Science - Hooke ([Robert], Fellow of the Royal Society), Mic...

Hammer

£2,300

Science - Hooke ([Robert], Fellow of the Royal Society), Micrographia: or some Physiological Descriptions of Minute Bodies Made by Magnifying Glasses/With Observations and Inquiries thereupon, first edition, second issue, the first edition sheets re-issued with a new title and its conjugate (containing the Royal Society's order for the book to be printed), London: Printed for John Martyn, Printer to the Royal Society, 1667, a respectable but defective and disbound copy, textually complete but for the lacking imprimatur leaf and the incomplete tables, title-page printed in black and with the engraved Royal Society coat of arms, woodcut initials and headpieces, pp: [xl], 246, illustrated with 22 engraved plates only (of 38, the iconic Plate XXXIV of a flea also lacking), most double-page or folding, generally a well-margined copy with some chips (mostly prelims), title-page toned and scuffed, the margins with occasional thumbed soiling, top fore corner with gradually fading small stain until [N 4], some brown spots here and there, the plates conforming - and with one or two old repairs in places, late 19th century brown morocco over marbled papered boards only, conforming marbled endpapers, perished fragmentary spine, [Wing H2621; Keynes 7b] folio, [1]

"[T]he most ingenious book that I ever red in my life", according to the diarist Samuel Pepys. Hooke's most famous work, the first full record of microscopic observations made with Hooke's compound microscope, some of the plates likely engraved by Sir Christopher Wren.

The first issue of the first edition was published in 1665 by John Martyn and James Allestry for the Royal Society. The Great Fire of 1666 destroyed Allestry's premises and this second issue was published either with the names Martyn and Allestry or with Martyn's name alone. Although the text sheets are those of the 1665 first edition, the plates in this copy were evidently reprinted.