66 618 résultats
Oblong 4to. 1¾ pp. Hofmannsthal's early draught for the lovers' duet between Sophie and Octavian, from Act II of the "Rosenkavalier", after the silver rose is presented: both lovers sing twelve lines each which oppose and yet complement each other: "Sophie. Dahin muss ich zurück / Dahin und müsst ich völlig sterben auf dem Weg [...]". - "Octavian. Ich war ein Bub / Wars gestern oder wars vor einer Ewigkeit [...]". As evidenced by the caption, this is the "addendum to page 6" (of the libretto) which Richard Strauss had requested and Hofmannsthal had supplied with his letter of June 26. It was used for the final version of the opera, albeit in an abridged and revised form. The present text corresponds to the suggestions which Strauss made in his letter to Hofmannsthal written on July 9, 1909 for a revised version of Act II. - A precious document of the collaboration between Strauss and Hofmannsthal on what remains one of the most successful operas of the 20th century. - Provenance: from the collection of Strauss's biographer Willy Schuh.
8vo (157 x 95 mm). 4 pp. on a bifolium. In French. A characteristically witty and wide-ranging letter to the Scottish lawyer Thomas Burnett (1656-1729), confirming that Burnett's letters have been read to the Electress by her secretary M. Gargan and gossiping about the impeachment of Henry Sacheverell ("Dr Sacheverel is said to be a well-made man, whose person appeals to women - and so he has already half of Great Britain on his side"). Leibniz is amazed that England has time for such things "while she has the burden of such an onerous war on her hands", but trusts that the Queen, "who has already worked miracles in subduing France and uniting the Kingdoms, will surely achieve at last the fulfilment of her hopes in reconciling their hearts"; he includes an epigram of his: "Henrico junxisse rosas et regna Jacobo / Fas fuit: una animos Anna Perenna ligat" ("Henry did well to unite the Roses; James / the Kingdoms; Ageless Anna alone unites the hearts"). Leibniz is vexed that "Whiston declares himself a Socinian, and wishes to exercise his mathematics on the mystery of the Trinity. The Socinians have or had pulpits in Transylvania, but it is assuredly right to take a stand against the libertine and atheist literature which is more dangerous than the Socinians." Further, he regrets that the Irish theologian Henry Dodwell has gone mad ("one could learn from his excellent wisdom if he was in a condition or the mood to concentrate on it still") and reports that the Leipzig theologian Thomas Ittig is dead and has left a fine library to the university. Leibniz hopes that Queen Anne's Act for the Encouragement of Letters has been passed: "if not, I hope it will be successful another time - I wish something could be done for the Royal Society of London. That of Berlin is to publish some Miscellanea as an experiment". - This letter forms part of the significant, 18-year-long correspondence between Leibniz and Thomas Burnett of Kemnay in Aberdeenshire, occasioned by their meeting at the court of Hanover in 1695. The most recent Akademie edition of Leibniz's correspondence includes some 29 letters from Leibniz to Burnett and 51 from Burnett to Leibniz written during the period 1695-1707, with more still to be published. Burnett kept Leibniz abreast of English matters: here, the great scholar is well aware of the impeachment of Henry Sacheverell, a high church Tory Anglican who had preached anti-Whig sermons. Riots had broken out in London after Anne tried to punish Sacheverell for questioning the Glorious Revolution, but she eventually prevailed, much to the approval of Leibniz, who demonstrates throughout his admiration for the Queen. - Prompted by the writings of his fellow mathematician William Whiston (1667-1752), Leibniz speaks of the Socinians, an anti-trinitarian movement professing belief in God and the Scriptures but denying the divinity of Christ and therefore the Trinity (though by the 18th century, the name was a catch-all term for any kind of dissenting belief). Whiston was a leading figure in popularising the ideas of Newton and had embraced the tenets of anti-trinitarian theology, publishing his heretical work, "Sermons and Essays", in 1709. Locke himself had come to be identified as a member of the Socinian party with the publication of his "Reasonableness of Christianity", published anonymously in 1695, and was thence drawn into his well-known controversy with Edward Stillingfleet, Bishop of Worcester. Leibniz may have refrained from discussing this particular issue with Burnett, fearing that any critical opinion of Locke expressed to Burnett might get back to Locke himself and thus jeopardise any chance of entering into future dialogue. - Some light dust-staining at folds. Provenance: Thomas Burnett, 2nd Laird of Kemnay (1656-1729), and thence by descent. Published in part in C. J. Gerhardt, Die philosophischen Schriften von G. W. Leibniz, vol. 3 (1887), p. 319, no. XXXVII. Not yet available in G. W. Leibniz, Allgemeiner politischer und historischer Briefwechsel (Berlin, Akademie Verlag).
192075933s. d. [ca 1920] | 25 x 33 cm | en feuilles sous chemises
Albumen print (vintage), 129 x 100 mm on backing cardboard (152 x 106 mm) with gilt imprint of the Müller & Pilgram studio in Leipzig. Gilt and bevelled edges. Fine head-and-shoulders portrait in quarter profile, within a white vignette, inscribed by Tchaikovsky to the French conductor and violinist Édouard Colonne (1838-1910), thanking him warmly for having made his music successful in France: "A mon cher ami Edouard Colonne de la part d’un artiste fier de ses succès Parisiens qu'il n'a obtenus que grâce au chef éminent du célèbre orchestre du Chatelet". - Colonne's orchestra, the "Association Artistique des Concerts Colonne" situated at the Théâtre du Châtelet since 1875, famously performed the works of contemporary French composers (doing much to rehabilitate Berlioz in his native country), but also devoted itself to the works of foreign masters, notably Richard Wagner and Richard Strauss. The orchestra would also invide great composers such as Mahler, Debussy, or Prokofiev to perform their works. Colonne had met Tchaikovsky as early as 1878 during the Russian composer's visit to Paris and gave the local premiere of his 4th Symphony. In return, from 1890 onwards Tchaikovsky mediated several 'exchange' concert trips for Colonne to Russia. - A few old pencil notes on the reverse; very finely preserved.
