Fine Printed Books & Manuscripts, Including Americana

4to (216 x 163 mm). 5 engraved folding plates; wood-engraved head-piece. (Light marginal toning or spotting to title-page and a few plates.) Contemporary mottled calf, spine in 6 compartments with 5 raised bands, red morocco lettering-piece gilt in second, others gilt, edges stained red (light rubbing to joints). Provenance: Laborie (contemporary signature on title-page); Henry and Carol Faul (bookplate).

SECOND EDITION, of Alembert’s first major work, considered “A LANDMARK IN THE HISTORY OF MECHANICS. It reduces the laws of the motion of bodies to a law of equilibrium” (PMM), in which he describes what is now known as d’Alembert’s Principle, one of the fundamental laws of motion. Norman 31; PMM 195 (first edition); Sotheran I, 73 ("best edition").