108 - DIDEROT (Denis) & d'ALEMBERT (Jean le Rond).

DIDEROT (Denis) & d'ALEMBERT (Jean le Rond). Encyclopédie, or Reasoned Dictionary of the Sciences, Arts, and Trades, by a society of men of letters, compiled and published by Mr. Diderot; and, as regards the mathematical section, by Mr. d'Alembert. New edition. Geneva, Pellet, 1777–1779. 36 vols. of text and 3 vols. of plates, in-4, marbled sheepskin, decorated ribbed spine, orange title page and volume number page, red edges (contemporary binding). Excludes the 6 volumes of tables, which are usually missing. Caps and corners worn, leather scuffed and gnawed, with leather missing in places. 2 portraits of the authors by Cochin in the first volume, fold-out plates in the text volumes, 1 (of 2) plate on clockmaking in the last volume. The 3 atlas volumes contain a total of 443 (out of 446) plates, distributed as follows: I. (2) ff., 35 pp., 77 pl., 87 pp., 19 pl., 31 pp., 37 pl., 14 pp., 7 pl. II. 56 pp., 28 (out of 31 plates—plates No. XX, XXI, and XXI-2 are missing), 8 pp., 34 plates (the section on surgery has been bound here in place of the section on architecture), 11 pp., 24 pl., 47 pp., 64 pl., 48 pp., 19 pl., 52 pp. III. 64 pp., 134 plates. A few minor interior defects, nothing serious. Foxing and browning on the first and last leaves in general. A few plates are slightly yellowed. New quarto edition, more portable than the first folio edition of the Encyclopédie published in 1751. Handwritten ex-libris: M[a]d[am]e de Talobre. The title page of Volume XXX is addressed to the Geneva Pellet and Neuchâtel Typographical Society, 1779, and marked “Volume Thirty-First” with the word “-first” obscured. The same applies to Volume XXXII (though in this case, the volume number is correctly printed).