179358186Königsberg, Friedrich Nicolovius, 1793. 8vo. In the original bluish cardboardbinding, with handwritten title to spine. Binding very neatly restored at spine and extremities. Previous owner's inscriptions to front free end-paper and title-page as well as pasted-down front end-paper. One leaf with a tiny closed tear to blank outer margin and some leaves with a single hole to the blank outer margin. Light pencil-underlinings and -markings to a few leaves. Internally clean and fresh. Printed on very heavy paper (about three times the thickness of the normal paper) and with wide margins. XX, (2), 296, (2, -errata) pp. Housed in a beautiful marbled half calf box in pastiche-style, with splendidly gilt spine and gilt morrocco title-label.
Königsberg, Friedrich Nicolovius, 1793. 8vo. In the original bluish cardboardbinding, with handwritten title to spine. Binding very neatly restored at spine and extremities. Previous owner's inscriptions to front free end-paper and title-page as well as pasted-down front end-paper. One leaf with a tiny closed tear to blank outer margin and some leaves with a single hole to the blank outer margin. Light pencil-underlinings and -markings to a few leaves. Internally clean and fresh. Printed on very heavy paper (about three times the thickness of the normal paper) and with wide margins. XX, (2), 296, (2, -errata) pp. Housed in a beautiful marbled half calf box in pastiche-style, with splendidly gilt spine and gilt morrocco title-label.
Large folio (ca. 46,3 x 20,4 cm). Blue ink (text) and pencil (signatures) on paper. 4 pp. To the ballet dancers and choreographers Albert Burger and Elsa Hötzel in Stuttgart, who had, together with Oskar Schlemmer, conceived the famous "Triadisches Ballett" (Triadic Ballet), cordially inviting them to perform the piece on the occasion of the 1923 Bauhaus Week in Weimar: "Wir Bauhäusler möchten Sie so von ganzem Herzen bitten kommen Sie doch mit Ihrem Ballett zur Bauhauswoche hierher. Sie wissen garnicht, was für eine grosse Freude Sie uns allen damit bereiten würden auch sind wir überzeugt, das Ihr Auftreten in diesen Tagen sehr viel zum Gelingen der Festwoche verhelfen könnte". - The charming letter is signed by no fewer than 68 "Bauhäuslers", including some of the art school's most prominent members: among the teachers who signed the letter are, in order of appearance, Gunta Stölzl, Paul Klee, Wassily Kandinsky, Georg Muche, Lothar Schreyer, and Josef Hartwig. The students include Kurt Schmidt, Dörte Helm, Ida Kerkovius, Erich Consemüller, Marcel Breuer, Andreas Feininger, Felix Klee, Lily Klee, Kurt Schwerdtfeger, and Farkas Molnár. Both Paul Klee and Wassily added brief notes for the recipients. Klee wrote: "Nachdem ich soviel Schönes über Ihre Leistung gehört habe, würde ich mich sehr freuen, wenn Weimar zum Genuss Ihrer Kunst käme". - Burger and Hötzel followed the invitation of the Bauhaus and enjoyed a successful performance of their ballet on 16 August 1923 in the theatre in Weimar. - Stamped with the "Sternenmännchen" logo of the Bauhaus, designed by Karl Peter Röhl. Traces of folds. Formerly separated into two parts, affecting two of the signatures, but professionally repaired. Some yellowing and very minor stains. Contemporary punched holes.
Large 8vo (162 x 232 mm). X, 488, (6) pp. Inscribed by Kafka and other friends to the philosopher Hugo Bergmann, Prague, 18 December 1905. Publisher's original cloth (a little rubbed, spine rebacked with original printed spine, hinges professionally restored). First edition. The title-page has a presentation inscription to the 21-year-old Hugo Bergmann on the day of his doctorate in philosophy: "Zur Erinnerung an unser gemeinschaftliches Streben" ("In memory of our common endeavours"). Written in the hand of the Prague intellectual Berta Fanta, the presentation is signed by her and six other members of their friendship circle: Bergmann's former classmate Franz Kafka, Dr. Max Lederer, Ida Freund, Oskar Pollak, his uncle Leopold Pollak, and Emil Utitz. - Berta Fanta (1865-1918) led a well-known Prague literary and philosophical salon, attended variously by Albert Einstein, Kafka, Brod, Bergmann (who was to marry Fanta's daughter Else), Rudolf Steiner and others. Ida Freund (1868-1931) was Fanta's sister. Like Bergmann, the jurist Max Lederer had been a student of the philosopher Anton Marty and shared the circle's interest in the philosophy of Franz Brentano. The art historian Oskar Pollak (1883-1915) had been succeeded by Kafka as rapporteur of the literary arts section Prague's Charles University in 1903. Kafka's classmate Emil Utitz (1883-1956) would defend his own PhD in 1906. He went on to teach philosophy and psychology at Rostock and later at Halle; after his deportation to Theresienstadt, he was head of the ghetto library. - The recipient Hugo Bergmann (1883-1975) had been a schoolfriend of Kafka's, and was close to Max Brod, whom he introduced to Zionism. Bergmann emigrated to Israel in 1920, where he was director of the Jewish National Library and a professor, and later dean, of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. In his reminiscences of Kafka, published and reprinted in various journals from 1969 onward, Bergmann describes this presentation volume, adding that "a graphologist would undoubtedly signalize the fact that, while the others wrote their signatures in a column, one underneath the other, Kafka set his own name apart from the others, to one side" (cf. Bergmann 1972, p. 745). - The book forms the principal work of the German philosopher Busse, a classic of the turn-of-the-century discussion over the relationship of mind and body, when psychology was emancipating itself as a discipline independent from philosophy. The numerous pencil annotations in Bergmann's characteristic shorthand show that he read the volume closely. Kafka, Kritische Ausgabe: Briefe 1900-1912 (Frankfurt, 1999), p. 381. S. H. Bergmann, "Erinnerungen an Franz Kafka - Recollections of Franz Kafka - Kitay zikaron", in: Exhibition Franz Kafka 1883-1924. Catalogue (Jerusalem 1969), pp. 5-20/5-10, illustrated on p. 23. The same, "Erinnerungen an Franz Kafka", in: Universitas 27 (1972), p. 739-750, at p. 745.
