‎Keith Richards ‎
‎Life‎

‎On the Construction of Life-Tables, illustrated by a New Life-Table of the Healthy Districts of England. Received March 17, - Read April 7, 1859.‎

‎(London, Taylor and Francis, 1859). 4to. No wrappers as extracted from ""Philosophical Transactions"" 1859 - Vol. 149 - Part II. With the titlepage to Part II. Pp. 837-878, 1 folded engraved plate, tables in the text. The plate slightly browned. It includes 1 typeset by the Scheutz calculator.Clean and fine.‎

‎First appearance of a pioneer paper in statistical calculations of life-expectations., containing THE VERY FIRST APPLICATION OF A DIFFERENCE ENGINE TO MEDICAL STATISTICS.""Farr's preliminary report (the paper offered), describing the use of the Scheutz Engine no. 3 to prepare life tables, was published 5 years before his ""English Life Table"". Farr, a pioneer in the quantitative study of morbidity and mortality, was chief statistician of the General Register Office, Englands central statistical office. Influenced by Babbage, he had long been interested in the use of a calculating machine, such as Babbage's Difference Engine to compute life tables"" see page 854 of the present report, in which Farr refers to his 1843 letter on the subject to the registrar-general. Farr had seen and tested the machine's predecessor, the Scheutz Engine No. 2, when it was on display in London. It was at Farr's recommandation that the British government authorized in 1857 the sum of Pound 1200 for the Scheutz Engine no. 3 to be constructed by the firm Bryan Donkin, a manufacturer of machines for the color printing of bank notes and stamps....Farr's printing report, received by the Royal Society on March 17 of that year, was written while Scheutz Engine no. 3 was still ""in the course of construction by Messr. Donkin"" (p. 854). The reports table B1, ""Life-Table of Healthy English Districts"", made from stereotype plates produced by the calculator, represents the very first application of a difference engine to medical studies.""(Hook and Norman, Origins of Cyperspace, No. 77.). - Garrison & Morton: 1700.1.‎

‎The True Story of My Life: A Sketch. Translated by Mary Howitt. - [THE FIRST SEPARATE EDITION OF THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF H.C.A.]‎

‎London, Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1847. Orig. red-brown full cloth. Boards and back blindtooled (Remnant & Edmonds, London). Capitals worn, especially upper capital, small nick to upper part of back. Inner hinges a bit weak. Internally nice and clean. W. half-title. VIII, 298 pp + Publisher's Catalogue (32 pp).‎

‎First English language edition, being the first separate edition, of Hans Christian Andersen's first official autobiography. The English edition preceded the Danish with 95 years (!), as the first Danish edition did not appear until 1942, when it was issued by H. Topsøe-Jensen under the title ""Mit eget Eventyr uden Digtning"" (i.e. ""My Own Fairy Tale Without Poetry""). The first German edition appeared as an introduction in the collected German edition of Andersen's works, also in 1847, under the title: ""Das Märchen meines Lebens ohne Dichtung."" The general idea that underlies the work is that life is like a fairy tale and that God makes curious things happen. ""This True Story of his Life will not be found the least interesting of his writings"" indeed, to me it seems one of the most so. It furnishes the key, as it were to all the rest [...]"" (Translator's preface). The autobiography is written in the same wonderful language and with the same straightforward mystique that characterizes H.C. Andersen's other writings, and the person H.C.A. cannot be said to be less interesting or intriguing than his fairy tales. ""My life is a lovely story, happy and full of incident. If, when I was a boy, and went forth into the world poor and friendless, a good fairy had met me and said, ""Choose now thy own course through life [...]"" (the initiating lines of Chapter one). H.C. Andresen wrote his autobiography while travelling in Europe. Numerous interruptions appeared, and Andersen sent the sheets of the manuscript off to the publisher as they were written, which meant that he did not have the earlier parts of the work with him when he wrote the latter. The work also much exceeded the length that he had intended. The manuscript was written in Danish and was translated into English and German the year after he had finished the final sheets (August 1846). For this work he only worked on one single manuscript, and made all of the numerous corrections directly in this, meaning that it was exceedingly difficult to read and that it could not be sent to a translator straight away. The publisher had been told to send the sheets of the manuscript directly to his friend and financial advisor, Edvard Collin, as they arrived, and Collin, realizing that no stranger would be able to read the manuscript, made a fair copy of the entire manuscript, correcting all of Andersen's linguistic and stylistic errors. In return he got to keep the manuscript, which is why it was still in existence almost 100 years later, when the first Danish edition of it was to be printed. Andersen borrowed his manuscript from Collin, when, some years later, he had to deliver a Danish autobiography for the edition of his collected works. He used it as the basis for ""Mit Livs Eventyr"" (The Fairy Tale of My Life""), which appeared in his collected works in 1854-55, but which is much different from the present and principal autobiography.‎

‎Fasti consolari dell'accademia Fiorentina [A Biographical History of the Florentine Academy]. - Containing Viviani's ""Racconto istorico della Vita di Galileo Galilei"" [Historical Account of the Life of Galileo Galilei]. - [THE FIRST AND MOST IMPORTANT BIOGRAPHY OF GALILEI]‎

‎Firenze, Nella Stamperia S.A.R. Per Gio: Gaetano, e Sant Franchi, 1717. 4to. Contemporary full vellum with handwritten title to spine. A bit of wear to capitals and a bit of minor soiling to boards, but a fine and handsome copy. Inner hinges a bit weak. Internally nice and clean, with just a bit of light minor occasional brownspotting. Large engraved pictorial vignette (heading: Accdemia Fiorentina) to title-page. Very nice woodcut vignettes and initials throughout. XXXI, (1), 676, (2, - Approvazioni) pp. [Viviani's Galilei-biography: pp. 397-431].‎

