NOLLET, JEAN ANTOINE - ABBÉ.

Lettres sur LÉlectricité. Dans lesquelles on examine les dernieres Découvertes qui ont été faites sur cette Matiere, & les conséquences que l'on en peut tirer. (+) Lettre sur L'electricité; Dans laquelle en soutient le principe des Effluences & Affluences simultanées contre la doctrine de M. Franklin, & contre les nouvelles prétentions de ses partisans. Avec Figures en Taille-douce. Seconde Partie. 2 Vols.

Paris, Hippolyte Louis Guerin, et L. F. Delatour, 1753 et 1760. Small 8vo. 2 uniform cont. full mottled calf. Raised band and richly gilt back. Corners a bit bumped. Top of spines with wear, small tears in hinges at upper compartment (but not loosening) Titlelabels on the first volume slightly worn. A small loss of leather at lower compartment on the first volume. Corners bumped. A small losss of leatner at lower right corner on volume one. XII,264 pp. + XII,284 pp. and 4 double-page folded engraved plates showing electrical experiments. + 3 (of 4) engraved plates. Internally clean, printed on good paper. From the library of le Comte de Caumia Baillenx, "en son Chateau d'Andrain" and with his mongram, blindtooled on both covers.

First edition of Nollet's "Lettres...", the first two parts, which he continued up to 1767. In his first book on electricity 1747 he explained the electrical phenemena in accordence with Cartesian concepts as 'attraction' and 'repulsions'. By this publication he immedeately became the chief of European electricians. After serious criticism from a group lead by Buffon, Nollet published his amusing set of Lettres (1753), containing a wealth of experimental counterexamples to contradict the opposing theories, which drew their strenght from Franklin's occasional obscurities.
Wheeler Gift Nos 379 + 379a.

Order-nr.: 44321