3 dossiers. Ca. 130 documents, mostly 4to. - I. Ca. 40 typewritten documents. - II. Ca. 60 documents (13 of which autograph letters signed). - III. Ca. 30 typewritten documents. - Includes 5 monochrome photographs (dated "Peking Octobre 1965"), 1 sized 140 x 88 mm, 4 between 203 x 128 mm and 257 x 191 mm (newspaper clipping added, 30 Sept. 1965, publishing one of the photos). This collection focuses on King Norodom Sihanouk's politics, constituted in the circles of power through Charles Meyer, his advisor for communication and public relations. Especially Sihanouk's relations to global political agents become clear during this troubled period, which shows China and Vietnam in the first row with America und France. - I. Cambodia's neighbourly relations with China during the Cultural Revolution. Documents (meetings, negotiations, audiences, protocols, delegation lists, drafts, trade agreements and speeches), some with annotations, mostly concerning diplomatic progress between Prince Sihanouk and President Liu Shaqu with his first minister Zhou Enlai in the years of 1963-65 in Beijing. One document deals with the project of the Khmer-Chinese friendship resolution. Also interesting is an analytical summary of the dialogues held on board a boat transporting the Cambodian delegation on the Yangtze. - Sihanouk's declaration to the Chinese people, with deletions and annotations: "Pour nous, cambodgiens, la Chine est bien notre amie numéro un [...]" ("For us, Cambodians, China is assuredly our best friend [...]"). - II. The privileged, close relationship between Meyer and Sihanouk. These documents illustrate their direct collaboration, as well as Meyer's career, in distinctions and newspaper articles. Included are 13 autograph letters signed by Sihanouk, including a charming note relating to the politics of de Gaulles: "M. Mesmer vient de m’annoncer des cadeaux très très substantiels de la France à notre Education Nationale […] et à notre D[éfense] N[ationale] (chars, avions, GMC, etc…) en quantité extrêmement 'satisfaisante' [...]" ("M. Messmer has informed me this minute of the very substantial gifts of France to our National Education and our National Defence (tanks, aircraft, GMC, etc. ...) of an extremely 'satisfying' quantity [...]"). - III. Foreign affairs and minutes. Documents (interventions, summaries, news paper articles, reports, press releases, telegrams) often annotated, e. g. "Lettre ouverte aux milieux impérialistes" ("Open letter to the imperialist world") annotated and initialled: "Vous avez rencontré des échecs humiliants et la faiblesse de votre politique dans les pays d’Asie, qui sont vos satellites est un fait universellement reconnu [...]" ("You have experienced the humiliating failure and weakness of your politics in the Asian countries, which are your vasalls, this is a world-wide acknowledged fact [...]"). - Meyer lived in Indochina for 25 years, 15 of which were spent in Cambodia in the years 1946-1970. Meyer wrote the books "Derrière le sourire khmer" (Behind the Khmer Smile. Plon, 1971) and "Les Français en Indochine: 1860-1910" (The French in Indochina: 1860-1910. Hachette, 1996). - List of documents on request.
Collection of original typescripts in French with occasional contemporary manuscript corrections in pen (A4 size, single-sided, total 74 pp.) divided into 19 separately titled sections: Section 1: 8 pp.; 2: 4 pp.; 3: 4 pp.; 4: 4 pp.; 5: 5 pp.; 6: 9 pp.; 7: 4 pp.; 8: 5 pp.; 9: 3 pp.; 10: 2 pp.; 11: 3 pp.; 12: 3 pp.; 13: 3 pp.; 14: 4 pp.; 15: 3 pp.; 16: 4 pp.; 17: 2 pp.; 18: 2 pp.; 19: 2 pp.; plus 1 mimeographed copy of a type-script in blue, marked 'Copie', 8 pp.; all sections fastened by original paperclips, pins or clasps (some staining, creasing and marginal tears, Section No. 16, first page, upper-right corner torn with loss to text). This historically important and fascinating series of original typescripts contains Boris Bazhanov's firsthand account of the internal workings of Joseph Stalin's Kremlin, being one of the earliest detailed and reliable accounts of the subject ever presented to a Western audience. Importantly, the typescripts predate Bazhanov's celebrated publications on the subject, and were created in Paris, in late 1928 and early 1929, barely six months after the author arrived in France, following his defection from the Soviet Union. From 1923 until the end of 1927, which saw the rise and consolidation of Stalin's leadership, Bazhanov was the personal secretary to the Soviet leader and one of his most trusted assistants. Critically, he was not only privy to Stalin's daily actions and private meetings, he was also the secretary of the Politburo, being tasked with recording the secret deliberations of the Soviet Union's governing body. However, Bazhanov became horrified by the murderous nature of Stalin's regime, and disaffected from Communism in general, and suddenly left his Soviet life behind by defecting across the Persian border, on New Years' Day 1928. - In the typescripts, Bazhanov recounts top secret and arresting information on Stalin, his interactions with his colleagues and rivals, and the operations of the Soviet government, all in a fashion far more detailed and accurate than any analysis recounted to date. Up to Bazhanov's defection, Westerners had virtually no useful intelligence on the internal workings of the Kremlin, their spy networks failing to embrace any insiders with proximity to the Politburo. Many contemporary analysts of the Soviet regime relied on heresay, if not outright fabrication. Bazhanov, while not himself a decisionmaker, was a silent witness at the very heart of the Kremlin. While he had certainly, by the time of his defection, developed an ardent anti-Stalinist and anti-Communist bias, he seems to have made every effort to be truthful in his recollections, and historians have subsequently backed up his acconts. Today Bazhanov remains one of the