VOLTAIRE, François Marie Arouet de (1694-1778). Les Singularitès de la Nature. Paris or Geneva: [Cramer], 1768. 8vo (190 x 118 mm). Woodcut on title-page. (Light toning or occasional staining.) Modern quarter calf, marbled boards, spine gilt, red morocco lettering-piece gilt, edges stained red (some minor rubbing). FIRST EDITION, FIRST ISSUE of Voltaire’s work containing his observations of natural history, science, law, medicine, philosophy, and religion. Cioranescu 64840.

 

[With:]

 

BROWNE, Thomas, Sir (1605-1682). Pseudodoxia Epidemica: Or, Enquiries into very many Received Tenents and commonly presumed Truths, Together with the Religio Medici Together with many more Marginal Observations, and a Table Alphabetical at the end. London: Printed by J.R. for Nath. Ekins, 1672. 4to ( 222 x 162 mm). Engraved portrait frontispiece, woodcut initials and headpieces. (Some browning or light offsetting.) Later roan gilt, spine gilt(front joint repaired, some rubbing). Sixth and last edition of Browne’s popular work, corrected and enlarged with additional explanations, in which he refutes superstitious contemporary beliefs based on empirical observations in line with the Baconian method. The work is organized into books based on the renaissance scale of creation: mineral, vegetable, animal, man art, geography and history, and astronomy and the cosmos. Keynes 79; Wing B5165.