{"product_id":"boyle-robert-the-works-of-the-honourable-robert-boyle-in-six-volumes-london-j-and-f-rivington-and-others-1772-second-unabridged-collected-edition-the-first-in-quarto-dunse-library-provenance","title":"BOYLE, Robert. The Works of the Honourable Robert Boyle. In Six Volumes. London: J. and F. Rivington and others, 1772 — Second Unabridged Collected Edition, the First in Quarto; Dunse Library Provenance","description":"\u003cdiv style=\"max-width: 720px; margin: 0 auto; padding: 28px 18px; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; color: #111; line-height: 1.58;\"\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"margin-bottom: 28px; padding-bottom: 16px; border-bottom: 1px solid #d8d0c3;\"\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"font-size: 24px; line-height: 1.25; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: .1px;\"\u003eBOYLE, Robert (1627–1691)\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"font-size: 18px; line-height: 1.45; margin-top: 4px; color: #333;\"\u003e\n\u003cem\u003eThe Works of the Honourable Robert Boyle. In Six Volumes. To which is prefixed The Life of the Author. A New Edition.\u003c\/em\u003e London: Printed for J. and F. Rivington and others, 1772.\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"font-size: 17px; margin-top: 0;\"\u003e\u003cb\u003eSecond unabridged collected edition in English and the first unabridged collected edition in quarto.\u003c\/b\u003e Edited by Thomas Birch, whose extensive \u003cem\u003eLife of the Honourable Robert Boyle\u003c\/em\u003e occupies the opening 218 pages of volume I. The 1772 edition follows the first unabridged collected edition of 1744, issued in folio; it should not be confused with Peter Shaw’s abridged three-volume collection of 1738.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"font-size: 17px;\"\u003eSix volumes, quarto (approximately 292 × 229 mm). Engraved portrait frontispiece and sixteen engraved plate leaves, some folding, carrying twenty-four subjects. Plates engraved by J. Mynde; title-page vignettes and other illustrations engraved by Hubert-François Gravelot. Uniform old full calf, raised bands and black morocco lettering-pieces.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"font-size: 17px;\"\u003eCollation: I: [2], ccxxxviii, 799, [1] pages; II: [2], 800 pages; III: [2], 803, [1] pages; IV: [2], 424, 445–644, 745–821, [1] pages; V: [2], 750 pages; VI: [2], 796, [130] pages. The discontinuities in the pagination of volume IV are recorded features of the edition, not evidence of missing text. The set is complete as issued, including its text and illustrations.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"font-size: 17px;\"\u003eThe six volumes gather the works through which Boyle helped define experimental natural philosophy: writings on the spring and weight of the air, the vacuum and pneumatic experiments; \u003cem\u003eThe Sceptical Chymist\u003c\/em\u003e; studies of colour, cold, combustion, respiration, medicine and natural history; and the theological works through which he joined the investigation of nature to religious belief. A general table of contents appears in volume I and a substantial general index concludes volume VI.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"font-size: 17px;\"\u003eBoyle’s importance lies not only in the pressure–volume relationship that bears his name, but in the methods by which experimental knowledge was made credible. His carefully narrated experiments allowed readers who had not witnessed an event to follow its apparatus, circumstances and outcome—a form of “virtual witnessing” that made the printed book itself part of the new experimental culture. In this respect, the collected \u003cem\u003eWorks\u003c\/em\u003e are not merely a retrospective monument: they preserve the literary and visual technology through which Boyle’s experimental facts circulated.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"font-size: 17px;\"\u003eModern scholarship has also replaced the simple textbook image of Boyle as the isolated “father of modern chemistry.” His investigations belonged simultaneously to natural philosophy, medicine, alchemy and theology. The collection therefore records not the sudden disappearance of older traditions, but their transformation within the experimental practices of the Scientific Revolution.