most authoritative sources on Stalin's leadership style, as well as early Soviet political history in general. - The various sections of the typescripts embrace several critically important topics, including the Russian Civil War and the Red Army; the GPU (the fearsome Soviet State Police); Bazhanov's biography and his place in the Kremlin; Stalin as a person and leader; Stalin's mechanisms of power and action; the Politburo; Stalin's Opposition; a coup supposedly planned against Stalin by Mikhail Frunze (but which was never realized), the opportunity cost of Frunze's coup having never reached fruition; and the Absolute Power of Stalin. - Detailed description available upon request. Cf. Boris Bajanov, 'Avec Staline dans le Kremlin' [serially issues in 4 parts], Revue de France, 10th year, nos. 18, 19, 20 and 21 (1930); Boris Bajanov, Avec Staline dans le Kremlin (Paris: Les Éditions de France, 1930); Boris Bajanov, Bajanov révèle Staline. Souvenirs d'un ancien secrétaire de Staline (Paris: Gallimard, 1979); Boris Bazhanov (ed. David W. Doyle), Bazhanov and the Damnation of Stalin (Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 1990).
Oblong 4to. 1 p. In Palestinian Arabic, apparently to a Yugoslavian recipient: "My memory of the good Commander Tito stands out boldly in my mind from the shadow, inciting all the perseverance of the excellent men and of those who fight against oppression around the world. So verily the Palestinian people and the revolutionary fighters of the Palestinian Revolution will rise to it successfully, assisted in this noble struggle and supported by the firmness of the champions of our just people. To the spirit of Commander Tito I tribute all the esteem, victorious purity and exaltation; to the people of Tito, I wish the achievement of all prosperity and I pay all our gratitude; to the defenders who fight for the cause of freedom, may be all the support and hope of the fruits of victory. And long live the Revolution until victory!" (transl.). - In fine condition. Autograph letters by Yasser Arafat with such important content are of the utmost rarity; we could not trace an even remotely comparable letter in the trade of the last decades.
304:495 mm. Signed at lower left: "Laur de Brunhoff". A charming, large-format watercolour showing Celesteville, the capital of "Le pays des Éléphants", Babar's Kingdom. The illustration was used as a double-page spread in "Babar à la fête de Célesteville" (1954) and thus bears a few pencilled marks by the printer in the blank margins. - The children’s classic, Babar, began as a bedtime story that Cécile de Brunhoff told her young sons, Laurent and Mathieu, in 1930, when they were five and four years old, respectively. They loved the story about the little elephant so much that they asked their father, who was an artist, to draw pictures for them of the elephant world their mother had described. He did and eventually created a book, Histoire de Babar: le petit éléphant (The Story of Babar), which was published by Jardin des Modes, a family-run publishing house. Jean de Brunhoff created six more Babar books. - De Brunhoff, who holds both French and American citizenship, was made an Officier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, and a Chevalier of the Légion d’Honneur. - Perfectly preserved.
Folio (320 x 235 mm). 1 p., with address panel to verso. To secretary of state Nicolas de Neufville, seigneur de Villeroy. Catherine de' Médici was one of the great female letter writers of the Renaissance, drafting many of her political letters (as here) in her own hand. She had been Queen consort of France as wife of Henry II, but rose to political power after his death in 1559. She stood behind the brief reign of her eldest son Francis II and, upon his death only a year later, was appointed regent to her second son Charles IX (then only ten years old). He died in 1574, leaving Catherine to preside over the chaotic reign of her third son Henry III, a period of terrible civil and religious war in France. Despite the turmoil, Catherine was a remarkable administrator in a political landscape in which she could trust almost no one. The present letter, drafted in her own hand (in itself remarkable), is typical of her direct style. She informs the secretary of state, Villeroy, one of the few members of government with whom she was intimate, of her wish to grant the benefice of the Abbey of Chailly (on the edge of the Forest of Fontainebleau) to the marquis de Saint-Sorlin, son of the Duchess de Nemours (and later duc de Nemours and Henry I of Savoy). She also makes provision for the benefice of Martigny-le-Comte (Burgundy) and arranges benefices for the sons of the statesman Pomponne de Bellièvre (who later became chancellor of France). The letter is apparently unpublished. It does not appear in the collected "Lettres de Catherine de Médicis" (1880-1943, 10 vols.), though a letter of 13 November 1581 (vol. VII, p. 415) addressed to the duc d’Épernon, on the same subject, allows us to date ours with some confidence. - Old folds, light browning, loss to blank left-hand margin, just touching a word of text and possibly the date, but avoiding the signature, neatly repaired, three further neat repairs to verso. Provenance: Otto August Schulz, Leipzig.
1 page. Folio. Partly printed contract in English with Christian Rudolph Wessel & Co, importers and publishers of foreign music in London, for the sale of the present and future copyright and rights in Great Britain, of opus 25, "Twelve Etudes or Studies", dedicated to [the name is left blank; it will be the Countess d'Agoult] in two volumes to be published simultaneously in France and Germany on the 14th October 1837, for the sum of 16 livres sterling. Piano maker Camille Pleyel, who had accompanied Chopin to London, also signed as a witness. - Blindstamped in lower margin; slight traces of moisture and small tear to centerfold.
