MACQUER, Pierre-Joseph (1718--1784)

Dictionnaire de chimie ... seconde édition, revue et considérablement augmentée

Paris: de l'Imprimerie de Monsieur [printed by P. F. Didot], 1778.
2 volumes 4to, a2 b--d4 e2 f--g4 h2 A--4R4 (cancels I4, 2P1,2, 2Z3, 3A2, 3G4), 370 leaves, pp. lii 687 [1] (last page blank); [pi]2 A--5P4, 430 leaves, pp. [4] 856. Engraved device on titles, woodcut headpiece on vol. I p. 13 and an engraved headpieces on p. 1 of each volume, the first unsigned, the second 'Cochin filius'. Leaf size and condition: 258 x 201mm. Binding: Contemporary marbled calf, triple gilt filet borders to sides, gilt spines, marbled endleaves, marbled edges. Small worm holes to tails of spines, corners worn. Provenance and annotation: Small armorial bookplate, unidentified; W. A. Smeaton (1925--2001). References: Neville and Smeaton 9; Neville II, p. 114; Cole 871.
Second, corrected setting of the revised and augmented text, dated 1778 but in fact not completed until 1781 (first edition, 2 vols 8vo, 1766 with numerous reprints; revised edition, first setting, 4 vols 8vo, 1778 [--1780]).
§ When it was first published in 1766 this was the first modern dictionary of chemistry and is regarded as one of the classics of chemical literature, This is a very good and attractive copy of the deluxe library edition, a finely printed quarto, of the fully revised version, also published as a four volume octavo edition. For the revision Macquer made use of information given in the German and English translations and added much new information of his own. Though the number of articles is roughly the same, the text is doubled in length. An important addition is the 168 page article 'gas', a new topic not mentioned in the first edition. The headpiece in volume I is copied, with some changes, from the headpiece in Lemery's Cours de Chymie (1756), itself based on 'The alchemist' by David Teniers the younger (1610--1690). Cole describes the changes made to Lemery's version. The headpiece in vol. II is allegorical and is by Charles Nicolas Cochin the younger (1715--1790). Nevelle and Smeaton have shown that the quarto edition was set after the octavo edition of the revised 'seconde édition', with the errata corrected and further substantial textual changes. Though all the volumes of both the octavo and quarto settings are dated 1778, the octavo vol. IV was not completed until 1780 and the quarto vol. II not until July 1781. Five copies were printed on fine paper, one of which Cole identifies as his copy 1 with paper watermarked with a Strasbourg Bend. The present copy has the 'grapes' watermark which Cole identifies with the ordinary paper copies. Literature: Roy G. Neville, 'Macquer and the First Chemical Dictionary, 1766', J. Chemical Education 43 (1966) 486--490; Roy G. Neville and W. A. Smeaton, 'Macquer's Dictionnaire de Chymie: a Bibliographical Study', Annals of Science 38 (1981) 613--662 on pp. 630--1.

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• Antiquariat: Roger Gaskell (GREAT BRITAIN)