SIMMS, Frederick M.B. Lond.
3 leaves [title page, dedication, contents; LACKING HALF-TITLE LEAF], [ix]-xi, 151 pp; two sepia photographs mounted on thicker paper (to be found opposite the title page and p. [ix]); LACKING ERRATA SLIP to be found at p. 1. Full brown leather, with five raised bands on the spine, probably a presentation binding (the book was published in a red cloth). All edges gilt. Leather of spine scuffed. Foxed. Very Good. First Edition. INSCRIBED ON FRONT FLYLEAF: "This volume was given/ to his wife by the author a. d. 1866" (see photo). This Frederick Simms, a physician, should not be confused with the engineers Frederick Walker Simms or Frederick Richard Simms. Frederick Simms was admitted to the Royal College of Physicians of London on April 15, 1867. His address at the time was 46, Wimpole Street, London. I have seen it stated that Simms was a member of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, but I cannot confirm that, and believe it is mistaken. In the November 24, 1866, issue of The British Medical Journal, p. 578, there was a brief review of Simms's book: "The author has put together, for the benefit of English medical men visiting Paris, the notes which he made in the medical institutions of that city during his stay there. He describes: the Department of Public Assistance inasmuch as it relates to the Hospitals of Paris; the General Hospitals; and the Special Hospitals of Paris; the School of Medicine, and Method of Medical Education; and the Sanitary Arrangements of Paris. The book will be found an useful and agreeable guide to our medical friends who are for the first time visiting the French metropolis." Simms died in 1891 at age 56 of apoplexy. OCLC locates copies in these US libraries: Boston Athenaeum, California Irvine, Harvard (Countway), National Library of Medicine, Texas (Harry Ransom, Photography Collection), Wisconsin (I have not included OCLC listings that I cannot confirm). NOTE ABOUT PHOTOS: I can supply more photos, upon request (ABEBooks allows only 5 photos per item).
MARSALIS, Wynton
1 leaf for each letter, but one sheet (Iacova) is 5" x 7" while the other (Stanhope) is 8 1/2" x 11". Very Good. Each letter has the same letterhead and the same text. Letterhead: 4200 Argyle Terrace, N.W./ Washington D.C. 20011. Text: Thank you for supporting our music. My apologies for any delay in/ responding to your letter, but my schedule is very demanding and I/ am very lazy!/ Yours truly,/ Wynton Marsalis [signed]/ Wynton Marsalis. The two recipients were Angelo Di Iacova, 2004 N. 73rd Court, Elmwood Park, Ill 60635; and William W. Stanhope, 7500 Dellwood Road N.E., Albeqerque [sic], New Mexico 87110.
BENTWICH, Margery [YELLIN, Thelma]
Frontispiece, 131 pp; illustrations Original cloth. Very Good. First Edition. The illustrations include Thelma Yellin (frontispiece), Pablo Casals, Hauser string quartet, Fenyves string quartet. The author Margery Bentwich was the sister of Thelma Yellin. Quoting from the online Jewish Virtual Library: "YELLIN-BENTWICH, THELMA (1895 1959), Israeli cellist and pedagogue, a leading personality in the creation and shaping of musical life in Israel. She was born in England as the ninth child of the aristocratic Bentwich family, all the members of which received professional instrumental training. She studied at the Royal College of Music in London, and was accepted by Pablo Casals as a private pupil. In 1915 she founded in London the all-women trio with Myra Hess [piano] and Jelly d'Aranyi [violin]. Yet the tensions of the life of a traveling professional soloist did not suit her nature. In 1919 she joined her brother and two sisters who had already settled in Jerusalem and married Eliezer Yellin, the son of David Yellin. In 1921 she founded the Jerusalem Music Society which pioneered high quality weekly concerts of chamber music in Jerusalem to a cosmopolitan audience of Jews, Arabs, British, German, and members of other nationalities. The backbone of these concerts was the Jerusalem String Quartet, the first in the country, with her sister, violinist Margery Bentwich. In 1951 she joined the Israeli String Quartet with Lorand and Alice Fenyves (violins) and Oeden Partos (viola). She also appeared with the Philharmonic and radio orchestras and taught cello and chamber music at the academies of music in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem as one of the most admired cello pedagogues in the country. Her plans for a 'music gymnasium' for talented children came to fruition in 1962 in Tel Aviv when the Thelma Yellin Gymnasium was opened."
PAULING, Linus
vi, 595 pp; text figures. Original cloth. Spine sunned and spotted. Corners of covers bumped. Copy of MIT geologist Robert R. Shrock, with his signature, dated March 10, 1948, on the leaf before the title page. Good. First Edition, First Printing. The first printing has the date 1947 printed on the title page and the collation is vi, 595 pp (the 1948 and other later printings are xi, 618 pp). I like to quote what Francis Crick wrote of Pauling's book: "In 1946 I was sitting in an office in London, in the British Admiralty, trying to decide what to do and wondering whether I should go into what we now call Molecular Biology. I had not had much organic chemistry in school; I remembered there were hydrocarbons and various things like that, but I did not know what an amino acid was. My knowledge was at a very elementary level. Across my desk came an article, or rather I think the account of an article, in Chemical and Engineering News, which said that hydrogen bonds were very important in biology. Well, I did not know two things: I did not know what a hydrogen bond was, and I had never heard of the author who had a rather peculiar name; it was Linus Pauling. That was the first occasion I came across his name. Of course, I asked around, and I heard that a lot of other people, not just ignorant physicists like myself, knew a lot about him. . . . Not long after that, I bought a textbook, Linus Pauling's General Chemistry [the book offered here], and this was an eye-opener to me, because while I had done some chemistry at high school, I had not done any at university. High school chemistry in those days was taught really as a subject where you had to memorize a lot of odd things that happened. I exaggerate a little, but do remember it was high school; no doubt, if I had gone on further it would have fallen into place more. But when I read Linus's book, I was very impressed by the systematic way everything was organized. I do not think I ever did learn much of the inorganic chemistry, by the way, but I learned all about the strong bonds, and the weak bonds, including the hydrogen bond, of course. And that really is almost all, I would say, the organic chemistry I know today. By now I have forgotten most of it as well, but what I knew then, I think I got from that book" (Crick, "The Impact of Linus Pauling on Molecular Biology" in The Pauling Symposium. A Discourse on the Art of Biography, pp. 3-4). See also Francis Crick, "The Impact of Linus Pauling on Molecular Biology: a Reminiscence" in Zewail (ed.), The Chemical Bond, p. 87.
METCHNIKOFF, Elie [MECHNIKOV, Ilya] [NADAR, Paul]
Very Good. Metchnikoff signed his name in Cyrillic in the margin beneath his photo. "P. Nadar" is printed at the top of the card. "Nadar Paris" is printed at the bottom of the card. The two addresses of Nadar are printed on the verso: 51 Rue d'Anjou, 53 Rue de Mathurins. Printed at the top of the verso is "1900 Exposition". This was the world's fair in Paris, "Exposition Universelle". The photograph is not dated, but because of the reference to the Exposition, it cannot be earlier than 1900. Comparing the image to dated photographs of Metchnikoff, he looks in his 50s, making the date of the photograph ca. 1900. P. Nadar is Paul Nadar (1856-1939), son of Nadar, the pseudonym of Gaspard-Félix Tournachon (1820-1910), the celebrated portrait photographer in France from 1854-1895. Elie Metchnikoff shared the Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology in 1908 with Paul Ehrlich "in recognition of their work on immunity."