8vo. 2 pp. on bifolium. To the British architect William Cecil Marshall (1849-1921), whom Darwin engaged to build an extension to Down House on the north side (a billiard room with dressing room and bedroom above) in 1876, thanking him for some Pinguicula leaves, from which he has picked off sixteen seeds: "My dear Mr Marshall, I am very grateful to you. Your observations are excellent, & are put most clearly & will be very useful to me. I have picked off 16 seeds from this lot! The plant is certainly to a certain extent graninivorous also somewhat graminivorous, though mainly insectivorous. The rain, I know washes off the secretion & with it captured insects (& as you say seeds), which are retained by the incurved edges, which then become more incurved. It is a pretty experiment to put a row of flies or cabbage seeds on one margin of a flat leaf & see how the edge of the side curls over in from 12 to 24 hours. With cordial thanks, Yours very sincerely [...]". - Traces of folds; professionally repaired. On stationery with printed address. Darwin Correspondence Project no. 9627F.
4to. 28 pp. and relevant correspondence. Stored in custom-made half morocco solander case. Signed by Albert Einstein in ink in the upper right corner of the first page: the original script of a 1946 NBC programme on "The Atom", which dramatises Einstein's discovery of the iconic E=mc² equation. A unique survival documenting the enormous popular interest in Einstein's achievements, especially his special theory of relativity and its relationship to calculating the energy produced by atomic fission - a highly topical subject in the spring of 1946, less than a year after the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. July of the same year would see the "Operation Crossroads" nuclear weapon tests conducted at Bikini Atoll, to enormous publicity. - Accompanied by a copy of a typed letter to Professor Einstein from the writer Joseph Mindel, originally enclosing the script, reading: "I am writing a series of science television scripts, which are to be produced by N.B.C. [...] The first of the series deals with the atom. I am enclosing a copy. No story of the atom would be complete without E=mc². And what is E=mc² without Einstein? It was thus necessary to portray you briefly in one of the scenes. As you know, your permission is needed for the portrayal [...] Since the script is to be televised on May 14th, won't you please try to give me an answer by that date? [...]" (9 May 1946). Further includes a typed letter from Helen Dukas, Einstein's secretary, confirming his permission to use his name in the programme (10 May 1946), and the copy of a typed letter from Mindel asking to have the script returned "with a few words from Professor Einstein" (16 May 1946). - Light creasing; some staining to top margin of typescript, due to rusty paperclips, but finely preserved in all.
8vo. 1 p. With an autograph letter signed by Elsa on the reverse. - Includes: 3 autograph letters signed by his wife Elsa Einstein (folio and 8vo; Caputh, 21 August 1932 and no date), one with a 6-line autograph postscript signed by Albert Einstein, and a slip of paper (ca. 40 x 80 mm) with autograph note, date (Princeton, 9 May 1934), and signature in full. Intimate correspondence with Einstein's cousin Kuno Kocherthaler, director of a mining company in Spain and also an art collector. - Typing on hotel stationery on the day of his arrival in the USA as a stateless refugee, having escaped from ever-increasing persecution in Nazi Germany, Einstein thanks Kuno for a letter of his about financial matters, adding below in his own hand: "Wir kamen heute erst hier an und suchen uns in dieser exotischen Welt zurechtzufinden. Im Frühjahr um den 1. April kommen wir nach Spanien, wo ich eine Art Lehrtätigkeit auszuüben habe. Hoffentlich sehen wir uns dort wieder einmal gemütlich [...]". - In an earlier letter of Elsa's, also regarding family investments administered by Kuno (undated but written aboard the "Oakland", probably in the port of Bremen on 10 December 1932, about to depart for a winter cruise to Pasadena via Middle America), Einstein adds a poignant note about his younger son Eduard, who suffered from schizophrenia and had recently been committed to a mental asylum in Switzerland: "Nimm bitte diese schleichende Sorge von uns; das Leben hat in letzter Zeit Schweres gebracht, da mein liebster Sohn, der Jüngere, in einer Anstalt hat untergebracht werden müssen (Geisteskrankheit) [...]". - In the final missive, possibly another postscript torn from a longer letter, Einstein gives his consent in a single word ("Einverstanden"), signing and dating: "Princeton, 9. Mai 1934 / Albert Einstein". Elsa's own letters discuss travel, finances, Albert Einstein's stay in Spa, etc. - Each sheet with marginal binder holes affecting a few letters, otherwise flawless.
1 S. 4to. An den Astronomen und Gründer der gleichnamigen Sternwarte Friedrich Simon Archenhold: "Ich habe Ihren freundlichen Artikel und das eingesandte Manuskript mit Interesse gelesen. Der Irrtum des letzteren besteht darin: Eine Pendeluhr allein ist noch keine 'Uhr' im Sinne der Relativitäts-Theorie, sondern lediglich die Kombination einer Pendeluhr mit einem gravitierenden Himmelskörper. Aus der Nichtbeachtung dieses Umstandes entspringt der Irrtum der Verfasser". - Im linken Rand gelocht (keine Textberührung) und alt hinterlegt; kleine Einrisse an den Rändern im Mittelfalz, sonst tadellos.