‎First edition of this extensive work of biographies of the people of the Florentine Academy. Among the dozens of biographies in the present work, we have the first printing of Viviani's seminal biography of Galilei, the first, and by far the most important biography of the great astronomer ever written. It is from this biography that we have most of the canonical stories and anecdotes about Galilei that keep being repeated and quoted - e.g. the legend of Galilei demonstrating to his students that Aristotle was wrong about speed of fall being related to the weight of an object by dropping balls of different mass off the leaning tower in Pisa"" the stories of how he came up with the idea of the pendulum after having watched a suspended lamp swing back and forth in the cathedral of Pisa when he was still a student there - and furthermore also how his first experiments with pendulums were carried out (by his son due to his own failing eyesight), etc., etc.Vincenzo Viviani (1622-1703) considered himself Galilei's last pupil and he spent most of his life reinstating the ideas of Galilei. He was merely 20 years old when his master died, and he was present at the bedside of the dying master as well as at the removal of his body. Thus, he was a direct witness to many of the events that took place in Galilei's life, and as such he is an indispensible biographer - especially seeing that no other person had attempted a biograhy of the great astronomer. After Galielei's death, Viviani was granted a pension by the King of France, in exchange for him writing a great, massive biography of his master. This planned massive work never came about, though, - probably due to both fear of retaliation, inabilty to reconcile geometry with the dogmas of faith, and finally a general fear of what such a biography could carry with it politically, etc. (he had apparantly also been warned of this). What we have left of the massive work is that which is present in Salvini's collection of biographies of the Florentine Academy. The work is written in the form of a letter addressed to Prince Leopoldo de'Medici, and it was not printed during Viviani's lifetime, but only in 1717, in the present book. Though not as extensive as had originally been planned, and though not printed as soon as originally planned, the work is still of the greatest importance to our knowledge about Galilei and forms the foundation for all later works on the astronomer. For the student of Galilei, it is absolutely indispensible. Being the first biography of Galilei, and the only one written by a contemporary, and one who knew him very well, the work plays a greater role in the study of the master's life than any other work.Viviani may not have been a faithful chronicler or a clear interpreter, but we will have to make do with that which he can tell us about Galilei. Though not all stories may be true, almost all of the most famous anecdotes and legends that we have about Galilei stem from the present work. After having described the various marvels, discoveries, etc. of Galilei's life, Viviani ends by describing the last hours of Galilei's life: ""il Mercoledì delli 8. de Gennaio del 1641. ab Inc. a ore 4. di notte in età di settantasette anni, mesi dieci, e giorni vent, con Filosofica, e Christiana constanza, rese l'Anima al suo Creatore, inviandosi questa a godere, e rimarar più d'apresso quelle eterne maraviglie, ch'ella con tanta avidità, & impazienza aveva procurator per mezzo di fragil artifizio d'avvicinare agli occhi di noi mortali."" (p. 423) [""On the night of Jan. 8, 1641, at about 4 o'clock at night at the age of 77 years, 10 months, and 20 days, with philosophical and Christian firmness he rendered up his soul to its Creator, sending it, as he liked to believe, to enjoy and to watch from a closer vantage point those eternal and immutable marvels which he, by means of a fragile device, had brought closer to our mortal eyes with such eagerness and impatience.""] - clearly showing the sense that Viviani had for Galilei's biblically inspired faith.The work furthermore contains several hitherto unpublished treatises on men from the famous scientific academy of Florence.‎

‎Life (December 9, 1946) Tenth Anniversary Issue, 1936-1946‎

‎Life Revue 1946 In-4 (26,5 x 35,5 cm), dos agrafé, 72 pages, texte en anglais, numéro du 9 décembre 1946 de la revue Life, édition internationale ; dos et bords des plats usés, plats défraîchis, état moyen. Livraison a domicile (La Poste) ou en Mondial Relay sur simple demande.‎

‎Memoires de la Vie du Lord Lovat. Relation De La Conduite Du Feu Comte De Kilmarnock Apres Sa Sentence Prononce. - [THE LIFE OF LORD LOVAT - THE LAST PERSON TO BE BEHEADED IN BRITAIN]‎

‎Amsterdam, De La Compagnie, 1747. 8vo. Bound in a nice contemporary Cambridge-style mirror binding with four raised bands and richly gilt spine. Gilt super ex-libris to front board. Wear and scratches to boards, primarily affecting front board. Internally nice and clean. (4), 363 pp.‎

‎Beautiful copy of this interesting work on the dramatic life of the 11th Lord Lovat. Although often referred to as the first appearance of this work it is in fact the first French translation of Lord Grange’s, Lord Lovat’s legal adviser, ‘Memoires of the Life of Simon Fraser Lord Lovat’ from 1746. Dr. Hill Burton notes that this is “the least inaccurate” biographical contemporary account of Lord Lovat which has ever appeared. The 11th Lord Lovat (1667 –1747), also known as Simon Fraser, was famous for his involvement in the Jacobite uprisings in Scotland during the 18th century and for being the last man in Britain to be beheaded. Lord Lovat is perhaps most famously known for his support of the Jacobite cause during the Jacobite Rising of 1745. He initially pledged allegiance to the British government but later switched sides to support the claim of Charles Edward Stuart, also known as Bonnie Prince Charlie, to the British throne. Lovat's decision to join the Jacobites was motivated by a combination of personal ambition and political calculation. Lovat's support for the Jacobites culminated in his participation in the Battle of Culloden in 1746 where the Jacobite forces were decisively defeated by the British government army. After the battle, Lovat attempted to evade capture but was eventually apprehended. He was tried for treason and subsequently executed in 1747.‎