. Paul Academy now the St. Paul Country Day School in St. Paul, Minnesota. 2.… Read More

Croisset: np, 1847. First edition. Letter; custom case. Very Good. A LONG, EARLY, AUTOGRAPH LETTER BY FLAUBERT TO HIS MUSE LOUISE COLET, WITH REVEALING REFLECTIONS ON LIFE AND ART. On Louise Colet: "Louise Colet was truly Flaubert's muse and a midwife for his Emma Bovary. It is to her that the hermit of Croisset chronicled, in over a hundred letters, the progress of his first published novel: It is exclusively to Louise that he wrote his famous reflections about the craft of literature - prophetic passages that would become the most familiar credos of twentieth-century modernism... "Throughout the phase of their correspondence... Flaubert so often sought Louise's advice on details that her daughter and literary executor, Henriette Colet Bissieu, would later demand... that her mother's collaboration in Madame Bovary be officially acknowledged." (Francine du Plessix Gray, Rage & Fire: A Life of Louise Colet, Pioneer Feminist, Literary Star, Flaubert's Muse, pp. 199-201.) The letter: Flaubert wrote… Read More

London: The Royal Society, 1905. First edition. Original wrappers. Very Good. FIRST EDITION IN ORIGINAL WRAPPERS of one of the seminal discoveries of the twentieth-century: the invention of the "Fleming Valve", or vacuum tube, often cited as the beginning of the field of electronics. PMM 396. In 1884, Thomas Edison had demonstrated that "if a metal plate is sealed into an electric light bulb and joined to the positive end of the filament a considerable current will pass. If the plate is joined to the negative terminal, however, no current will pass. This was known as the 'Edison effect' and in 1890 Fleming, an electrical engineer who had worked with the Edison company in London and was now a Professor at University College, began a careful study of this phenomenon in carbon filament lamps. In 1904 he was able to demonstrate that this occurred not only with electric waves but also with wireless waves. He thus introduced the basic principle of the modern wireless valve, which permits only unilateral… Read More

Amsterdam: Contact, 1947. First Edition. Original boards, original dust jacket. Very Good/Very Good. RARE FIRST EDITION; AN OUTSTANDING COPY IN THE EXCEEDINGLY RARE FIRST ISSUE DUST JACKET. One of only 1500 copies printed of one of the central works of the twentieth century. Complete with three photographic plates, including the frontispiece portrait of Anne Frank. "The diary written by Anne Frank is probably the single most widely read book to come out of the Holocaust (Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl, 1952; first published as Het Achterhuis, 1947). Millions of readers have read the story of the teenage girl's two years in hiding. It has been translated into more than thirty-five languages and published in as many countries. Her diary was also the foundation for a successful drama performed worldwide (The Diary of Anne Frank, 1956) and a film of the same title (1959). Especially in the last twenty years, many schoolchildren and adults alike have had their first exposure to the effects of… Read More

Tokyo: Yugensha. 1st Edition. Hardcover. Fine. LIMITED FIRST EDITION, ONE OF ONLY 500 COPIES. A FINE COPY IN THE ORIGINAL SHIPPING BOX. Created "primarily as a memorial album to his daughter, Andrea, who was killed in an aeroplane crash ... the whole tenor of the book is forlorn... Never have flowers-that most uplifting of subjects-appeared so woebegone. Seldom has the manic activity of industrial manufacture seemed so pointless. And the Nova Scotia landscapes and still lifes-beautiful, bleak, elegiac-reveal an artist at the height of his powers but hardly at peace with the world or himself." Flower Is... constitutes "a major new statement in still photography... [and] can serve as an eminently fitting apotheosis for stream-of-consciousness photography" (The Photobook, I.264). Designed by Kohei Sugiura with Atsushi Sato. With introduction by Frank. Illustrated with 81 full-page photographs. (Tokyo): (Yugensha), (1987). Folio (343x250mm), original pictorial gray silk,… Read More

London: C. Davis, 1753. First edition. Contemporary calf. FIRST PRINTING OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN'S ACCOUNT HIS KITE EXPERIMENT, ONE OF THE MOST FAMOUS SCIENTIFIC EXPERIMENTS IN AMERICAN HISTORY. WITH AN EARLIER PAPER DISCUSSING HIS THEORIES OF THE NATURE OF LIGHTNING. "Franklin was the first American scientist to achieve an international reputation, with his work on electricity...The most dramatic result of Franklin's researches was the proof that lightning is really an electrical phenomenon. Others had made such a suggestion before him - even Newton himself - but it was he who provided the experimental proof. In 1752 he flew a kite in a thunderstorm and attached a key to its string. From this he collected electrical charges in a Leiden jar and showed that atmospheric and frictional or machine-made electricity are the same. He went on to propose the fixing of iron rods at the top of buildings, masts of ships, etc., from which he conducted the electric charges they collected from lightning into the wet… Read More

Washington, DC: Lunn Gallery/Graphics International Ltd, 1977. First edition. Orignial publisher's box. Very Good. A COLLECTION OF THE MOST CELEBRATED COLOUR PHOTOGRAPHS OF TWENTIETH-CENTURY ARTISTS. NUMBER 1 OF 6 COPIES RESERVED FOR ARTIST AND PUBLISHERS, OUT OF A TOTAL OF 36. The present portfolio of Freund's photographic portraits assembles the most celebrated of her innovative colour images. The portfolio is comprised of Freund's portraits of: 1. Colette (1873-1954) 2. Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) 3. André Gide (1869-1951) 4. James Joyce (1882-1941) 5. Andreinne Monnier (1892-1955) 6. Jean Cocteau (1889-1963) 7. Simone de Beauvoir (1908) 8. Jean-Paul Sartre (1905) 9. André Malraux (1901-1976) 10. Victoria Sackville-West (1892-1962) It is well documented both Woolf's and Joyce's aversions to sitting for photographs, and indeed "Freund was twice refused admission to Tavistock Square but eventually Woolf succumbed", being "acutely self-conscious and disliked sitting for pictures, never mind… Read More