Zusammen 11 SS. auf 8 Bll. 4to. Mit 3 eh. adr. (aber nur teils hinzugehörigen) Kuverts. 5 Briefe mit Holzschnittvignetten (davon eine handkoloriert), 1 Brief mit einer Aquarellzeichnung. Freundschaftliche Korrespondenz mit dem Arzt und Sammler Wilhelm Mayer und Gattin über sein Leben und Schaffen in New York: "Es ist so manches in letzter Zeit passirt, das uns die einheimischen Kunstgepflogenheiten beleuchtet und wir sind in keiner sehr zuversichtlichen Verfassung bezüglich eines Weiterkommens. Seit vielen Monaten hatten wir keine pekuniären Erfolge, trotz aller Begeisterung, die meine Werke auslösten; es geht uns in allernächster Zeit so, dass wir mit Ersparnissen zuende [sic] sein werden. Ein Auftrag für die N. Y. World's Fair, der nachdem alle meine Entwürfe bei allen in Frage kommenden Stellen Zustimmung und Begeisterung erfuhren, ist plötzlich fürs Erste ins Wasser gefallen, weil die für meine Arbeit ausgesetzten Gelder 'anderweitige' Verwendung […] fanden! Und da ich nur eine mündliche Vereinbarung vorweisen kann, lehnen alle Parteien die Verantwortung ab. Das sind alles Leute von grossem Namen und Ansehen … Well, ich schreibe nicht, um Sie mit unseren Sorgen zu plagen, aber dieser Fall hat unsere Hoffnungen schwer getroffen […] In Ausstellungen gehen wir hin- und wieder; Barlach, Lehmbruck und Marcks waren bei Buchholz Gallery gezeigt; sehr schön. Piero di Cosimo bei Schaeffer, im Herbst. Zu den modernen Malern kommen wir gar nicht oft. Aber Klee hatte zwei glänzende Ausstellungen im Winter. In Konzerte sind wir noch nie gegangen, aber neulich war ein sehr schöner Abend in der Galerie Schaeffer zu der [!] wir eingeladen wurden: An Hour of Old Music; auf Harpsichord, viola da gamba und violin; Bach, Haendel, Rameau, Couperin, Scarlatti; hervorragend schön gespielt. Wir leben sonst denkbar still. […]" (10. III. 1939). - "Was Sie über 'verhundertfachter Korrespondenz' schreiben, verstehen wir hier nur zu wohl! Es ist so vieles was aus Deutschland auf uns hereinstürmt und das Herz schwer macht! Wir kommen aus diesem Drucke kaum mehr heraus […]" (21. VII. 1948).
8vo. 2 pp. on bifolium with integral address leaf. To the surgeon Jakob Herz in Erlangen, whom Feuerbach held in high regard as a representative of the developing "materialist school" in medicine, recommending the son of his friend Karl Bayer, who wished to exchange his study of theology for that of medicine: "So ungern ich sonst die Feder, seis zum Brief- seis zum Schriftstellern, ergreife, so gern ergreife ich sie doch jetzt, weil sie mich mit Ihnen, einem von mir innig verehrten Mann, in, wenn auch nur geistige, Berührung bringt […] Ein junger Mann, ein Bruder des hier seit einigen Jahren ansäßigen u. mir befreundeten Dr. Bayer, welcher erstere zwar nicht auf mein Anstiften, doch nicht ohne meine ermunternden Versprechungen, daß ich Ihnen u. Herrn Prof. Dietrich ihn empfehlen würde, den beklemmenden Schulzwang der christlichen Theophilologie mit dem naturoffnen, liberalen Studium der Medicin vertauscht hat - dieser medicinische Embryo also, der vierte Sohn eines Schullehrers in Pommersfelden, welcher in den Erziehungs- u. Unterstützungskosten 1) eines ausstudirten freigemeindlichen Theologen 2) eines Schullehrers höhrer Ordnung 3) eines Malers bereits seinen mühsam gefüllten Beutel oder wenigstens guten Willen erschöpft hat - dieser also, um es endlich kurz abzumachen, hat mich ersucht, ein Wort zu seinen Gunsten an Sie zu richten, Sie zu ersuchen, ob Sie ihm nicht vielleicht zur Erlangung der Collegienfreiheit behülflich sein wollten […] Ich trage Ihnen […] nur seinen Wunsch vor, aber überlasse es vollkommen Ihrem eignen Willen u. Urtheil, ob sie ihn erfüllen wollen oder nicht. Ich weiß im Voraus, was Sie thun, ist das Rechte. Empfehlen Sie mich Ihrem abendlichen Freundeskreise u. empfangen Sie nochmals die Versicherung, daß ich nur deßwegen ohne Widerstreben die Feder zu diesen Zeilen ergriff, weil sie mir die Gelegenheit gaben, endlich einmal schriftlich Ihnen meine innige Verehrung aussprechen zu können […]". - At the time, Feuerbach was working on his "Theogonie" and had not published anything in years. - With remains of a seal and the address (slight defects to address leaf).
