AUSTEN Jane
Novels and Letters
1923
- $8,500
AUSTEN, Jane. The Novels and Letters. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1923. Seven volumes. Octavo, modern three-quarter navy morocco gilt, raised bands, top edges gilt, uncut. $8500.Lovely large-paper limited edition of Austen's novels and letters, one of only 1,000 sets produced, illustrated with over forty plates, with frontispieces in color, very attractively bound.Includes Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, Northanger Abbey, Persuasion, Mansfield Park, Emma and two volumes of her letters. This text of this edition is based on the collation of the early editions by R. W. Chapman. The Clarendon editions were the first to use "contemporary illustrations": "An undated memorandum in the Press's files states 'The publishers are bitterly opposed to any imaginative illustrations, and would cheerfully have no illustrations at all. But they would be in favour of a few objective illustrations" (Gilson E150). Fine condition.
More from Bauman Rare Books
Haggadah for Passover
HAGGADAH SHAHN Ben SHAHN, Ben. Haggadah for Passover. Paris: Trianon Press, (1966). Large folio (13 by 17 inches), unsewn as issued, original glassine wrappers, original clasped parchment box. $6500.Beautiful large limited folio Passover Haggadah, number 175 of only 228 copies (out of a total edition of 292) on Arches Vergé paper, illustrated by Ben Shahn with 21 color pictorial borders and line drawings and an additional beautiful double-page color lithograph also signed by him.Lithuanian-born graphic artist Ben Shahn executed many of the illustrations for this Haggadah around 1930, while working on a pictorial representation of the Dreyfus case and conceiving his celebrated series of paintings of the Sacco and Vanzetti trial. Like those for his secular works, Shahn's Haggadah illustrations highlight the struggle against oppression, a theme central to the story of Passover. In 1965 Shahn reproduced these Passover drawings, which had already been acquired by the Jewish Museum, incorporating them into this extraordinary Haggadah. Shahn's year-long visit to Djerba, off the Tunisian coast, and his masterful calligraphy lend this Haggadah an oriental feel. Text in Hebrew and English. Only very mild discoloration to original box. A beautiful production in fine condition.- $6,500
- $6,500
Modular Elliptic Curves and Fermat’s Last Theorem
TAYLOR Richard WILES Andrew "WILES, Andrew. Modular Elliptic Curves and Fermat's Last Theorem. WITH: WILES, Andrew and TAYLOR, Richard. Ring-Theoretic Properties of Certain Hecke Algebras. IN: Annals of Mathematics, Second Series, Vol. 141, No. 3, pp. 443-572. (Princeton: Princeton University Press), 1995. Octavo, original printed paper wrappers. Housed in a custom three-quarter morocco clamshell box. $8800.First edition, in the journal Annals of Mathematics where it originally appeared, of Wiles' famous proof of Fermat's Last Theorem, which had confounded mathematicians for centuries.In a marginal note in the section of his copy of Diophantus' Arithmetica (1621) dealing with Pythagorean triples (positive whole numbers x, y, z satisfying x^2 + y^2 = z^2 of which an infinite number exist), Fermat stated that the equation x^n + y^n = z^n, where n is any whole number greater than 2, has no solution in which x, y, z are positive whole numbers. Tantalizingly, Fermat wrote that he had found a wonderful proof but the margin of the book was too small to contain it. For 350 years, no mathematician succeeded in finding a proofthough many tried. Soon after the Second World War computers helped to prove the theorem for all values of n up to 500, then 1000, and then 10,000. In the 1980's Samuel S. Wagstaff of the University of Illinois raised the limit to 25,000 and more recently mathematicians could claim that Fermat's Last Theorem was true for all values of n up to 4,000,000. But no general proof was found until Andrew Wiles announced his proof, using the most advanced tools of modern mathematics, at a 1993 conference at the Isaac Newton Institute in Cambridge, England. (His former student Richard Taylor then helped him fix a flaw discovered in his original proof; both papers are present in this single journal issue.)Not wanting to be distractedor beaten to the punchWiles worked on his proof in secrecy for seven years. "To prove that something is true for an infinite number of cases required Wiles to pull together some of the most recent breakthroughs in number theory, and in addition invent new techniques of his own At each stage Wiles could never be sure that he could complete his proof. He realized that even if he did have the correct strategy, the mathematical techniques required might not yet existhe might be on the right track, but living in the wrong century. Eventually, in 1993, Wiles felt confident that his proof was reaching completion. The opportunity arose to announce his proof of a major section of the Shimura-Taniyama conjecture, and hence Fermat's Last Theorem, at a special conference to be held at the Isaac Newton Institute in Cambridge, England. Because this was his home town, where he had encountered the Last Theorem as a child, he decided to make a concerted effort to complete the proof in time for the conference. On June 23rd he announced his seven-year calculation to a stunned audience. His secret research program had apparently been a success, and the mathematical community and the world's press rejoiced. The front page of the New York Times exclaimed 'At Last, Shout of "Eureka!" in Age-Old Math Mystery,' and Wiles appeared on television stations around the world" (Simon Singh, Fermat's Enigma).When peer review revealed a fatal flaw in Wiles' initial proof, he demanded the opportunity to correct the problem himself. After months of frustration, he took his former student Richard Taylor into his confidence. Returning to an approach Wiles had discarded early in his process, Wiles and Taylor discovered the solution, and his proof was indeed confirmed by the mathematical community shortly thereafter. "I haven't let go of this problem for nearly seven years," Wiles told the New York Times in 1993. "I've almost forgotten the experience of getting up and thinking about something else For many of us, [Fermat's] problem drew us in and we always considered it something you dream about but never actually do There is a sense of loss, actually." Fine condition, handsomely boxed."- $8,800
- $8,800
Autograph postcard signed
WHITMAN Walt WHITMAN, Walt. Autograph postcard signed. Camden, 1890. Autograph postcard measures 3 by 5 inches. $5500.Original autograph postcard from Whitman to his publisher in Philadelphia David McKay confirming receipt of royalties "on sales of my book."The postcard, written entirely in Whitman's hand, is addressed to "David McKay publisher, 9th st: opp: PO Philadelphia" and reads: "Camden New Jersey. Oct: 9 1890. Received from David McKay Forty Four Dollars & Eighty Cents ($44.80) for royalty due on sales of my book. Walt Whitman." McKay was an ambitious young publisher when in 1881 the Boston District Attorney informed James R. Osgood, Whitman's Boston publisher, that they would be liable for prosecution for obscenity unless certain passages of Leaves of Grass were removed. Whitman refused, taking his book instead to McKay. "He was able to find a more or less permanent home with an enterprising young publisher in Philadelphia, David McKay" (Kaplan, 20). Whitman's handwriting and signature bold and clear.- $5,500
- $5,500