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"font-size: 12px; letter-spacing: 1.8px; text-transform: uppercase; margin-top: 30px; margin-bottom: 8px; color: #555;\"\u003eProvenance\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"font-size: 17px;\"\u003eDunse Library, with its bookplates in each volume — the subscription library of Dunse (present-day Duns, Berwickshire), founded by subscribers in 1768, whose \u003cem\u003eRecord of the Laws, Regulations, and Proceedings of the Subscribers for a Public Library at Dunse, 1768–1850\u003c\/em\u003e survives in the Scottish Borders Archive (DL\/3\/1). At the foundation, the library’s patron Alexander Hay of Drummelzier — once a student of the philosopher Andrew Baxter — recorded his pleasure “to think that Dunse is in a way of becoming a seat of literature, arts and sciences” (proceedings, 7 December 1768). The institution issued printed catalogues in 1780 and 1793, the latter from the press of James Brown, first printer at Duns; its proprietors appear as “frequent customers” in the ledgers of the Edinburgh booksellers Bell \u0026amp; Bradfute; and the letters of Dr J. Hall of the Dunse Library survive with the library’s orders and accounts, one of 2 May 1787 requesting the newest books of the day, among them the second edition of Burns’s \u003cem\u003ePoems\u003c\/em\u003e. The present set entered the collection after the 1780 catalogue was printed — Boyle’s collected \u003cem\u003eWorks\u003c\/em\u003e among the literature, arts and sciences of a proprietary library that bought its books from the heart of the Edinburgh trade.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"font-size: 12px; letter-spacing: 1.8px; text-transform: uppercase; margin-top: 30px; margin-bottom: 8px; color: #555;\"\u003eCondition\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"font-size: 17px;\"\u003eVery good. Complete as issued, including all text, the portrait and the engraved plates. Some light spotting, minor soiling and toning; the portrait frontispiece very lightly spotted. Uniform old full calf, the precise date of the bindings not established; hinges reinforced, leather rubbed, with wear and small losses at the spine ends, corners and board edges. An imposing, complete set in honestly preserved bindings of considerable age, with the reinforcement and wear fully disclosed.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"font-size: 12px; letter-spacing: 1.8px; text-transform: uppercase; margin-top: 30px; margin-bottom: 8px; color: #555;\"\u003eLiterature\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"font-size: 17px;\"\u003eFulton, \u003cem\u003eA Bibliography of the Honourable Robert Boyle\u003c\/em\u003e, second edition (1961), no. 241; ESTC T113550; Blake, p. 62; \u003cem\u003eWellcome Catalogue\u003c\/em\u003e II, p. 225; Hunter \u0026amp; Davis, eds., \u003cem\u003eThe Works of Robert Boyle\u003c\/em\u003e (1999–2000); Hunter, \u003cem\u003eBoyle: Between God and Science\u003c\/em\u003e (2009); Shapin \u0026amp; Schaffer, \u003cem\u003eLeviathan and the Air-Pump\u003c\/em\u003e (1985); Principe, \u003cem\u003eThe Aspiring Adept: Robert Boyle and His Alchemical Quest\u003c\/em\u003e (1998); Brown \u0026amp; McDougall, eds., \u003cem\u003eThe Edinburgh History of the Book in Scotland\u003c\/em\u003e, II: \u003cem\u003eEnlightenment and Expansion 1707–1800\u003c\/em\u003e (Edinburgh, 2012); Towsey, \u003cem\u003eReading the Scottish Enlightenment\u003c\/em\u003e (doctoral thesis, University of St Andrews); Duns Proceedings, Scottish Borders Archive, DL\/3\/1.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"font-size: 17px; font-style: italic; margin-top: 22px;\"\u003eBoyle’s experimental world in six volumes—the first unabridged quarto edition, complete with its engraved apparatus, from the library through which Dunse hoped to become “a seat of literature, arts and sciences.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"font-size: 12px; letter-spacing: 1.8px; text-transform: uppercase; margin-top: 26px; margin-bottom: 0; color: #555;\"\u003eAtelier Zweig · L398\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Atelier Zweig","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47166209458364,"sku":"L398","price":2250.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0736\/1285\/3436\/files\/01_set_hero.jpg?v=1784799343","url":"https:\/\/atelierzweig.com\/products\/boyle-robert-the-works-of-the-honourable-robert-boyle-in-six-volumes-london-j-and-f-rivington-and-others-1772-second-unabridged-collected-edition-the-first-in-quarto-dunse-library-provenance","provider":"Atelier Zweig Rare Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}