4to. 1 p. on bifolium. To his friend Franz Kruthoffer (1740-1815?), secretary at the Imperial Embassy in Paris and Gluck's de facto private secretary: a fine document of Gluck's shrewd business sense as well as of the high demand among librettists for music by the foremost composer of his age. For Kruthoffer's sake, Gluck promises to accomodate his publisher Peters with regard to royalties, but he makes it clear that in turn he will be asking extra voucher copies and will not let this one-off concession establish a precedent for future negotiations. Also, Gluck complains of the unsolicited opera librettos with which he is swamped by poets, and he forbids Kruthoffer to accept such submissions for him: "Wertester Freyndt / Ihren brief von 17 october habe rechtens Erhalten, in dem letzten Ersehe das begehren des Mr. [Johann Anton de] Peters, welches, weilen Er Ihr gutter freyndt ist, ich vor dieses mahl annehmen wiel, aber Etliche partitionen werde mir vor behalten, wie auch, das auß diesen wenigen, was Er geben wiel, keine consequentz vor zukünfftige opern gemacht wer den soll; der Courrier wiel abgehen, ich kan ihnen nichts mehr schreiben als Unser Compliments tres sinceres de la part de ma femme et de moi a vous, et a Mr. [Franz] de Blumendorff. Ich bitte ihnen auch kein pacquet an mich an zu nehmen Wo man mir wiel poesie schicken umb opern zu machen, dan ich werde grausamb desentwegen bombardirt [...]". - Folded horizontally, without an address: as mentioned in the text, the thrifty Gluck sent this letter - as most of his communications with Kruthoffer - by way of the diplomatic courier service just leaving Vienna for Paris. Kruthoffer has noted his response in the upper margin: "Beant. Paris am 18ten Dezember 1776". - Extremely rare, especially when signed (as Gluck, using the diplomatic mail, usually omitted his signature from his letters to Kruthoffer). Kinsky's 1927 edition of Gluck's correspondence with Kruthoffer noted the loss of a letter of this date; it was not published until 1932. - Provenance: in the "autograph collection of Mrs E[milie] Sch[aup] in Vienna" (cf. Komorn, p. 674) in 1932; in an unidentified "private collection" (cf. Badura-Skoda) in 1963. Includes old collection folder. Not in Kinsky (but cf. note p. 26). Not in Müller v. Asow (ed.), The Collected Correspondence and Papers of Christoph Willibald Gluck (1962). First published: Maria Komorn, Ein ungedruckter Brief Glucks, in: Zeitschrift für Musik 99 (1932), p. 672-675, at p. 674. Facsimile: Eva Badura-Skoda, "Eine private Briefsammlung", in: Festschrift Otto Erich Deutsch (Kassel 1963), p. 280-290, at fig. 5 and p. 282f.
Altogether 37 pages on 38 leaves. Large 4to, with additional material (see below). To the Abbott of the Premonstratensians in Hradisko near Olomouc (Moravia). These unpublished letters, hitherto unknown to scholarship, represent a substantial part of Gran's correspondence with the Hradisch Abbey. They offer a detailed and intimate perspective on the creative process of this famed artist, who, together with Paul Troger and Franz Anton Maulbertsch, is regarded as one of the best-known painters of the later Austrian Baroque period. The letters are valuable sources for the dating of Gran's works at the Hradisko Monastery itself (frescoes and oil paintings); they also provide ample information about the circumstances of their composition. Lost works such as a cycle of paintings from 1747 are also mentioned. Finally, the letters offer a unique perspective on Gran's everyday life, including the illnesses from which he suffered and collaborations with fellow artists. The recipient, although never explicitly named, is Abbott Norbert II. Also enclosed is an additional letter to the Abbott from the painter Christian Hilfgott Brandt (1693-1756), dated and signed Vienna, 25 March 1754. - Margins with occasional tears and light creases, still an extremely well-preserved collection of correspondence. Manuscript material by Gran is extremely rare.
4to. 1 page. A fine quotation from the highly regarded Chinese intellectual, who "once called himself the Chinese answer to German Goethe and this appraisal was widely accepted. Zhou Yang said: 'You are Goethe, the Socialism New Era Goethe'" (Wikipedia). - In this particular quotation Moruo regards the young generation as the foundation for world peace and calls upon the Chinese youth to organise themselves as well as the young Chinese scientists to work for their country. - On headed paper ("Comite du peuple Chinoise da la paix mondiale"); from the collection of the Hungarian writer Simon Gy Ferenc and mounted in his original collectors map with collector's stamp.
4to. 2 vols. (1), 314, (1) pp.; 2 ff. of equations inserted loosely. 260 [but 248: page count jumps from 229 to 240; 1 revised leaf removed by author after numbering the pages], (3) pp. Black ink on squared paper, occasional additions and notes in pencil and red or blue crayon. Includes numerous diagrams (some nearly full-page). Contemp. half calf with giltstamped spine title "Vorlesungen Mechanik I. [bzw. II.] F.H.". All edges red. Hasenöhrl's Mechanics lecture manuscripts, used and revised throughout the great physicist's last seven years of work, mainly composed in 1907/08 and bound for the author around that time. His name is on the flyleaf in his own hand: "Prof. Dr. F. Hasenöhrl / Wien, Universität". The volumes comprise the complete first two lectures (Mechanics and Continuum Mechanics) of Hasenöhrl's four-year cycle, which also included Electrodynamics, Theory of Heat, and Optics. - Volume 1 contains "Vorlesung über Mechanik der starren Systeme. Gehalten fünfstündig im Wintersemester 1907/8 (vom Beginn 24. X, bis 14. II.)" (a piece of information that contradicts Bittner's statement [p. 335] that Hasenöhrl did not teach that winter semester). The first session was Hasenöhrl's inaugural lecture at Vienna University. He inherited Boltzmann's chair, who had taken his life in Duino in the fall of 1906. In the appointment process for the successor to Boltzmann, Hasenöhrl had prevailed against his older colleagues Max Planck and Wilhelm Wien. Appropriately, this inaugural lecture, the only one largely written in shorthand, is an obituary of his predecessor (not identical with his Boltzmann obituary published in "Elektrotechnik und Maschinenbau" 41 [1906]). The remaining 28 chapters include "Kinematik des Punktes", Lagrange's equations, "Hamiltons partielle Differentialgleichung", and the theories of relative and cyclical movement. Red crayon markings indicate the progress made from session to session; individual