LAVOISIER, Antoine Laurent.

Paris: Cuchet,1793

2 volumes, 8vo, pp. xliv, 322; viii, 331, 2 folding printed tables and 13 folding engraved plates, drawn and engraved by Madame Lavoisier. Antique sheep-backed marbled boards (some foxing), flat spines gilt.

Second edition, although this edition, printed by Chardon, appears to have followed, rather than preceded, a pirated “seconde édition” printed by de Boiste earlier in the same year. “One of the great milestones in the history of chemical literature. By common consent modern chemistry begins with this work, ‘which finally freed the science from its phlogiston chains and formed the starting point of its modern progress. It may be said to have done almost as much for chemistry as Newton’s Principia did for physics’ (Zeitlinger). Lavoisier used the balance to demonstrate the weight of matter at every chemical change, defined the terms element and compound, explained combustion and the rusting of metals as a chemical combination with oxygen, and through his concept of the conservation of matter developed methods of chemical analysis. The book contains the first list of twenty-three chemical elements and their compounds” (Neville, II, p. 21). Cole 778. Duveen & Klickstein 157. Neville, II, p. 23.

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