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4to (28.5 cm), [10], 451 pp. Printed in red and black. Original two-tone blue-grey buckram, spine and upper cover lettered in gilt, with a gilt rule dividing the panels (minor shelf-wear). Bookplate of Anthony Hobson on the front pastedown, engraved with his armorial device. A landmark bibliography in the history of science, cataloguing the one hundred "key" books selected for the Grolier Club's celebrated 1958 exhibition of the same name. The exhibition marked the Club's formal recognition of the history of science as a serious field of bibliophily, following decades in which the subject had been, as its proponents observed, "rejected by historians because it was science, and by scientists because it was history." Compiled by Harrison D. Horblit with the assistance of William A. Jackson of the Houghton Library and I. Bernard Cohen, Professor of the History of Science at Harvard University, the bibliography also benefited from the cooperation of leading collectors and dealers, including Bern Dibner, Herbert M. Evans, Robert B. Honeyman, Jr., John F. Fleming, and Hans P. Kraus. The one hundred entries, arranged alphabetically by author, span theoretical, experimental, and applied science and technology, from the early modern period to the nineteenth century. They include such landmarks as Copernicus's De revolutionibus, Galileo's Sidereus nuncius and Dialogo, Newton's Principia and Opticks, and Darwin's On the Origin of Species. Each entry provides a detailed bibliographical description and collation, together with a reproduction of the title page. The volume is prefaced by "Has Science a Humanistic Value?", an abstract of I. Bernard Cohen's address delivered at the opening of the exhibition, arguing for the study of the great texts of science as a humanistic discipline comparable in importance to classical literature. From the library of Anthony Hobson (1926-2014), the distinguished bibliographer, former head of Sotheby's Book Department, and author of important standard works on the history of bookbinding and book collecting. An indispensable reference for collectors and scholars of scientific books, and one of the most influential exhibition bibliographies ever published in the field.
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