problems are marked as having been treated in the seminary course rather than in the lecture hall. At the end (p. 305 ff.), Hasenöhrl has included the changes made for the 1910/11 winter semester (according to Bittner, Hasenöhrl again repeated the lecture in 1913/14). - Volume II contains the two-semester "Vorlesung über Mechanik der deformablen Körper" (winter semester of 1907/08: Elasticity; summer semester of 1908: Hydromechanics, of which latter course two weeks were lost due to the great student strike). Hasenöhrl prefixed a motto from Guido Ubaldi's "Paraphrasis in duos Archimedis aequeponderantium libros" (1588): "Quapropter ad Archimedem confugiendum est, si vera huius scientiae principia perdiscere cupimus." This volume likewise contains final changes made in 1911, constituting a thorough revision of pp. 90-101. In the summer of 1914 he revised the "slipshod pages 183 ff." about ray formation, which are partly struck out (p. 183f.), partly removed altogether (p. 185f.; the leaf is missing save for a narrow guard); these notes are followed by the sections "Allgemeines über Bewegung mit Rotationssym[m]etrie" and "Kreisförmige Wirbel" (13 pp. in total). Shortly before the end of the semester, the First World War erupted. Hasenöhrl, whose mother was descended from the old military nobility, volunteered for the infantry and was decorated after an injury in July 1915. In a battle near Folgaria he was killed by a shell splinter to his head on 7 October. - Although Hasenöhrl always spoke freely during his lectures (cf. Bittner, 198), rather than reading out a written text, as many of his colleagues did, it is clear that his presentation was based on minutely prepared notes. So closely did he compress the subject matter of his lectures that each session usually comprises a mere four to six pages in the manuscript; and still, we find in the text many tidily formulated paragraphs, including digressions on themes such as Sven Hedin's observations on the rivers of Tibet, which, when flowing south-north, are deflected eastwards - a practical example of relative movement. In his 1933 Nobel Prize acceptance speech, Erwin Schrödinger looked back on the gift of his teacher Hasenöhrl to discuss a subject matter in the lecture hall both extensively and closely: "The lecture cycle, which spanned eight semesters of five periods per week, treated the advanced theories of mechanics as well as the eigenvalue problems of continuum physics with the degree of detail that I would later need dearly - I have never been able to study from books with any ease [... He died in the War], and a feeling tells me that, but for that, it would be he who would be receiving this honor in my place today." In his 1904 treatise "On the Theory of Radiation in Moving Bodies", Hasenöhrl had applied the concept of "electromagnetic mass" to a cavity filled with radiation, arguing that any kind of thermal radiation provides such a body with an apparent increase of mass. This achievement, which makes the connection of energy and mass and - in its most radically compressed form "m = E/c²" - seems to anticipate Einstein's special theory of relativity, won Hasenöhrl the 1905 Haitinger Prize (at Boltzmann's suggestion) and was the basis for his appointment to the Vienna Chair of Physics the following year. In 1905, Einstein generalised Hasenöhrl's equation (which the latter had applied only to cavity radiation) and managed to embed it within an encompassing theory, thus arriving at the iconic "E=mc²" equation (for Hasenöhrl's role in the development of the equation cf. Stephen Boughn's recent article, "Fritz Hasenöhrl and E=mc²", in: The European Physical Journal H 38/1 [Jan. 2013], p. 1-18). Incidentally, Hasenöhrl taught Einstein's theory of relativity in his lectures - a highly uncommon course topic for the time. In 1911, Hasenöhrl participated in the historic first "Conseil Solvay", the invitation-only Brussels conference that united the world's elite of experimental and theoretical physicists to discuss the fundamental problems of their field. Themed "La théorie du rayonnement et les quanta", that first conference tackled the various approaches of classical physics and the emerging quantum theory; among the other participants were Einstein, Marie Curie, Ernest Rutherford, H. A. Lorentz, Wilhelm Wien, Heike Kamerlingh Onnes, and Henri Poincaré. Hasenöhrl also participated in the second Solvay Conference in 1913. - Edges slightly frayed and dusty, otherwise perfect. Of the utmost rarity: Hasenöhrl manuscripts are considered virtually unobtainable; auction records since 1975 list not a single leaf of writing in his hand (in contrast with more than 1000 records for Albert Einstein, more than 100 of which are manuscripts). The Göttingen State Library holds a 17-page transcript of Hasenöhrl's lecture on spherical functions (Cod. Ms. G. Herglotz E 15) in the hand of the student Gustav Herglotz (1881-1953), later professor of Mathematics at Leipzig and Göttingen. The Austrian Central Library of Physics keeps an archive of Hasenöhrl material: a single-box corpus containing mainly photographs, offprints, and photocopies of personal documents, but no manuscripts at all (with the exception of a single page of equations on the reverse of a letter from a bookseller). Several letters by Hasenöhrl are to be found in the personal archives of scholars (e. g., to Prof. Stefan Meyer, in the Archives of the Institute for Radium Research, Austrian Academy of Sciences). Cf. Lotte Bittner, Geschichte des Studienfaches Physik an der Wiener Universität in den letzten hundert Jahren (Vienna, Ph.D. thesis 1949), pp. 193-202 and 335-337. Cf. Stephen Boughn, "Fritz Hasenöhrl and E=mc²", in: The European Physical Journal H 38/1 [Jan. 2013], p. 1-18.
8vo (226 x 152 mm). Publisher's maroon cloth, lettered in silver on spine, original pictorial dustjacket. Author's presentation copy, inscribed on the title page in Hawking's own hand. This is a collection of densely mathematical papers given at a workshop on supergravity organized by Hawking. The dustjacket reproduces a blackboard covered with doodles by Martin Rocek and other attendees at the Nuffield Workshop, including a caricature of Hawking himself: the blackboard itself remained in Hawking's office in Cambridge until his death. A fine copy of the first edition. - Provenance: authorial inscription on title "Love from Stephen x x x"; Judy Fella (Hawking's first secretary and later PA and nursing co-ordinator: Fella typed up some of the manuscript for the work, and is depicted, as "one of the Fella's", in the cover artwork).
