TISSANDIER, Gaston (1843-1899). Histoire des Ballons et des Aéronautes célèbres. Paris, 1887. FIRST EDITION.
2 volumes, 8vo (283 x 198 mm). 20 photogravure plates, 22 chromolithographed plates. Publisher's brown cloth decorated in gilt and black (minor wear to extremities). Original hand-colored gilt wrappers bound in. FIRST EDITION. Volume I recounts pre-18th-century ascents and experiments, as well as the flights of pioneer French aeronauts including the Montgolfier brothers, Charles, Robert, Blanchard, Rozier, Garnerin, and Lunardi. Volume II recounts voyages by others, including Lussac, Zambecari, Sadler Money, Green, and Monck-Mason; it concludes with the late 19th-century developments by Flammarion, Glaisher, and Tissandier. In 1875, Tissandier made an ascent to 28,200 feet from Paris in his Zenith balloon using primitive oxygen cylinders but his two companions died of hypoxia. Brockett 11924.
