Search Results: Authors starting with M from 19th Century Rare Book and Photograph Shop

Two volumes. 6 engraved plates. Contemporary calf, lacking labels, joints restored. A very good copy.
FIRST EDITION IN ENGLISH of Macquer's Elémens de chymie-theorique (1749) and Elémens de chymie-pratique
(1751), translated by Andrew Reid from the 1756 editions. The theoretical section lays out the principles of chemistry, and the practical section presents a course of chemistry including engravings of apparatus.
Macquer was one of the leading chemists of his day, and his works were fundamental texts in the field. He made notable contributions in the application of chemistry to industry.
"Macquer wrote his Elements for people with no previous chemical knowledge. He began with an account of the four elements, air, water, earth, and fire (of which phlogiston was a modification), briefly discussed affinity, and the considered compound substances in order of their increasing complexity, mineral, vegetable, and animal. He was careful not to mention any substance before acquainting the reader… Read More

FIRST EDITION. Inscribed to René Magritte: "A René Magritte, ces textes mal informés en 1944, écrit en hâte, mais prophétiques. E. L. T. Mesens." This scarce English Surrealist tract attacks the so-called resistance poetry of Paul Eluard and Aragon as "conformist."
Mesens was Magritte's longtime friend and promoter. An artist and dealer, he was instrumental in promoting Surrealism in Belgium and then in England, where he introduced the Magritte's work. He organized the first surrealist exhibition in Belgium (1934) and the International Surrealist Exhibition (1936). Later he presented the first major Magritte retrospective (Brussels, 1954).

4pp. Separated at horizontal fold, edgewear.

48 pp. Illustrated by Mesens. Original wrappers and dust jacket. Fine.
FIRST EDITION. Copy number 18 of 500 signed and numbered by Mesens. Inscribed to René Magritte and his wife: "A Georgette Magritte A René Magritte, l'exemplaire réservé pour lui, sa Femme, Noukels et Barfoot, depuis 1944. E. M."
Mesens was Magritte's longtime friend and promoter. A poet, artist and dealer, he was instrumental in promoting Surrealism in Belgium and then in England, where he introduced the Magritte's work. He organized the first surrealist exhibition in Belgium (1934) and the International Surrealist Exhibition (1936). Later he presented the first major Magritte retrospective (Brussels, 1954).

Original black cloth, black dust jacket. Owner's inscription dated 1948 on front endpaper. Rear endpaper browned. Fine, in a superbly preserved dust jacket.

First edition of Norman Mailer's landmark first novel. This is the first printing, with the Rinehart colophon on copyright page, and in the first issue dust jacket without reviews on rear flap.
The Naked and the Dead has been called "the best war novel to emerge from the United States" (Anthony Burgess). Norman Mailer, who "loomed over American letters longer and larger than any writer of his generation … burst on the scene in 1948 with The Naked and the Dead" (New York Times). The book remained on the Times best seller list for more than a year.
Mailer's electrifying debut conveys, "with great accuracy and power, the agony of the American troops in the Pacific campaign. … It remains Mailer's best" (Burgess).
This is a splendid copy in the famously fragile dust jacket.
Modern Library 100 Best Novels 51. Burgess, Anthony. Ninety-Nine Novels:… Read More

One page. Stockholm Grand Hotel stationery. Fine.
In this outstanding financial manuscript, Merton writes the celebrated Black-Scholes (or Black-Scholes-Merton) formula for derivatives pricing, the basis for many of the great fortunes in finance.
Merton's collaborator Myron Scholes characterized the formula as "an equation that prices options on common stock and provides a methodology to value options on securities generally. It can be used to measure risk and transfer risk."
Merton and Scholes shared the 1997 Nobel Prize in Economics "for a new method to determine the value of derivatives" (Black was not eligible, having died in 1995). "Such rapid and widespread application of a theoretical result was new to economics," the prize committee wrote. "Nowadays, thousands of traders and investors use the formula every day," allowing businesses and individuals to hedge risks in an unprecedented way. Merton wrote this manuscript while he was in Stockholm for the Nobel Prize ceremony.
The insights of this… Read More

Hollywood icon Marilyn Monroe at the beginning of her career. Signed by the photographer in silver ink.
Ed Clark was a top photographer for Life magazine in the 1940s, 50s, and 60s. In 1950 he received a call from a friend at 20th Century Fox wondering if he wanted to photograph "a hot tomato," the little-known 24 year-old actress Marilyn Monroe. Her film career had just begun to gain momentum: three months earlier, Monroe had appeared as a crooked lawyer's girlfriend in The Asphalt Jungle. Two months later, she had a small role as an aspiring starlet in All About Eve.
In a 1999 interview, Clark recalled, "She was almost unknown then, so I was able to spend a lot of time shooting her." "We'd go out to Griffith Park [in Los Angeles] and she'd read poetry. I sent several rolls to LIFE in New York, but they wired back, 'Who the hell is Marilyn Monroe?'"

One page. Engraved stationery of J. P. Morgan & Co., New York. Fine condition. Archivally framed with a portrait of Morgan. In this letter on J. P. Morgan & Co. letterhead, Morgan writes to his friend financier Levi P. Morton, the governor of New York, "I enclose a bill in which I am greatly interested. Can you let me know through your Secretary or by wire its present condition and prospects. With much love, Yours always J. Pierpont Morgan." J. Pierpont Morgan dominated American finance and business for years, overseeing the formation of General Electric and United States Steel, among many others. Levi P. Morton, whose "banking activities [were] generally regarded as second only to J. P. Morgan" (ANB), was one of the wealthiest men in America. After his term as governor of New York, he formed the Morton Trust Company, which became part of Morgan Guaranty Trust in 1910. Drexel, Morgan & Co. was renamed J. P. Morgan & Co. in 1895, the year Morgan wrote this letter. The month before writing this letter… Read More

4to. 18 fine original watercolors on heavy card. Original embossed black morocco gilt. Rubbed, extremities worn, minimal dampstaining. Very good condition, with the color fresh and vibrant and the plates clean.
FIRST EDITION, a unique pre-publication proof copy with 18 fine watercolors, the original art used as the basis for the lithographs in the published edition of Flowers from My Garden.
Laura Gordon Munson (1825-1900) was a Connecticut artist. Lydia H. Sigourney, the "Sweet Singer of Hartford," contributed the introductory poem. Munson's frontispiece is a large basket of flowers that includes many of those illustrated separately, viz., crocus, pansies, forget-me-not, lily of the valley, rose campion, rose, fairy bell, day lily, thunbergia, heliotrope, cypress vine, morning glory, jessamine, verbenas, blue fringed gentian, and autumn leaves. Each of the eighteen watercolors is accompanied by a poem on a separate text leaf. Poets include Hooper, May, Hunt, Longfellow, Hale, and… Read More